Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which primary schools have used their PE and Sport Premium to successfully encourage substantially more children to walk to school.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Through the primary PE and sport premium, the government has invested over £600 million of cross-government ring-fenced funding direct to primary schools to be spent on the improvement of PE and sport for all pupils. The government has doubled the premium to £320 million a year from September 2017 using revenue from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy. Head teachers have the freedom to decide how the funding should best be used to improve their PE and sports. The department’s guidance to schools on the use of the premium indicates that they can use it to embed physical activity into the school day through active travel to and from school. Schools need to publish how they spend the funding and report the impact on their website by 4 April 2018.

National Walk to School Week takes place from 21-25 May, and the department expects schools will use this opportunity to further promote active lifestyles outside of school.