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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 January 2019 to Question 204512 and with reference to his Department's policy paper entitled A connected society: a strategy for tackling loneliness, published in October 2018, when loneliness will be incorporated into ongoing policy decisions.

As outlined in the tackling loneliness strategy, government’s intention is to embed consideration of loneliness and relationships throughout the policy-making process. Government is currently exploring the various mechanisms for doing this, including in the guidance for the Family Test.

The strategy also announced that from 2019/20 individual government departments will highlight the progress they are making on addressing loneliness through their annual Single Departmental Plans.