The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)
A minute has been laid before Parliament regarding the funding for Olympic and Paralympic sport via UK Sport, and specifically in relation to incurring a contingent liability.
UK Sport funds Olympic and Paralympic sports and athletes from a mixture of grant in aid and income from the national lottery, and makes its decisions on which sports and which athletes to support at the beginning of each Olympic and Paralympic cycle. Uncertainty around the level of national lottery income in future years means that the UK Sport may need to make decisions based on conservative assumptions of lottery income. This could impact the number of sports and the number of athletes that could be supported between now and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.
To avoid this the Department for Culture, Media and Sport intends to provide, from its available funds, an underwrite of UK Sport’s expected national lottery income so that should it fall below a certain level, the Department will provide additional funding to allow Team GB and Paralympics GB to be properly supported in Tokyo.
This exceptional measure for the current spending review period acknowledges that UK Sport relies on future revenues to agree funding packages now, at the beginning of the next Olympic and Paralympic cycle, to allow the most talented athletes and sports men and women to achieve success at Tokyo.
The Treasury has approved the proposal, and if the liability is called, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal Supply procedure. This will be funded from within existing DCMS control totals and only applies up to the end of the current spending review period in 2019-20. A full departmental minute has been laid providing more detail on this contingent liability.
Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www. parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-12-08/HCWS337/
[HCWS337]