Written question asked by Diane Abbott (Labour) on Friday, 31 August 2012, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 4 September 2012. It was answered by Dan Poulter (Conservative) on Friday, 7 September 2012 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Walking: Children

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he plans to take steps to encourage more children to walk to school.

[118789]

Answer: The Department works across Government to promote walking to school as part of our overall approach to walking and cycling for travel purposes. Local areas also have an important role in encouraging parents and children to walk to school, where this will help to deliver local health priorities. To support this, we have been working with Living Streets to develop a series of case studies to help disseminate the successful Walk Once a Week (WoW) model. This builds upon the expansion of WoW to more than 700 primary schools across the country funded by the Department.

Secondary information