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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what evidence his Department based its decision on when deciding to allow spectators into the EURO 2020 football matches held at Wembley Stadium in June and July 2021 prior to the proposed further easing of covid-19 restrictions on the 19 July 2021.

The Events Research Programme (ERP) is running pilot events, including the EURO 2020 matches at Wembley, to inform decisions around the safe removal of social distancing at Step 4 of the roadmap. The pilots are running across a range of settings, venues, and activities, so that findings support the full reopening of similar settings across multiple sectors.

Decisions are guided by a Science Board of relevant experts including senior PHE representation, who take into account the latest public health data. All pilots are designed in a scientifically controlled way, with special consideration to reduce risk of transmission. The Science Board provides scientific assurance across the programme, and ensures that events follow ethical and scientific principles, generating evidence of sufficient quality to inform decisions.

Our Science Board follows a scientific framework developed by SAGE’s Environmental Modelling Group. This includes understanding appropriate audience sizes for the ERP’s research purposes.

These capacities have been agreed in advance with event organisers, and the health and safety capacity caps of their respective venues.

The second phase of the ERP included the England games against Croatia (13 June), and Scotland (18 June). Public health is our main priority and entry to these EURO 2020 pilot events required proof of a negative NHS Lateral Flow Device (LFD) test taken within 48 hours of entering the event, or proof of two vaccinations with the second vaccination being given at least 14 days prior to entry of the event via the NHS COVID Pass within the NHS App. In addition to this, attendees to events in the ERP’s third phase can also show proof of natural immunity, based upon a positive PCR test within 180 days of the event.

The Government is working closely with industry partners to design these pilot events to help gather evidence on opening events safely.