Select committee: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Conclusion 9
Ninth Report - Major cultural and sporting events
Published 16 Mar 2022
Paragraph 81
Addressed to Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Major cultural and sporting events All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Government is spending a lot of money on this year’s major events. Yet while individual occasions may well deliver memorable moments, we see no golden thread linking the events or tying them to a vision for the future of this country. If the UK is to leverage major events fully, they must unite people at home and abroad around a sense of shared culture. However, we see no sense of how 2022’s events will take us on a journey of renewal as a country—despite the many differing views about the image of Britishness that the events should promote.
From: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Ninth Report - Major cultural and sporting events (HC 259), paragraph 81, 16 March 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 24 June 2022 (deadline 16 June 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and shares its view on the value of major events, but disagrees with its assessment of UNBOXED and of legacy work, and gives a mixed response on strategy, funding and legislation.
- On a strategy for major events, its "current assessment" is that publishing one "is not an immediate priority". It is establishing a cross-Government Events Team and refreshing the Gold Framework for Major Sporting Events, "for publication later this year".
- On football governance, it will legislate to establish the independent regulator "when parliamentary time allows", with a White Paper "for publication in the summer". It says the legislation "cannot be rushed".
- It "disagrees with the Committee's assessment" of UNBOXED, and on legacy and evaluation it agrees they are critical but disagrees that this is "not currently a priority".
- On the listed events regime, it has "no current plans to undertake a full review of the list", but "will therefore undertake a review" of whether its scope should extend to digital rights.