Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the response by Lord Ashton of Hyde on 18 January (HL Deb, cols 77GC–80GC), what plans they have to support local basketball clubs to ensure that such clubs can continue to benefit their communities; and whether they intend to work alongside the basketball governing bodies to this end.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
We are working alongside the sports councils and the national governing body for basketball to help improve the prospects for the game at all levels.
Over the past five years since 2014, Sport England has invested £2,910,834 in basketball-focused projects and facilities in England to get more people playing.
Separate from this, Sport England is investing over £6m in Basketball England between 2017 and 2021. This sum includes £814,000 to enhance the Satellite Clubs offer to help transition young people from education into community clubs earlier and quicker and create a lasting sporting habit for them.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what funding is available for (a) rugby, (b) basketball and other sports clubs to help them attain international recognition and host international matches.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
UK Sport, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, works with National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and other partners to help them build strong and positive relationships with their respective International Federations (IFs) and other national and international sporting bodies.
To do this, investment is prioritised to support International Relations strategies for those sports that receive UK Sport World Class Programme funding and/or have an agreed Major Events hosting target. UK Sport also provides limited investment to those sports which fall just outside of its World Class Programme funding. These include fencing, badminton, goalball, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby.
The Government has recently confirmed a unique funding support package for British Basketball to help support GB athletes to continue to compete on the world stage in order to inspire communities to engage positively in sport activity. Routed through UK Sport, an investment of £195,000 will be provided to ensure GB athletes can compete at important World Cup qualifying games, which they are hosting in June and July. A further £305,000 has been ring-fenced to enable the GB men’s and women’s senior teams to fulfil further international competition commitments in 2018/19. However, this will only be released if British Basketball can demonstrate a sustainable financial plan to support its athletes going forward.
UK Sport has a Major Events programme that invests around £5m a year of national lottery funding to secure and stage international sports events including World Championships, European Championships and top level World Series events in the UK. UK Sport has not provided any Major Event funding to basketball or rugby union over the same period. DCMS funding has been routed via UK Sport to provide rugby league with support for the 2013 and 2021 World Cups:
2013: £500k
2021: up to £15m
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what funding he has made available for disabled (a) rugby, (b) basketball and (c) other sports to help them attain international recognition and assist in their hosting international matches.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
UK Sport, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, works with National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and other partners to help them build strong and positive relationships with their respective International Federations (IFs) and other national and international sporting bodies.
To do this, investment is prioritised to support International Relations strategies for those sports that receive UK Sport World Class Programme funding and/or have an agreed Major Events hosting target. UK Sport also provides limited investment to those sports which fall just outside of its World Class Programme funding. These include fencing, badminton, goalball, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby.
As a result, GB Wheelchair Rugby are in receipt of UK Sport investment to support their International Relations strategy over the course of the Tokyo cycle (2017-21). This investment amounts to up to £50,000 over the four years.
Since the London 2012 Games, a total of £1.5m in grant awards were made by UK Sport into the successful delivery of 16 non-able bodied sports events between 2013 and 2017. Of this, £340,000 was invested into the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships and £57,000 into the BT World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge which both took place in 2015.
This year, the UK will be hosting the World Boccia Championships in Liverpool and £390,000 is being invested by UK Sport into that event.
Next year, the UK will be hosting the World Wheelchair Curling Championships in Stirling and £56,000 is being invested by UK Sport into that event.
The UK is also currently bidding to host the Para Cycling C1 International event in Manchester in January next year.
Asked by: Stephen Kerr (Conservative - Stirling)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has plans to increase the funding for basketball at grassroots level across the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Sport England has invested over £31 million in grassroots basketball since 2009, and is investing £5,140,000 in Basketball England across the 2017-21 period.
Sport England makes funding for grassroots sport available through a series of investment programmes, details of which are set out on its website, and which are open for individual organisations to apply for. It has also recently launched a new grant finding service on a one year trial to help organisations access the right type of funding opportunities that are appropriate to them: http://www.idoxopen4community.co.uk/sportengland/
Sport England is the arms length body of government that supports and invests in grassroots sport and physical activity in England. Support for grassroots sport and physical activity in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the respective Home Nations Sports Councils.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding his Department or its agencies have provided for facilities for (a) wheelchair basketball, (b) blind cricket, (c) deaf cricket, (d) wheelchair tennis, (e) wheelchair rugby and (f) wheelchair football since 2012.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government remains committed to supporting disabled people to realise their potential in sport. Since 2012 Sport England has made disability sport a key focus of its strategy and the National Governing Bodies of Sport have specific targets for increasing the number of people with disabilities who play their sport. Sport England is currently investing over £171 million to make sport a practical and attractive lifestyle choice for disabled people and to get more disabled people playing sport.
Table A: Investment in disability sport-specific facilities
Sport | Sport England investment in disability sport-specific facilities since 2012 |
Wheelchair basketball | £79,314* |
Blind cricket and deaf cricket | £241,540 |
Wheelchair tennis | £150,000 |
Wheelchair rugby | £228,968 |
Wheelchair football | £179,114 |
*Includes £30,000 award to GB Wheelchair Basketball Association (GBWBA) in 2013 for new wheelchairs
Please note that the figures in Table A only includes awards for projects which have a stated disability sport focus. Facilities like sports halls can be used for disability sports like the ones listed in Table A. Since 2012, Sport England has invested £39.8 million in 58 such sports hall projects.
As part of GBWBA’s Whole Sport Plan investment for 2013-17, Sport England invested £154,833 in the University of Worcester Disabled Athlete Accommodation project. Across Sport England’s National Centres for Sport, at least 20 per cent of accommodation provided has been designed specifically with disability access requirements in mind.
Sport England is also investing £26,000 in a research project in partnership with GBWBA to look at ways to increase the quality of surfaces used for wheelchair sports.
Asked by: Lord Moynihan (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government in which Olympic and Paralympic sports there has been a reduction in real terms in funding support from UK Sport since 2012.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
UK Sport makes funding awards on a four year cycle in line with the Olympic and Paralympic calendars, and is currently supporting 46 Summer & Winter Olympic and Paralympic sports. These four year awards are reviewed each year through the Annual Investment Review process which measures sports against an agreed set of annual targets. The 18 sports which have seen a reduction in funding since 2012 are:
Archery
Badminton
Basketball
Goalball
Handball
Judo
Powerlifting
Swimming
Synchronised Swimming
Table Tennis
Visually Impaired Football
Volleyball (indoor, sitting and beach)
Water polo
Wheelchair fencing
Wheelchair basketball
Wrestling
Asked by: Lord Storey (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they have introduced to make sports more widely accessible for young people with disabilities.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Sport England is currently investing over £171 million to get more disabled people playing sport including young people. Since 2012 Sport England has made disability sport a key part of its strategy and 42 of the National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) it invests in have specific targets for increasing the number of disabled who play their sport. Through the School Games, over 28,000 young disabled people played competitive sport at the county festival level, with meaningful competitive sporting opportunities to young disabled people at every level of the programme. Project Ability has also helped introduce around 25,000 young disabled people to competitive sport and Change4Life Clubs offer the Paralympic sports boccia and basketball as part of the ‘menu’ of opportunities for participating schools.
Asked by: Lord Moynihan (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to implement any of the recommendations of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Basketball's report published in July 2014.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government is aware of the reach and positive impact that basketball has on many people’s lives and is in discussions with Sport England and UK Sport about ways in which we can look to support the sport further.