Events Research Programme Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Jeff Smith
Main Page: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)Department Debates - View all Jeff Smith's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Nigel Huddleston
My hon. Friend is clearly passionate about the events sector and has a large number of events planned in his constituency, which is fantastic. Some of them are able to go ahead—that is great; I encourage them to do so, obviously within existing guidance and by talking to local public health. Later in the year—as soon as we possibly can—it is absolutely our ambition to open up far more events at much greater scale, and we will provide guidance that will help enable them to do that.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
In March, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s report said:
“The hospitality and entertainment sectors have not seen sufficient data to underpin decisions relating to their industry…building trust with these sectors is absolutely essential and the level of transparency has not been sufficient.”
The test events seem to have gone well. In Liverpool, apparently only 11 of 13,000 people tested positive and the local director of public health said the event caused “no detectable spread” of the virus. However, we know that only from the press reports, because the data has not been published for that event or any other. The Minister has still not explained properly why that is. Does he think that is an acceptable way to rebuild trust and transparency with these businesses?
Nigel Huddleston
As everybody knows, a huge amount of information and data at a local level about infection rates is available weekly online; in fact, it is updated daily. As I said at the beginning, if there were a major outbreak, we would inform the House and others about it. We will publish the information in due course, but it is vital that we do so sensibly. The report is pretty comprehensive, and we must go through due process before releasing it.