Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of (a) young people's access to extracurricular activities designed to help their personal development and (b) opportunities for increasing the availability of such activities.

The Department is committed to implementing measures to support schools to build character, resilience and grit in their pupils. Participating in extracurricular activities is one aspect of building character in young people.

We are supporting head teachers to decide the activities they offer and how best to structure the school day in the best interests of their pupils. We are investing £5 million to expand character education, which includes funding projects that offer extracurricular activities that help prepare children for successful adult life. We have also made it easier for all schools to make changes to the length, structure and content of the school day so that they can expand the range of activities that they offer where it would benefit their pupils.