Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what meetings he has had with the Premier League in the last six months to discuss future funding for grassroots football.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
I met with the Premier League on 31 January 2019. The Secretary of State met with them on 30 October 2018. The funding of grassroots football was discussed, and on both occasions the Premier League reaffirmed their commitment to invest over £100million in each of the next three years towards improving community football programmes and facilities across the whole of the country in partnership with the Football Association (FA) and Government.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to all-weather football pitches at grassroots level.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Sport England invests £18million each year into football facilities on behalf of the DCMS through ring-fenced exchequer contributions to the Football Foundation.
This funding, matched in partnership with the FA and the Premier League, sees more money than ever before going towards priorities identified in the National Football Facilities Strategy. The Strategy sets new challenging targets to significantly improve the nation’s facilities stock over the next 10 years with an increase in 3G pitches is a key strategic priority. This will be delivered through initiatives like the “Parklike Hubs” programme that predominantly aims to deliver multi pitch 3G hubs for community use at strategic locations across the country.
Local authorities are important stakeholders in the implementation of the National Football Facilities Strategy as so much of the stock of facilities are in public ownership. Sport England is working closely with the FA to develop Local Football Facility Plans for every Local Authority in England. The plans will be in place by 2020 and will identify local priorities where investment in grassroots facilities is needed the most.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has received recent representations on the role of local authorities in the future of grassroots football; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Sport England invests £18million each year into football facilities on behalf of the DCMS through ring-fenced exchequer contributions to the Football Foundation.
This funding, matched in partnership with the FA and the Premier League, sees more money than ever before going towards priorities identified in the National Football Facilities Strategy. The Strategy sets new challenging targets to significantly improve the nation’s facilities stock over the next 10 years with an increase in 3G pitches is a key strategic priority. This will be delivered through initiatives like the “Parklike Hubs” programme that predominantly aims to deliver multi pitch 3G hubs for community use at strategic locations across the country.
Local authorities are important stakeholders in the implementation of the National Football Facilities Strategy as so much of the stock of facilities are in public ownership. Sport England is working closely with the FA to develop Local Football Facility Plans for every Local Authority in England. The plans will be in place by 2020 and will identify local priorities where investment in grassroots facilities is needed the most.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve public access to school football facilities to increase participation in grassroots football.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We want all schools to maximise the use of their facilities – for the mutual benefit of schools and their communities. This is an ambition set out in the Government's Sporting Future strategy and the Department for Education’s Governance Handbook for schools.
Sport England’s 'Use Our School' resource has been designed to support schools to open up their facilities for community use and to help those that are already open to stay open.
The new cross-departmental School Sport and Physical Activity Action Plan, which will be published in the spring, will also consider how school facilities can best be used to encourage all children to play more sports, including football, and to be more active.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to all-weather football pitches at grassroots level.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Through Sport England we are working in partnership with the FA and the Premier League on a new National Football Facilities Strategy that sets a clear framework for significant investment in football facilities over the next 10 years. The Strategy includes a target of delivering 1000 artificial 3G pitches across the country in that period. These include single site pitches in schools and community areas and multiple pitch sites through the FA Parklife hubs programme.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what meetings he has had with the Premier League in the last 12 months to discuss funding for grassroots football.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Ministers regularly meet with the Premier League to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure a healthy proportion of their broadcasting revenues goes to funding grassroots football. For example, up to 2019 the grassroots is benefitting from £100million a year investment from the Premier League. We negotiated this commitment, which is double the previous amount, and is set out in "Sporting Future" the Government's strategy for sport and physical activity.
Details of Ministerial meetings are published on a quarterly basis on gov.uk
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what information his Department holds on the amount of money invested by the Premier League in grassroots football in each year since 2013-14.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Between 2013-2016, The Premier League invested £183 million in total into community school sport, delivering participation programmes and creating new public sports facilities.
In 2016, DCMS agreed that grassroots football will benefit from at least £100 million a year on investment from the Premier League – double the previous commitment. This runs to 2019 and is set out in “Sporting Future” the Government’s strategy for sport.
The £100m a season currently goes to a range of activities, including investment in facilities, school sport, projects that encourage sports participation and tackle social health and wellbeing issues, that support disability and girls football, diversity and anti-racism programmes, player welfare and to organisations that give a voice to fans.
Further information on all Premier League grassroots activities can be found in their published annual report ‘available at www.premierleague.com/this-is-pl/the-communities
DCMS Ministers continue to meet with the EPL and FA on a regular basis to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure that the grassroots benefits from a healthy proportion of the broadcast rights revenue generated by the Premier League and any commercial surplus made by the FA.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what information his Department holds on how the Premier League has distributed its funding for grassroots football projects since the start of the 2016-17 football season.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Between 2013-2016, The Premier League invested £183 million in total into community school sport, delivering participation programmes and creating new public sports facilities.
In 2016, DCMS agreed that grassroots football will benefit from at least £100 million a year on investment from the Premier League – double the previous commitment. This runs to 2019 and is set out in “Sporting Future” the Government’s strategy for sport.
The £100m a season currently goes to a range of activities, including investment in facilities, school sport, projects that encourage sports participation and tackle social health and wellbeing issues, that support disability and girls football, diversity and anti-racism programmes, player welfare and to organisations that give a voice to fans.
Further information on all Premier League grassroots activities can be found in their published annual report ‘available at www.premierleague.com/this-is-pl/the-communities
DCMS Ministers continue to meet with the EPL and FA on a regular basis to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure that the grassroots benefits from a healthy proportion of the broadcast rights revenue generated by the Premier League and any commercial surplus made by the FA.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what meetings he or Ministers of his Department have had with (a) the Premier League and (b) the FA on the issue of grassroots football in the last twelve months.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Between 2013-2016, The Premier League invested £183 million in total into community school sport, delivering participation programmes and creating new public sports facilities.
In 2016, DCMS agreed that grassroots football will benefit from at least £100 million a year on investment from the Premier League – double the previous commitment. This runs to 2019 and is set out in “Sporting Future” the Government’s strategy for sport.
The £100m a season currently goes to a range of activities, including investment in facilities, school sport, projects that encourage sports participation and tackle social health and wellbeing issues, that support disability and girls football, diversity and anti-racism programmes, player welfare and to organisations that give a voice to fans.
Further information on all Premier League grassroots activities can be found in their published annual report ‘available at www.premierleague.com/this-is-pl/the-communities
DCMS Ministers continue to meet with the EPL and FA on a regular basis to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure that the grassroots benefits from a healthy proportion of the broadcast rights revenue generated by the Premier League and any commercial surplus made by the FA.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to all-weather football pitches at grassroots level.
Answered by David Evennett
In partnership with the Football Association and the Premier League, the government is continuing to invest significant sums in grassroots football facilities every year. In addition to the £10million we give to the Football Foundation each year, this Government has dedicated £8million per year to the new 'Parklife' project that will double the number of 3G pitches and enable over 3,500 community sports matches to be played per week.