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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what funding is available for (a) rugby, (b) basketball and other sports clubs to help them attain international recognition and host international matches.

UK Sport, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, works with National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and other partners to help them build strong and positive relationships with their respective International Federations (IFs) and other national and international sporting bodies.

To do this, investment is prioritised to support International Relations strategies for those sports that receive UK Sport World Class Programme funding and/or have an agreed Major Events hosting target. UK Sport also provides limited investment to those sports which fall just outside of its World Class Programme funding. These include fencing, badminton, goalball, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby.

The Government has recently confirmed a unique funding support package for British Basketball to help support GB athletes to continue to compete on the world stage in order to inspire communities to engage positively in sport activity. Routed through UK Sport, an investment of £195,000 will be provided to ensure GB athletes can compete at important World Cup qualifying games, which they are hosting in June and July. A further £305,000 has been ring-fenced to enable the GB men’s and women’s senior teams to fulfil further international competition commitments in 2018/19. However, this will only be released if British Basketball can demonstrate a sustainable financial plan to support its athletes going forward.

UK Sport has a Major Events programme that invests around £5m a year of national lottery funding to secure and stage international sports events including World Championships, European Championships and top level World Series events in the UK. UK Sport has not provided any Major Event funding to basketball or rugby union over the same period. DCMS funding has been routed via UK Sport to provide rugby league with support for the 2013 and 2021 World Cups:

2013: £500k

2021: up to £15m