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

What steps his Department is taking to help tackle loneliness.

We recently published our strategy for tackling loneliness. This set out a raft of cross-government measures to take the first steps in tackling loneliness and takes forward recommendations from the Jo Cox Commission.

DCMS specifically is providing up to £1.8million to increase the number of community spaces available. This follows the announcement this summer of more than £20million of new funding for projects that bring people and communities together.

With the Office of National Statistics, the department has developed the ‘loneliness measure’ (to enable consistent analysis and build the evidence base), and will be piloting better use of open data around facilities and accessibility with local government. The department is launching an awareness campaign and including loneliness in internet safety.