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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what Government support is available for the provision of facilities and to encourage participation in grass roots cricket.

Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus.

Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support, which many sport clubs have benefited from. Sport England has also provided £270 million directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. This includes £6,599,437 investment in cricket to 1,362 projects.

On 26 January Sport England also published their strategy ‘Uniting the Movement’ and as part of this have committed an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, in the last 10 years (since 2011), Sport England has invested more than £85 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding in community sports organisations and facilities for participation in cricket. For the period 2017/22 Sport England has invested £11,202,500 in the England and Wales Cricket Board.