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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to promote volunteering in local communities.

This Parliament, the Office for Civil Society has already committed £2.7 million to the Connected Communities Innovation Fund, to support people and places across the country to thrive through the power of volunteering. We are increasing the number of people trained in Community Organising to 10,000 by 2020 and investing £4.5m in the Place Based Social Action Fund in partnership with Big Lottery Fund to support partnerships of local residents, civil society organisations, service providers and local authorities in 20 areas to come together to address local priorities through social action. Over 400,000 young people have participated in National Citizen Service, and the NCS Trust estimates that since 2013 nearly 7 million hours of volunteering have been donated to local communities.