To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to give girls equal access to sport in schools, particularly football.
Answered on
23 March 2023
On 8 March 2023 the government announced funding to support PE and Sport during the school day and after school, encouraging all schools to provide sports equally for girls and boys. The department is working with the Department for Culture Media and Sport, the Youth Sport Trust, the Football Association, and other governing bodies to add equality criteria to the School Games Mark which would cover curricular and extracurricular sport provision. The department will identify schools that deliver equal provision of PE and Sport and will disseminate how they are making this practice available, to inform all schools on how they can achieve it.
The department is also funding the Your:Time programme, which trains teenage girls to be able to coach their peers and improve their participation in competitive sport, including football.