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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on loneliness of the measures announced in Budget 2018.

There was no requirement on HM Treasury to consider loneliness in developing Budget 2018. The cross-government loneliness team will continue to work with HM Treasury, as with other departments, to explore how social connection is considered and reflected across their policy-making in future, as recently set out in the first loneliness strategy for England, ‘A connected society’.