The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage):...Of
course, boxing is a sport that is accessible to people from all
economic backgrounds. We continue to invest in community boxing
clubs through Sport England and funding through the National
Lottery Community Fund, and we support our elite boxers through UK
Sport. However, no sport can afford to rest on its laurels: we must
take steps to ensure that discrimination and inequality are
identified and addressed. Like many other sports,...Request free trial
The Minister for Digital and Culture ():...Of course, boxing is a sport that is
accessible to people from all economic backgrounds. We continue to
invest in community boxing clubs through Sport England and funding through the
National Lottery Community Fund, and we support our elite boxers
through UK Sport. However, no sport can afford to rest on its
laurels: we must take steps to ensure that discrimination and
inequality are identified and addressed. Like many other sports,
boxing continues to look at what more it can do to promote
inclusion and diversity, and England Boxing has been conducting a
review of its operations from board level to grassroots in order to
increase diversity at all levels. So far, that work has resulted in
additional training for coaches and support staff and in
anti-racism workshops, but I understand that more activity is in
train.
This comes against the backdrop of the code for sports governance,
which UK Sport and Sport England launched four years ago.
That code sets out the standards that all sporting organisations
must meet in return for public funding. It has proved very
successful in setting clear expectations around good governance and
diversity, but UK Sport and Sport England have just announced that
the code will be updated later this year to ensure that sporting
bodies in receipt of substantial public funding have a detailed and
ambitious diversity and inclusion action plan for diversity right
across their organisations, which is another positive step
forward....
...Another key concern for the Government as we navigate our
recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is grassroots sports
participation. It is truly vital for the preservation of our
national sporting excellence that we help feed the elite level with
the grassroots base, which is why the Government’s strategy,
“Sporting Future”, puts increased participation at the very heart
of the long-term direction of sport in this country. Since
2017, Sport England has provided a
range of grassroots funding to boxing totalling more than £8.2
million, and this significant funding includes £3.2 million to
grassroots boxing projects, £4.25 million to England Boxing across
the 2017 to 2021 cycle, plus an additional £999,000, to be precise,
in covid roll-over funding from 2020-21. Grassroots facilities in
the hon. Gentleman’s constituency have also benefited from the
Government’s £100 million national leisure recovery fund for local
authorities, with Warwick District Council awarded £277,851. This
emergency funding package has supported public sector leisure
centres to reopen to the public, giving the sport and physical
activity sector the very best chance of recovering from this
pandemic....
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