Events Research Programme Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Clive Efford's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Nigel Huddleston
I know what a huge supporter of the sector my hon. Friend is. Boardmasters sounds like a very exciting event; I know that there have been some problems in the past with being able to hold it, but we want to ensure that that event and others planned for later in the summer get guidance. We are working on that guidance at this moment in time. The events research programme learnings will provide information going into that guidance, which we hope to be able to release prior to the announcement of step 4. My hon. Friend makes the really important point that the organisers need to plan ahead and plan the logistics. We want to help them with that.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Kendal Calling, in a statement on its website cancelling this year’s event, says:
“Our understanding is that…DCMS…are keen to publish the ERP findings and guidance, but that it now does not fit around No. 10’s communications plan. This is insulting to our entire industry, who have been awaiting the results of a pilot event that took place almost 2 months ago to inform our approach to staging events safely this summer.”
If it is reasonable for the Government to use that data, and if the data is in a fit state for the Government to use to make decisions, is it not reasonable to make it available to businesses to allow them to plan?
Nigel Huddleston
As I have said repeatedly, we will be releasing the information and data very soon. I will have to repeat this, because it has obviously not been understood: the reason that we were not able to get to step 4 and that events cannot take place at this moment in time at a scale that we would all desire is not that the release of the report has not happened, but that there has been an increase in infection rates and that there are concerns around the delta variant. That is the reason for the delay in step 4.