Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits of increasing the number of people permitted to attend (a) wedding and (b) exhibition venues for those venues that have more space to accommodate those attendees safely during the covid-19 outbreak.

We continue to engage with stakeholders, including through the Tourism Industry Council and the Events Industry Senior Leaders Advisory Panel, to assess how we can best support the sector’s safe reopening. The business events pilots we carried out in September will ensure that the correct advice and guidance is put in place to help larger events reopen when it is safe to do so.

Officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are continuing to engage with the wedding industry to understand the challenges being faced by wedding venues. These businesses are able to take advantage of a number of business support measures, such as government-backed loans and access to the extended Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.