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 effect on the spread of covid-19 infections of thousands of football fans travelling to the Carabao cup final; and if he will make a statement.

The Events Research Programme (ERP) 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

Public safety is our main priority and decisions will be guided by a Science Board of relevant experts including senior PHE representation, who will take into account the latest public health data. All pilots will be designed in a scientifically controlled way, with special consideration to reduce risk of transmission.

Entry will be subject to a negative test result. In practice this will work in much the same way that international travel has taken place in recent months - entry will be denied to those that cannot provide evidence of a negative test result.

The majority of attendees who attend the ERP events will be local to the venue. However attendees with valid ERP tickets can travel to the event in line with HMG guidance. We have already published a public notice on ERP which includes HMG guidance here.