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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has made an assessment of the economic effect of continued covid-19 lockdown restrictions being imposed on (a) business conferences and (b) other large scale events.

We are holding three business event pilots in September as part of our preparations to help the sector safely reopen and begin its recovery. It remains our aim that the further reopening of events will be allowed from 1st October, if the host business has written a risk assessment and has put in place mitigations to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission, and provided that rates of infection remain at current levels. This is also subject to the successful completion of pilots.

I encourage affected events organisers to continue to make use of the Government’s comprehensive support package to protect businesses and workers.