Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the finding from The University of Manchester article entitled Transforming children and young people’s futures through PE, school sport, and physical activity, published in February 2025, that 43% of pupils spend over four hours daily on screens.

The government is committed to breaking down the barriers to accessing sport and physical activity for children and young people, including girls. Our manifesto set out our intention to support more children to be active by protecting time for physical education in schools and working across government to support the role grassroots clubs play in expanding access to sport and physical activity.

The department acknowledges that there is a potential opportunity cost where excessive screen time displaces positive activities for children, including exercise. Across departments, the government is also considering the recommendations of the previous Education Committee’s report ‘Screen Time: Impacts on education and wellbeing’.

In November 2024, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology announced a feasibility study on methods and data to understand the impact of smartphones and social media on children. The study, being conducted by the University of Cambridge and a wider consortium of experts from a range of universities, began on 2 December 2024 and will run for six months, until May 2025.