Policy moves

Two significant events took place in Westminster on 2 September – the inaugural meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Play and the latest session of the DCMS Select Committee’s State of Play Inquiry

A significant moment for the play sector, the launch of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Play brings together MPs, peers from the House of Lords and industry experts. The group, which met for the first time at Portcullis House in Westminster, will work towards ensuring that play is recognised, protected and embedded in policy, planning and public life. Co-founded by Play England, the group includes 42 MPs and peers and is chaired by Tom Hayes MP – with Lord Greville Howard, Natasha Irons MP and Vikki Slade MP acting as vice chairs. Among the group’s aims is to push for a National Play Strategy and champion play sufficiency legislation. It will also advocate for a long-term funding settlement for play, with an annual target of £125m.

During the first meeting, the group heard an overview of Play England’s new strategy, It All Starts with Play! , which was launched in May. Tom Hayes MP also provided those present with additional context, highlighting that the first parliamentary debate on play in eight years took place in January 2025 and, at an hour, the longest in 17 years.

“Play is essential for every child’s development, health, and wellbeing,” Hayes said. “But it is too often ignored in policy decisions.

“The APPG on Play will change that — working in Parliament to champion all children’s right to play and to ensure play is prioritised in communities and national decision-making. As parliamentarians we need to be the voice of children in Westminster.”

Defining objectives

During the meeting, the APPG also defined its strategic objectives. These were defined as: ● Establish the APPG as Parliament’s cross-party voice for play ● Champion a new National Play Strategy ● Support Play Sufficiency legislation through the NC82 Amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill ● Advocate for a long-term funding settlement for play (£125 million annually)

Play is essential for every child’s development, health, and wellbeing

● Support the creation of a Minister for Play ● Align with sector strategies and amplify voices of children, families, and communities ● Reinforce legislative levers including National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) Reform and the NC82 Amendment

The second meeting of the APPG has been scheduled for Autumn 2025 and the group is likely to meet bi-monthly thereafter. Play England’s executive director, Eugene Minogue, said: “Children’s freedom to play hasn’t just declined – it’s been squeezed out. Earlier this year, we highlighted the scale of the challenge for policymakers when we launched our 10-year strategy, It All Starts With Play .

“To truly increase children and young people’s opportunities and guarantee them a right to play necessitates a rethink on how we plan, govern, fund and design for play – across streets, schools, services and society.”

Evidence-based

Play was also on the agenda on another important meeting earlier the same day in the form of the The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s State of Play Inquiry. During the session – which included two hours of oral evidence – MPs explored the value of play and informal outdoor physical activity for children and young people, heard about the barriers that limit access and considered how Government can better support and promote opportunities for play.

The session was suggested by stakeholders, including the Centre for Young Lives and Playing Out, which invited ideas from across the sector on what MPs should be examining.

The first half of the hearing explored the recommendations in the Raising the Nation Play Commission’s report on the benefits and barriers to play in England, which was published in June. The Committee is likely to explore the role of the planning framework in the provision of play facilities and the level of Government funding for play. The second panel focused on issues related to outdoor play, including its inclusion in the curriculum, and how to tackle disparities in access to play. The session was chaired by Natasha Irons, the MP for Croydon East, who is also a vice chair for the APPG.

Children do not just need a home; they need a childhood, and their childhood starts on their doorstep

Oral evidence

Those giving evidence on the day included chair of the Play Commission, Paul Lindley OBE. He highlighted some of the reasons why play has been “ousted” from the planning process.

“Play is what children do for their work, it is how they enjoy their childhoods and how they learn the skills that they will need for the rest of their lives,” Lindley said.

“Over recent years, there have been two pressures on planners, local authorities and developers that have relegated children’s voices within what is being built. One is around efficiency and the need ultimately to maximise the number of houses on a piece of land, resulting in small gardens or no gardens – one in eight children grows up with no garden. Secondly, around risk, there is the risk of providing something as a result of which a child is going to get hurt or that is deemed not safe in some way.”

When asked what facilities and designs he would like to see adopted in new developments, Lindley responded: “There are things like the London Plan Policy S4, which requires all new residential developments to provide at least 10sq m of good-quality, accessible play and informal recreation space per child.

“There are non-cost things too, like removing “No ball games” signs and traffic-calming measures, which do pitch the rights of different people in the community against each other, but they are small costs. There are those sorts of things, together with training and working on ways for children and their families to have the appropriate voice when planning decisions are being made.”

Going outdoors

The second panel of the session looked in more detail at outdoor play and education. Those giving evidence were Ingrid Skeels, co-founder of Playing Out – a parent and resident-led movement restoring children’s freedom to play out in the streets and spaces where they live – and Playing England’s Eugene Minogue.

Describing the success of Playing Out, Skeels said: “We had the idea of closing the road briefly for a time after school – remove one of the main barriers, which is traffic – so that children could reclaim the street for some play.

Children’s freedom to play hasn’t just declined – it’s been squeezed out

The reception was amazing. Children came out who did not know each other. Some of them were at the same school and they did not even know they lived on the same street. That is how indoors and separate we have all become. They met other children, played with children of different ages and neighbours came out who had not met each other.

“From that, the idea started to spread in Bristol and around the country and to other countries, because it tapped into something that parents feel and that we were feeling. So far more than 1,600 street and estate communities have regularly organised Playing Out sessions, with 50,000 children benefiting regularly. Those are the absolute bare minimum numbers, because we do not always get answers from councils as to how many roads they have closed.”

Eugene Minogue then made the case for policymakers to begin to rethink how the UK’s built environment is created – so that every aspect of it could encourage outdoor play.

“Currently, we build our whole built environment around the car,” he said. “The infrastructure for children has been decimated, and we need to treat play in the same way that we do utilities. It is critical infrastructure. Children do not just need a home; they need a childhood, and their childhood starts on their doorstep.

“That is why we need things like play sufficiency legislation. We have started to move towards it with the changes we secured in the national planning policy framework last December. Although policy is progress, it is not protection. We need play sufficiency legislation so that local authorities have a duty to consider children in the built environment. It is not just around more playgrounds, although those would be welcome because we have lost well over 800, and we have lost over half of our adventure playgrounds in my lifetime, since 1980.”

The APPG on Play has a dedicated page on the Play England website, where details of forthcoming meetings, agendas, minutes and key updates will be published. To access the site, visit: [playengland.org.uk/appg](https://playengland.org.uk/appg)