Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made to date in implementing their Loneliness Strategy, A connected society: a strategy for tackling loneliness, published on 15 October 2018.

Government’s strategy on tackling loneliness in England includes 60 new policy commitments from across government, with a range of timescales for implementation. Each of the nine departments involved is responsible for the delivery of its own policies, and implementation is overseen by the cross-government ministerial group on loneliness, chaired by the Minister for Sport and Civil Society.

A number of commitments have already been delivered, including the launch of an online social prescribing platform, and the award of grant-funding to 126 organisations through the Building Connections Fund.

Government will include an update on progress in its first annual report on tackling loneliness, which we expect to be published later in 2019.