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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of providing a government-backed insurance indemnity package against the risk of cancellation for festivals in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

This Government recognises the importance of the UK’s live events sector and has provided significant financial support including an additional £300M to the Culture Recovery Fund details of which were announced on Friday 25th June.

The DCMS Secretary of State made clear at the DCMS Select Committee in May, the government is aware of the wider concerns around securing indemnity for live events and we continue to assess options to provide further support to the sector within the public health context.

The Secretary of State also underlined that the government’s first priority is to remove remaining barriers (such as social distancing) by reaching Step 4 of the Roadmap. Once that point is reached, if events still cannot go ahead because of a failure of the commercial insurance market, the Government will look at intervening as was done for the TV/Film sectors.