Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Sports Strategy

Thursday 20 July 2023 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 2 Not answered 0

Key points

  • The Government have committed to delivering a refreshed sports strategy that will set the long-term strategic policy direction for sport.
  • Luke Evans raised concerns about the increase in image and performance-enhancing drug use in the UK.
  • The Minister acknowledged the importance of safety and wellbeing in sport, including addressing the issue of image and performance-enhancing drugs.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Luke Evans Con Hinckley and Bosworth
Culture, Media & Sport
Context

The MP is inquiring about the progress made by the Department on publishing a sports strategy.

Question

What progress has her Department made on publishing a sports strategy?

Answer from Stuart Andrew

The Government have committed to delivering a refreshed sports strategy that will set the long-term strategic policy direction for sport. The strategy will outline the Government's future ambitions and how we will support the sector to achieve them, and we intend to publish it as soon as possible.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The answer does not provide a specific timeline or details on the status of the sports strategy's publication.

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Q2 Luke Evans Con Hinckley and Bosworth
Culture, Media & Sport
Context

The MP references an estimated half a million to one million users of image and performance-enhancing drugs, indicating an urgent need for policy action.

Question

With many more people getting into sport, there is also a temptation to get into image and performance-enhancing drugs. We have seen an explosion in that, with estimates of between half a million and 1 million users—and that is an underestimate—from academics, UK Anti-Doping and organisations such as ukactive. Will the Minister look at putting a policy in the sports strategy to gather more data on image and performance-enhancing drugs in sport?

Answer from Stuart Andrew

I praise my hon. Friend for being a doughty campaigner on this important issue and thank him for that. He has rightly raised this with me on a number of occasions. The safety and wellbeing of everyone taking part in sport is hugely important. That includes looking at image and performance-enhancing drugs. Since I last met him, I have raised this with UKAD. We must bring about better collaboration across the Department to ensure that we tackle this issue.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The answer does not commit to including a specific policy for gathering data on image and performance-enhancing drugs in the sports strategy.

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