Ben Dean, director for sport and gambling for the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, was responding to questions from the National Plan for Sport and Recreation Committee at a House of Lords inquiry.

The 12-person group - that includes 16-time Paralympic medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Lord Colin Moynihan, the former chair of the British Olympic Association - has been put together to assess the effectiveness of current sport and recreation policies and initiatives.

During the meeting, the Government was quizzed on a range of issues including obesity, physical education in schools and participation in grassroots sport which had fallen by "seven to 10 per cent" following the outbreak of coronavirus.

Lord Jim Knight also asked the Government how it was tackling racism, homophobia, misogyny and transphobia at all levels in sport.

"We absolutely recognise that we don't want to have any of those behaviours," said Dean at the meeting, which was held online.

"This is an area where the Government is part of the story but it needs collaboration across a lot of different partners.

"When it comes to what happens on the terraces, for example, clearly the FA (Football Association) and footballing bodies have a huge amount of work to do there and they must work very closely with the Home Office and the police on that.

"The training that stewards now get on intervening, if they hear racist chanting, and using the much more sophisticated CCTV systems that are now in football stadiums, has been helpful to target that.

"But clearly there have still been cases and what we want to see is sport being very clear about both cracking down on it, when there are individual cases of this happening, but also making sure they create a nice environment for it to be supportive."

Dean believes football is trying to become "much more inclusive" to help create a "better atmosphere" at matches.

"It does feel like a lot has been done and certainly one of the things we continue to support, (although) this isn't directly for Government to lead, is where there have also been stories of high-profile sports people coming out as gay," said Dean.

"That has been something that we've tried to welcome.

"There has been lots of media pick-up on the fact that sport needs to be a more welcoming environment, both off the pitch in the locker rooms, as well as on the pitch."

Dean was also asked by Lord Knight whether governing bodies could do better to increase diversity within their membership.

"One of the things we absolutely believe in doing is making sure we talk to these bodies about it," Dean added.

"The Secretary of State [Oliver Dowden], only two weeks ago, held a meeting with all the key senior football partners as well as Kick It Out and some of those involved in tackling racism and homophobia.

"We are still seeing too many problems here, what are you doing?

"How are you focusing on it?

"How seriously are you taking it?

"Certainty in our minds this isn't a one-off initiative, it's just bread and butter.

"It needs to be part of senior conversations."