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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make it his policy to ensure that all sports played by UK national teams are available live for free on non-subscription services.

The Government recognises that sporting events of national significance have the ability to bring the nation together through shared moments and therefore it is important that they are made available to as wide an audience as possible.

Under the current listed events regime national sporting events including matches for the FIFA Football World Cup finals tournament, the Rugby World Cup finals and events in the Olympics are made available to free to air broadcasters. In January 2020 the Government added the Paralympic Games to the list, recognising that it is an event of national significance on par with the Olympic Games.

The listed events regime works well to strike an appropriate balance between retaining free-to-air sports events for the public while allowing rights holders to negotiate agreements in the best interests of their sport. Therefore, the Government does not have plans to review the listed events regime at this time.