Written questions by Hendrick.

Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) condition and (b) availability of outdoor basketball courts; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate funding for the maintenance, repair and construction of such facilities.

The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities. This means delivering a range of facilities across the country based on what each local community needs. On 17 September, the Government confirmed £5 million investment in 2026/27 towards both indoor and outdoor basketball and basketball-led multi-sport facilities in England in 2026/27. This dedicated funding for basketball will be matched by the NBA, who will invest £5 million in grassroots programmes through to 2028. We provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England provides long term investment of £12.6 million to Basketball England between 2022 and 2029 to support grassroots basketball.

Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle illegal online sport gambling sites that do not hold a licence to operate in the UK.

Since April 2024, the Gambling Commission has significantly increased its disruption activity and has focused on finding innovative ways to tackle the illegal market. The Crime and Policing Bill, once passed, will give the Gambling Commission greater powers to more quickly take down illegal websites. At the budget the Gambling Commission received £26 million across three years to increase investment, resources and capacity to tackle the illegal market. We have also set up an Illegal Gambling Taskforce with key stakeholders, which considers how to tackle illegal payments, advertising, and maximising cross-agency collaboration.We announced in February 2026, an intention to consult on cracking down on unlicensed sponsors in sport. This will ban unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring sports in Great Britain.

Media and Sport, what data her Department holds on gender disparities in access to youth sports training facilities; and what steps she is taking to decrease those disparities.

The Government is determined to ensure that everyone has access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities. The Government has invested £98 million through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme across the UK in 2025/26, funding projects such as new and upgraded grass pitches, pitch maintenance equipment and floodlights. Following the Spending Review we have committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years. We are now working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need and will then set out further plans. We are committed to supporting every aspect of women’s sport and ensuring all women and girls, no matter their background, are able to participate in sport and physical activity. We will more than double priority access to grassroots football pitches for women and girls in England over the next five years as part of a series of plans to honour the success of the Lionesses following the team’s victory at Euro 2025, as well as dedicating flagship sites and pitches to the Lionesses. The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport in England through Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels through community-led solutions.

Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to local authorities to provide arts and culture in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire over the next three years.

Typically, DCMS does not directly fund local authorities, nor their arts and cultural organisations, which are commonly funded by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Arts Council England.In last month’s spending review, the government committed to providing an additional £3.4 billion of grant funding to local government in 2028‑29 compared to 2024‑25. This equates to an average annual real terms increase in overall local authority core spending power of 3.1% across the spending review period.Whilst individual decisions on how to invest departmental resources will be determined in due course, there will be significant investment into Arts and Culture over the spending review period, including to Arts Council England (ACE) which will continue to support local arts programmes and projects across the country.In the 2024-25 financial year, ACE provided over £450k of funding to arts projects in Preston, and almost £6.5 million to arts organisations and projects across Lancashire. Details of this funding can be found on the ACE website here https://culture.localinsight.org/#/map

Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to local authorities to provide youth services in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire over the next three years.

Local authorities hold the statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of educational and recreational leisure-time activities for young people. Local Authorities fund youth services from their Local Government Finance Settlement in line with local need.This Spending Review provides over £5 billion of new grant funding over the next three years for local services that communities rely on. This includes £3.4 billion of new grant funding which will be delivered through the Local Government Finance Settlement within financial years 2026-27 to 2028-29.