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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what legacy he expects from the UK's hosting of the Rugby World Cup.

The Rugby World Cup is expected to attract 466,000 international visitors to England – more than any previous RWC. Research from Visit Britain tells us that sport tourists traditionally stay for longer, have a propensity to travel around the country and spend more money when doing so. International visitors are expected to contribute up to £869 million in direct expenditure to the UK economy. Last year, an economic impact study by EY estimated a boost of almost £1bn to the UK’s GDP (of £2.2bn total spend generated). This includes £85m of infrastructure projects and the support of 41,000 jobs.

There are strong plans to drive legacy benefits from the tournament. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is working to spread the game's popularity and there are also plans around the host cities to maximise economic and community benefits.

The RFU's plans to grow the game include:

• improving facilities through £10m investment
• investing in people, including by recruiting and training nearly 3,000 referees and over 3,000 new coaches, and recruiting 6,000 volunteers ('the Pack') to help run the tournament
• increasing schools’ participation in rugby, especially state schools. 130,000 new state school pupils have played rugby, of whom a third are girls and of whom 3,000 are now playing regularly for a club
• attracting 16-24 year old players back to clubs
• promoting touch rugby to appeal to more people
• the Unity Project to promote rugby in Europe’s developing rugby nations; and
• cultural engagement through over 700 rugby themed events and celebrations.

DCMS and the Government continue to be fully supportive of these plans.UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is coordinating a Rugby World Cup Business Festival programme of activity across 8 of 9 regions, aligned to the locations of fixtures. A Global Investment Conference (GIC), hosted by UKTI, launched the festival on 17 September 2015 at Lancaster House. This brought together government leaders and 150 senior potential and existing investors from 9 key Foreign Direct Investment target market countries with teams competing in the tournament.