Sports: Coronavirus

(asked on 17th November 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) tennis, (b) golf and (c) other outdoor single sports can resume safely after the November 2020 covid-19 lockdown.


Answered by
Nigel Huddleston Portrait
Nigel Huddleston
Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 25th November 2020

Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus.

Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus. That’s why we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of the first period of enhanced national restrictions and why we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.

Nobody wanted to be in the position of having to introduce further National Restrictions. However as the Prime Minister said, with the virus spreading faster than expected we cannot allow our health system to be overwhelmed. The National Restrictions are designed to get the R rate under control through limiting social contact and reducing transmissions. We have not introduced further exemptions because when you unpick at one activity the effectiveness of the whole package is compromised.

However, as the Prime Minister said on 23 November national restrictions will end on Wednesday 2 December and gyms and the wider leisure sector including golf courses and tennis clubs can reopen across all tiers.

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