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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent funding her Department has made available to rugby clubs in Tyneside.

The Government believes that opportunities to play sport and get physically active should be available to everyone, including playing rugby. The Government is committed to removing the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups, especially for women and girls. Following the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025, the impact programme Impact’ 25 has reached 850 clubs up and down the country since its inception and 37,000 women and girls in the last year alone. We’ve built more female-friendly facilities at clubs all over the country encouraging female participation in rugby and will work with the RFU to continue to grow the game.

More broadly, we provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding.

Sport England is providing long term investment of £16.9 million to the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and £15.7 million to the Rugby Football League (RFL) between 2022 and 2029 to support grassroots rugby participation. The RFU and the RFL, as the National Governing Bodies for rugby, are responsible for decisions on how and where to target that investment into rugby union and rugby league clubs.

In June 2025, the Government also announced that at least £400 million will be invested in new and upgraded grassroots sport facilities over the next four years, promoting health, wellbeing and community cohesion. £85 million of this will be delivered in 2026/27 through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, with at least 40% of projects funded through the Programme providing a multi-sport offer, meaning more people can get access to a wider variety of sports and activities that appeal to them including rugby.