Requiring venues that want to reopen early to exclude vulnerable people breaches the Equality Act, campaigners say.
The Government's policy around the Events Research Programme is being challenged by Disability Rights UK. In a letter to the Prime Minister, CEO Kamran Mallick said: "We do not accept the word ‘vulnerable’ as it applies to disabled people but we are aware that this is now a term you use to describe people with disabilities."
The policy breaches the Equality Act 2010, he says, and puts venues at risk of individual claims of direct and indirect discrimination.
A Government spokesperson told the Disabiity News Service that it has not banned clinically vulnerable people, but simply advised they do not attend the events.
Two of the sports and cultural events - the world snooker championships and a live music event at Sefton Park - have already said that no one who is clinically extremely vulnerable to Covid-19 can attend.
Mallick questioned whether disabled people were consulted on planning the research programme and said excluding this community will lessen the data's value.
Crowds at cultural events "inevitably include disabled people with a wide range of visible and non-visible disabilities," Mallick said.