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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding his Department or its agencies have provided for facilities for (a) wheelchair basketball, (b) blind cricket, (c) deaf cricket, (d) wheelchair tennis, (e) wheelchair rugby and (f) wheelchair football since 2012.

Government remains committed to supporting disabled people to realise their potential in sport. Since 2012 Sport England has made disability sport a key focus of its strategy and the National Governing Bodies of Sport have specific targets for increasing the number of people with disabilities who play their sport. Sport England is currently investing over £171 million to make sport a practical and attractive lifestyle choice for disabled people and to get more disabled people playing sport.

Table A: Investment in disability sport-specific facilities

*Includes £30,000 award to GB Wheelchair Basketball Association (GBWBA) in 2013 for new wheelchairs

Please note that the figures in Table A only includes awards for projects which have a stated disability sport focus. Facilities like sports halls can be used for disability sports like the ones listed in Table A. Since 2012, Sport England has invested £39.8 million in 58 such sports hall projects.

As part of GBWBA’s Whole Sport Plan investment for 2013-17, Sport England invested £154,833 in the University of Worcester Disabled Athlete Accommodation project. Across Sport England’s National Centres for Sport, at least 20 per cent of accommodation provided has been designed specifically with disability access requirements in mind.

Sport England is also investing £26,000 in a research project in partnership with GBWBA to look at ways to increase the quality of surfaces used for wheelchair sports.