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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to support county-based test events across the UK to monitor the rate of covid-19 transmission as covid-19 restrictions are eased to enable the events industry to reopen.

The Events Research Programme aims to examine the risk of transmission of Covid-19 from attendance at events and explore ways to enable people to attend a range of events safely. To achieve this, the programme will explore how a combination of testing and non-pharmaceutical interventions (actions that people can take to mitigate the spread of coronavirus) can inform decisions on safely lifting restrictions at events.

We have confirmed 8 events that will run as ERP pilots to inform the safe removal of social distancing from Step 4 of the Roadmap. The pilots will be run across a range of settings, venue types, and activity types so that findings could support the full reopening of similar settings across multiple sectors.

These pilots will be held in locations across England, including Liverpool, London, and Sheffield. All events will be subject to national and local approvals (including the Directors for Public Health and local authorities), and further events may be announced in due course.