Recommendation 2

HM Government Acknowledged

2021. In response to both recommendation 1 and 2: The Government recognises the challenges the events sector has been facing over the past year, and committed to consider options, including indemnity cover, to best support the live events sector if it became clear that insurance was the last remaining barrier to the resumption of activity. Until recently, it has not been clear that insurance is the only remaining barrier to reopening, and so an insurance scheme would have been premature, and would have placed unreasonable risk on the taxpayer. We could not reasonably cover events while the remaining restrictions were still in place. Now, however, that audiences can return, vaccines have reduced the danger of further restrictions, and with the insurance market still not providing COVID-19 cancellation insurance to events, the government has worked swiftly with the insurance industry to announce a Live Events Reinsurance Scheme. The Government backed Live Events Reinsurance Scheme will support live events across the country - such as music festivals, concerts, conferences and business events - that are at risk of being cancelled due to an inability to obtain COVID-19 cancellation insurance since insurers paused the sale of this cover in response to the pandemic. The scheme will see the government act as a ‘reinsurer’ - stepping in with a guarantee in order to make sure insurers can offer the products that events need to take place in full and plan ahead in confidence. The scheme will be delivered in partnership with participating insurers, with eligible events able to purchase cover for the cancellation of events due to new UK Civil Authority restrictions in response to COVID-19, alongside their standard contingency insurance policies. We have worked closely with colleagues across government, including with HM Treasury, as well as with insurers and the events industry to carefully design a scheme that offers cover that event organisers have been calling for. We can proudly say this is one of the only insurance schemes in the world to cover such a wide array of live events and one that does not put a cap on costs claimed per event. With the live events industry worth more than £70 billion to the UK annually and supporting more than 700,000 jobs nationwide, this intervention will support the UK’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, whilst also ensuring that we deliver value for money for taxpayers. The introduction of this scheme should also address the second recommendation to extend the Events Research Programme as outlined in the Select Committee’s report. It is worth noting the Events Research Programme is a science-led programme and pilot events were chosen based on the scientific value that we expect to obtain from these events, and in order to test potential interventions. Our intention has been to seek a variety of different settings for pilot events. The purpose of the pilot events were to gather scientific evidence associated with different settings, including approaches to managing and mitigating transmission risk, as we approached Step 4. As part of phase three of the Events Research Programme we included two large-scale multi-day festivals, namely Tramlines and Latitude. This is in addition to Sefton Park and Download in the previous two phases. Touring in the European Union