European Football Championships: Travel

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord knows that the health status of those officials is unlikely to be different from that of anyone else. What is different is that those officials are exempted to enter the UK only as part of an elite sport bubble, unlike others.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, why is there such a disconnect between the Government’s rules for football and those for culture? Quite apart from the terrible problems facing travelling artists, having seen on television over the weekend the happy revellers at matches inside bars and pubs, the points that Barbara Keeley MP and I made in our letter from the APPG on Classical Music to Oliver Dowden last week are all the more germane. In other words, is it not utterly ridiculous that shouting, chanting and drinking fans can congregate and hug each other but a small, amateur, vaccinated and socially distanced choir cannot meet to rehearse?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I recognise the issues that the noble Lord raises; he is not alone in feeling concerned by some of the events that were broadcast over the weekend.