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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve public access to school football facilities to increase participation in grassroots football.

We want all schools to maximise the use of their facilities – for the mutual benefit of schools and their communities. This is an ambition set out in the Government's Sporting Future strategy and the Department for Education’s Governance Handbook for schools.

Sport England’s 'Use Our School' resource has been designed to support schools to open up their facilities for community use and to help those that are already open to stay open.

The new cross-departmental School Sport and Physical Activity Action Plan, which will be published in the spring, will also consider how school facilities can best be used to encourage all children to play more sports, including football, and to be more active.