Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what (a) financial and (b) other steps her Department is taking to help support grassroots sports initiatives in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.

All generations and communities should be able to enjoy the physical and mental health, wellbeing, social and other benefits of being active.

Since 2018, the department has invested £308,544 into a wide range of grassroots sport projects within the Coventry North East constituency through Sport England. This is part of the £2,468,509 invested in Coventry, and over £87 million invested in the West Midlands during the same period. In addition, the Football Foundation, a charity jointly-funded by Sport England, has granted over £2.3m to the West Midlands to develop football and multi-use grassroots sports facilities in 2021/22.

In 2020 alone, Sport England distributed over £340 million of Exchequer and Lottery funding to support the development of grassroots sport in England, in addition to £100 million through the National Leisure Recovery Fund.

As well as the above funding, the government is also making significant investments in the region as part of preparations for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham; and will be investing £205m across the UK over the next three years to further develop quality local sports facilities for community use.