Evidence Submission - Raising the Nation: Play Commission
Context
In June 2024 the Raising the Nation Commission on Play was launched, it is a year-long inquiry backed by Centre for Young Lives and supported by commissioners, who are experts in why play is vital for the social, physical and mental wellbeing of children, working in collaboration with young advisers. It aims lead a national conversation about how to encourage and support children to play more – examining issues like the growth of technology and its impact on play, the importance of outdoor space, and whether parents’ attitudes to play and children’s safety have changed how children play.
The Play Commission is a unique opportunity to present the new government with the arguments and evidence it needs to put play at the heart of a more ambitious agenda for raising the nation. The commission will hold workshops, take evidence, visit innovatory projects and produce a set of recommendations, including a new national plan for play, in June 2025.
The Play Commission issued a call for evidence and expertise to inform the policy recommendations in the final report.
An overview of our evidence submission to the Raising the Nation: Play Commission
Play is vital for all children, it is the main way children enjoy their daily lives, make friends, and learn about the world around them. Through play children develop social, physical, and cognitive skills, creativity, cultural awareness, and resilience. They learn to manage and benefit from risks, make decisions, and develop their identities.
However, children today are experiencing many barriers to play. As freedom and opportunities to play have declined, so has children’s physical and mental health as a result. It is therefore vitally important that the new government urgently address the decline in children's play over recent decades.
In too many towns and cities, traffic-dominated neighbourhoods, poorly designed housing estates, inadequate facilities, and a lack of parks and green spaces, harm children’s wellbeing, undermine their quality of life and deprive them of critical infrastructure that they need in the built environment.
Many of the problems set out above have multiple causes. However, foremost amongst them are the failures in the current planning system. In England, children are all but ignored within the current NPPF. For example, the 2021 NPPF makes only one single mention of children and no other planning guidance addresses children explicitly. By contrast, bats and newts are amongst the species covered by national planning guidance!
There are nearly 12 million children living in England, yet they have no effective voice within, or mechanism for influencing, the current planning system.
Recommendations
Play England are calling for meaningful change in England as part of the government’s legislative programme through the introduction of play sufficiency legislation and a new national play strategy.
Play Sufficiency Legislation
Introduce Play Sufficiency legislation in England as part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill
The introduction of Play Sufficiency legislation in England would ensure that all children, young people, and families have access to enough time, space, opportunity, and permission to play and recreation throughout all aspects of their daily lives. It would protect, provide, and enhance opportunities for play and recreation at home, at school, in parks and the built environment.
Legislation should cover (but not be limited to) the following three key areas:
Spaces and places - spaces and places for play and recreation.
Workforce - qualifications, registration, and regulation.
Provision - high-quality, inclusive play services.
Play England’s manifesto sets out the full detail on the context, ask, why and how this ‘no cost’ policy could be readily implemented in England.
National Play Strategy
Develop a new National Play Strategy for England as part of the Children’s Wellbeing Bill
Developing a new, cross departmental national play strategy would ensure that play sufficiency legislation is brought into meaningful practice, and that England becomes a child-friendly country where all children have freedom to play at home, at school, in parks and the built environment.
Delivering these recommendations will depend on bringing together various governmental departments (MHCLG, DfE, DCMS, DHSC, and DfT) with national agencies, stakeholders, and children (as we did in 2008) to ensure that the importance of play is recognised, valued, and protected across government and wider society.
Together, we can deliver transformational change and secure a legacy for our future generations by giving children their childhood back!
Download a pdf of our full evidence submission, which includes supplementary evidence and a supplementary recommendation: Play Commission - Call for Evidence Submission