Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to take steps to help increase the number of musculoskeletal hubs in local communities.

The Government announced measures to address economic inactivity, as part of the 2023 Spring Budget. This included £12 m over a period of four years, from April 2024, to scale up Musculoskeletal (MSK) Physical Activity Hubs in the Community.

The MSK Physical Activity Hubs in the Community project will seek to build on local practice and explore how to enable people with MSK conditions to access supportive physical activity interventions within local leisure and community settings. This project will also explore how to build in vocational advice.

We are currently engaging with stakeholders to expand our understanding of existing practice and inform our approach to this project.