HC Deb 15 July 1999 vol 335 cc282-3W
Mr. Gorrie

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what assessment the Sports Council has made of the opportunities available to girls and young women to take part in previously mostly male team sports; and what plans it has to expand those opportunities. [91054]

Mr. Banks

Sport England works with a range of organisations, including the Women's Sports Foundation, to promote and encourage opportunities for girls and young women in sport at all levels.

Sport England regularly commissions research into sporting participation patterns and trends and will be carrying out its Young People and Sport survey later this year, which will focus specifically on the participation rates of girls in sport.

Projects developed with Lottery funding are monitored to assess the participation levels of previously under-represented groups. Gender-specific targets have been set in the document developed by Sport England entitled "England, the Sporting Nation" and targets for increasing the participation rates for women in sport are being developed in line with the new Funding Agreement with this Department.

As part of its aim to raise the participation rates of girls in sport, Sport England has undertaken a pilot initiative, `Girl Sport', and hopes to begin introducing the initiative nationwide later this year.

Any governing body which receives funding from Sport England must provide development proposals for women's sport as a condition of that funding. Also, all organisations applying for funding from the National Lottery Sports Fund are required to include ways of encouraging the participation of women and girls. This is now helping to increase participation levels, particularly in those sports that have traditionally been male-dominated.

Sport England has also organised gender equity training for governing bodies, including senior executives.

Specific activities that Sport England has undertaken with governing bodies of sports that have been traditionally male-dominated include: providing financial support for a women's development officer for rugby league; encouraging women's sections of rugby union clubs; helping to facilitate the amalgamation of male and female governing bodies in football and cricket, with the result of additional resources for the development of the women's game, with girls' age-group national teams formally established.

Where the men's professional game is ineligible for lottery revenue support through the 'World Class Performance' programme, Sport England are still able to support women's elite sport in cricket and rugby union.

We are hopeful that the establishment of the UKSI National Network will also prove extremely beneficial to women's sport.