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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to measure delivery of the Government's loneliness strategy.

In the Tackling Loneliness Strategy, published October 2018, the government committed to publishing annual progress reports to provide an update on the implementation of policies set out in the strategy.

The first annual report was published in January 2020 and the second in January 2021. The two reports set out progress to date, including action by frontline workers across the public sector to recognise and act on loneliness, the launch of the Let’s Talk Loneliness campaign, and the inclusion of standardised loneliness measures in a range of national surveys. The 2021 report also set out the government’s response to tackling loneliness during Covid-19, including investing over £34 million to charities focused on reducing loneliness in response to the pandemic.

Copies of the progress reports are available in the Libraries of the House and online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/loneliness-annual-report-the-first-year

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/loneliness-annual-report-the-second-year