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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to release guidance on the holding of sporting events with crowds present as covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.

The Government has committed to taking a cautious approach to easing restrictions, guided by data rather than dates, to avoid a surge in infections that could put unsustainable pressure on the NHS. The roadmap sets out indicative, “no earlier than” dates for each step which are five weeks apart. This allows four weeks for the data to begin to reflect the impact of the previous step and a further week’s notice for individuals and businesses to prepare. ‘COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021’ sets out a roadmap out of the current lockdown in England. Each full step of our roadmap will be informed by the latest available science and data and will be five weeks apart in order to provide time to assess the data and provide one week’s notice to businesses and individuals.

We will ensure that interim results gathered from research programmes are fed into policy development swiftly to avoid missing reopening opportunities because of insufficient data.

Current guidance for DCMS sectors in relation to Covid-19 is available on gov.uk and we will continue to provide updated guidance on reopening safely as we progress through the Steps of the roadmap.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport owns the overarching guidance for grassroots and elite sport and is working closely with other government departments to ensure the return of spectators is covid-secure. Guidance updates will be published prior to the commencement of Step 3 to allow organisers time to comply with the changes.

For guidance on any individual sports you should refer to guidance produced by the relevant national governing body.