Creative Industries
Debate between Chris Bryant and Stuart Andrew(1 month ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
It really is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. Right at the outset, I apologise that I will not be here for the closing of the debate, because I have to travel back to Leeds for a funeral tomorrow.
As the Minister said, our creative industries are world leading. With limitless creativity, imagination and entrepreneurial spirit, our creative industries are fundamental to the UK economy, and the contribution they make has often been underappreciated. These industries generate £124 billion a year and employ over 2.4 million people in every corner of the country, and as we have heard, growing the economy means growing our creative industries—even if there was a desperate attempt by the Minister to boost his book sales during his speech.
The importance of the creative industries goes beyond the economy. They provide the news that informs our democracy, the events that showcase our talent and the films that we all love. The imagination of our designers, writers, artists and creators is world leading and brings joy, inspiration and opportunity to our lives. It is testament to the UK being a world leader in many things, events included, given the phenomenal success of events such as the Olympics and other sporting events, the coronation and, of course, the Eurovision song contest. A moment ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) mentioned Darren Henley’s book. He actually mentions me in that book as the first and only Minister for the Eurovision song contest. It was probably the only position I have held in government that my partner was actually interested in.
Stuart Andrew
No.
For all the reasons I have mentioned, we as Conservatives backed our creative industries in government. Our record on supporting the creative industries speaks for itself: between 2010 and 2022, those industries grew at more than twice the rate of UK gross value added, expanding by more than 50%. More than 1 million new jobs were created in the sector during that period. During the pandemic, we introduced unprecedented support for the creative industries, including the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund, the £500 million film and TV production restart scheme, and the £800 million live events reinsurance scheme. That support protected over 5,000 organisations and supported 220,000 jobs, ensuring that our creative industries have been able to bounce back.
Our commitment to support the creative industries also extended to significant tax reliefs. We introduced over £1 billion of tax reliefs for the creative industries, including support for filmmakers through the UK independent film tax credit and business rates relief for theatres and cultural venues. This investment complemented our creative industries sector deal, which put £350 million of public and private investment into the sector. A key example is the £37 million and the new devolved powers to the North East mayoral combined authority to create a film and TV powerhouse up in the north-east, which will enable £450 million of private investment to build the new Crown Works studio. This is an important measure as we seek to spread the opportunities for the creative industries right across the United Kingdom.
We published a sector vision setting out our ambition to grow the creative industries by £50 billion and to create 1 million extra jobs in the creative sectors. This sector vision set out not warm words or platitudes, but a real plan backed by real investment. Our plan included a £28 million investment in the Create Growth programme to support high-growth creative businesses across the UK; an additional £50 million for the second wave of the creative industries clusters programme, building on the £56 million announced in 2018; and £3.2 million for the music export growth scheme to enable emerging artists to break into new international markets. It was a real plan backed by real investment to grow our creative industries by £50 billion.
Personally, I do not doubt any of the Ministers’ personal ambitions for the creative sectors. Where the Government are ambitious, we will always seek to be a constructive Opposition, because the potential to grow is huge and the UK has such a great reputation. Equally, we will do our job by highlighting the impact when choices made by the Government pose a significant risk to the sector, because that is the right thing to do.
In opposition, Labour Members promised to
“fire up the engines of our creative economy”,
and said that they would make the creative industries
“central to a decade of national renewal”.
That was a great ambition, which makes it even more confusing that Labour failed to support every single tax relief the Conservatives introduced for these industries after 2010. I am afraid to say that the reality so far is that significant harm is being done by the Government. In the Chancellor’s Budget of broken promises, Labour drove the tax burden up to its highest level, surpassing the amount after the second world war. Far from firing up the economy, they have extinguished growth by introducing a national insurance jobs tax that will cost employers in DCMS sectors £2.8 billion.
Stuart Andrew
I think we have absolutely shown our commitment, as I have just illustrated, to the creative industries and to wanting to grow them. Equally, we want to make sure that the courses people are doing equip them well for the opportunities of the future, and I do not see that there is anything wrong in always raising such questions.
Chris Bryant
The shadow Minister said that we—Labour Members in opposition—voted against every single tax relief for the creative industries, but he knows perfectly well that we supported every single one of them and that we originally initiated them. Can I just suggest that we stop this silliness? I am guessing that at some point Conservative Members will vote against the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, which will have a tax relief in it, and if that means that we start saying that they vote against every tax relief, it will be a nonsense. It would be better if we all just grew up, and started saying that we all support tax reliefs for the creative industries.
Stuart Andrew
Given that the Minister has just been going on about 14 years of the last Conservative Government, I find that a bit hypocritical, but that does not surprise me.
The Government have also slashed retail, hospitality and leisure relief, and set out plans to burden businesses with more than 70 radical 1970s-style regulations, imposing £4.5 billion of additional costs on business. I am worried that there seems to have been a failure to protect the creative industries from the Chancellor’s growth-killing Budget, just as the Department failed to protect them from the Deputy Prime Minister’s radical Employment Rights Bill.
I welcome the £60 million support package, but will it touch the sides when measured against the impact of the Budget? Do not take it from me—take it from Arts Council England, which warned that the Government’s national insurance jobs tax will have
“significant implications for cultural organisations.”
Take it from the Music Venue Trust, which has warned that changes to retail, hospitality and leisure relief will put more than 350 grassroots music venues at
“imminent risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Stuart Andrew(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
January is traditionally a time when people commit to exercising more, and it is the perfect opportunity to encourage a more active nation—