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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support his Department has provided to (a) fairgrounds, (b) other outdoor events and (c) the wider events sector during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government has introduced a number of support measures for businesses and individuals through COVID-19, which fairgrounds and the wider outdoor events sector can access. These include various government-backed loans, as well as the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes. We also introduced a substantial, UK-wide cut in VAT for many tourism and hospitality activities, including admission to circuses and fairs, until the end of March.

In light of the national restrictions announced on 4 January, the Chancellor has announced one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses worth up to £9,000 per property to help businesses through to the Spring. He also announced that a £594 million discretionary fund will be made available to support other impacted businesses.

This comes on top of the existing Additional Restrictions Grant discretionary funding and the Local Restrictions Support Grants.

On 13 January I met with representatives of the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain to assess how we can most effectively support the fairground industry through this period. We also remain in close contact with the wider events sector via the Tourism Industry Council and the Events Industry Senior Leaders Panel to closely monitor the situation.