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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on encouraging young women to play football in school.

The Government is committed to supporting women and girls’ sport at every opportunity. In our new Sport Strategy ‘Get Active’, we set an ambitious target of getting 1 million more active children and 1.25 million more active women by 2030.

We have had discussions with DfE at ministerial level on how we can continue to collectively make good progress on school sport. Our cross-government School Sport and Activity Action Plan provides the blueprint for how school sport should be delivered across the country. This includes over £600 million of investment and a clear ambition that all schools should deliver 2hrs of quality PE and equal access to sport for girls and boys, including football. The Department for Education is currently working to publish new non-statutory guidance on Physical Education before the end of March 2024 to help improve delivery.

In 2022, the Government commissioned Karen Carney to lead an independent Review of domestic women’s football. Her recommendations set out a bold vision for the women’s game. On 4 December 2023, the Government responded to the Review of Women’s Football, agreeing that all ten major recommendations should be implemented. The recommendations include a commitment to the delivery of equal access to school sport for girls and we will be convening an implementation group, which will be responsible for ensuring mutual accountability for the delivery of each recommendation.

Outside of school, we are investing over £300 million in grassroots football and multi-sport facilities across the UK by 2025 which will further support women and girls accessing football. The new £30 million Lioness Futures fund will deliver approximately 30 new state of the art 3G pitches at sites supporting women’s and girls’ teams across England.