I am a longstanding supporter of Newcastle Diamonds Speedway team. The Coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on Motorcycle Speedway grounds such as that in
Byker. The sport has already been under significant financial pressure in recent years due to dwindling crowd sizes and a loss of advertising revenue. I wrote to Oliver Dowden MP, the Secretary of State for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ask what measures the Government will take to support the sport through the pandemic. In his response the Minister said that certain sporting events will be used to pilot the safe return of spectators and that these will be carefully monitored to inform future decisions on further relaxation of the rules.