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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress his Department has made on devising a loneliness policy test to embed consideration of loneliness and relationships throughout the policy-making process as set out in the Government's tackling loneliness strategy published in 2018.

The Department remains committed to increasing awareness and embedding consideration for loneliness as part of the policy making process. Departments with commitments in the 2018 strategy, ‘A Connected Society: a strategy for tackling loneliness’, are required to include loneliness in their Single Departmental Plans. The Department for Work and Pension’s Family Test guidance will be updated in 2019 to include loneliness. The Government’s annual progress report on loneliness is due at the end of 2019.