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Government row over plan to cut PE spending
The Guardian
|January 28, 2026
A major row between government departments has broken out after the Department of Health and Social Care proposed cutting all its funding for school PE, the Guardian understands.
Bridget Phillipson has proposed reforms to PE provision in schools
The department now intends to restore the funding despite insisting privately for weeks that it would end its contribution, until contacted by the Guardian. Ministers are understood to have overruled the cuts.
The Department for Education is also planning cuts to physical education from its own budget, ahead of changes in the next curriculum review.
It is hoped that the reforms - which will guarantee at least two hours of PE a weekwill involve partnerships with sports bodies that will deliver some efficiencies.But Whitehall sources had said the proposed cuts from DHSC and DfE combined had threatened the reforms and would undermine Keir Starmer’s commitments to more access to sports for school children.
This story is from the January 28, 2026 edition of The Guardian.
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