Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 13
Third Report - Health barriers for girls and women in sport
Published 5 Mar 2024
Paragraph 79
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Sexism and inequalities in sport All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend the DCMS and DfE establish a taskforce, including UK Sport, the UK Sports Institute, women’s health and fitness experts including The Well HQ, sport and exercise research institutes, and the UK divisions of leading sportswear and sporting goods brands, to develop a long-term strategy to tackle sportswomen’s health and physiology-related issues. The strategy should set out key priorities for research; actions to increase availability of suitable, female-specific sportswear and kit (and given the associations with discomfort and injury, football boots must be a priority); and steps to achieve equal representation of women, as authors and study participants, in the field of sports and exercise research. We recommend this strategy be published within six months.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Third Report - Health barriers for girls and women in sport (HC 130), paragraph 79, 5 March 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 17 May 2024 (deadline 7 May 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and states that it accepts "most of the report recommendations", partially accepting some, including those on RSHE education, the This Girl Can campaign and maternity policy.
- On menstrual cycle education (Recommendation 1), the Government "partially accepts" and says menstruation is already taught within statutory RSHE. The Department for Education is reviewing the RSHE statutory guidance and will release updated guidance "as soon as possible".
- On PE kit (Recommendation 2), the Government accepts the recommendation and says the Department for Education is "committed to continually reviewing" its school uniform and PE kit guidance.
- On the School Sport and Activity Action Plan, the Department for Education "does not accept" the part of Recommendation 3 on updating it with targets, as there are "no current plans" to do so. It points instead to non-statutory PE guidance published in March 2024.
- On integrity in sport (Recommendation 10), the Government accepts the recommendation and says it received over 600 responses to its call for evidence. It will set out the results and next steps "in due course".