Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to increase youth participation in sport.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and this government is committed to ensuring every child, no matter their background or ability, should be able to play sport and be active.
That is why in ‘Get Active: A strategy for the future of sport and physical activity’ we introduce an ambition that all children should meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines on physical activity, with a target of getting 1 million more active children by 2030.
Schools play a key role in allowing all children to have high quality opportunities to take part in PE and sport, setting them up for a lifetime of physical activity. In July we published an update to the School Sport and Activity Action Plan. This builds on the announcement we made in March that set out new ambitions for equal access to PE and sport, with guidance on how to deliver 2 hours of quality PE a week, alongside over £600 million funding for the Primary PE and Sport Premium and School Games Organiser network.
Outside of the school day, the £57 million Opening School Facilities programme will support the most inactive young people to access facilities that will enable them to play sport and take physical exercise. By opening school sport facilities, including swimming pools, disparities in access to opportunities seen between socio-economic groups will begin to be tackled through the programme. We are also investing over £300 million in grassroots football and multi-sport facilities across the UK by 2025 which will further support youth participation in sport.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential correlation between children's swimming ability and their family's socio-economic status.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
We know that active people are fitter, happier and healthier - which is why in our new Sport Strategy - 'Get Active’ - we set out an ambitious strategy to boost our national health by getting 3.5 million extra active people by 2030. This includes bold targets to reach communities with the lowest levels of physical activity. Swimming can play an important role in achieving these targets, particularly among children.
In recognition of the benefits of physical activity, including swimming, and the challenges facing the sector, we are providing over £60 million of support for swimming pools. This will help ensure the long term sustainability of pools, so that children from all backgrounds can continue to access them.
Sport England’s Active Lives Survey for Children and Young People collects annual data on the engagement in, and attitudes to, sport and physical activity. The release of the 2022-23 Active Lives data for Children and Young People is scheduled for 7 December.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will made an estimate of the number and proportion of children aged 11 who can swim 50 metres unassisted.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport England’s Active Lives Survey for Children and Young People collects annual data on the engagement in, and attitudes to, sport and physical activity. The release of the 2022-23 Active Lives data for Children and Young People is scheduled for 7 December.
The Active Lives Survey captures swimming capability based on whether children can: swim; tread water; swim 25 metres unaided; and swim 200 metres unaided (the latter capturing years 7-11 only).
The survey informs us that in the academic year 2021/22:
Over 3 million infant and junior children could swim
2.7 million could tread water
1.8 million could swim 25 metres unaided
1.5 million secondary school children could swim 200 metres unaided
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many (a) applications were submitted to and (b) grants were awarded during the first phase of the swimming pool support fund.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Phase I of the Swimming Pool Support Fund was oversubscribed, with the Government receiving applications from 221 Local Authorities, on behalf of 630 facilities. After assessment against a range of criteria to target pools most at risk of closure, awards were made to 103 Local Authorities, covering 196 facilities. The full list of awards made can be found on the Sport England website here.
An additional £40 million of capital funding will be provided in Phase II, which will support local authorities to make their facilities more energy efficient and reduce future operating costs. Applications were open to local authorities from 7 September to 16 October, and are now being assessed. Awards for this phase of the fund will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she is taking steps with (a) Swim England and (b) British Swimming to help ensure that Para S15 swimmers (i) are able to access (A) support and (B) funding and (ii) receive acknowledgement when competing in international championships.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to championing disability sport at the highest levels, with continued support for Paralympic sports through UK Sport funding.
The UK Government currently provides support to elite athletes through funding our Arm’s Length Body, UK Sport. UK Sport in turn uses this funding to support athletes with potential to achieve success in Olympic and Paralympic sports.
Sport England have also agreed to work with UK Deaf Sport to help to identify a small number of governing bodies that, on a trial basis, will have their talent pathways supported to be as inclusive to D/deaf athletes as possible. This work with Sport England will help open up opportunities at all levels for D/deaf people.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of reducing the level of VAT applied to children’s (a) swimming lessons and (b) other sports.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
VAT has been designed as a broad-based tax on consumption, and the twenty per cent standard rate applies to the majority of goods and services. While there are exceptions to the standard rate, these have always been strictly limited by both legal and fiscal considerations; one exception being certain supplies of education, which are generally exempt from VAT when certain conditions are met.
VAT is the UK’s third largest tax forecast to raise £161 billion in 2022/23, helping to fund key spending priorities such as important public services, including the NHS, education and defence. Nevertheless, the Government keeps all taxes under review.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had recent discussions with local authorities on the (a) affordability and (b) condition of swimming pools in England.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Responsibility for public access to and maintenance of swimming pools lies at local authority level.
In recognition of the benefits of physical activity, including swimming, and the challenges facing the sector, we are providing over £60 million of support for swimming pools. This will help ease cost pressures facing public swimming pool providers and help make facilities sustainable in the long-term through investment in energy efficiency measures. The funding is being delivered in partnership with Sport England and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, following extensive consultation with local authorities and the sector.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether the forthcoming National Vision for Facilities report will include a strategy for the long-term funding of community swimming pools.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Our new strategy, ‘Get Active: A strategy for the future of sport and physical activity’, committed to the development of a National Vision for Facilities. This vision will set out the role of facilities and wider spaces for participation, including the importance of the public and private leisure sector, to anticipate future fiscal events.
The Government has confirmed significant funding for facilities, including a £63 million support package for swimming pools announced at the Budget. This package will help provide investment in energy efficiency measures to reduce future operating costs and make facilities sustainable in the long-term.
Government is also investing nearly £400 million directly into grassroots sports facilities across the country up to 2025.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department holds data on the number of occasions when local authorities have not provided information on quality of bathing water at specific sites.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Bathing Water Regulations require local authorities to display information about the bathing water quality at designated sites, enabling people to make informed decisions before swimming. Compliance with bathing water signs is improving. Defra’s data for 2022 shows that 88% of all bathing waters in England had signage displaying the required information – this is compared with 59% in 2017. Defra continues to engage directly with local authorities that may not be displaying appropriate signage to ensure they understand their responsibilities under the regulations and to improve compliance.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what mechanism her Department has for provision of public information on bathing water testing at locations across England.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The results of water quality sampling by the Environment Agency at designated bathing waters in England are displayed on the Environment Agency’s Swimfo website: https://environment.data.gov.uk/bwq/profiles/. Local authorities are required to provide information about each bathing water through signage in the vicinity of the site, including the site’s current bathing water quality classification and any advice against bathing which has been issued there. Signs often include a link to water sampling information on the Swimfo website.