Film Industry

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank the hon. Lady for her warm words of welcome at the beginning. I think that is perhaps the beginning and end of the consensus that we might be able to reach today.

If I may, I will highlight a few areas where we are in agreement. First, I think we are in agreement that today’s announcement is a thoroughly good thing for the British film industry. Secondly, I think we are in agreement that a number of the initiatives that this Government are taking forward—including the football Bill that she referenced and various other issues relating to the competitiveness of our creative industries on the global stage—are welcome and should receive cross-party support.

The hon. Lady mentioned the fact that the Conservative Government brought in this independent film tax credit at the last Budget. If that were true, we would not be needing to legislate today. The truth is that the Conservative Government did what the Conservative Government did for 14 years: they talked a good game and then did absolutely nothing to deliver for the people of this country. She says that we voted against film tax credits, but the truth, as she well knows, is that we did not vote against them. They were our idea and our initiative in 2007. In fact, it was her party that opposed them in the first place. If they had had their way in 2007, our British film industry would not be where it is today, which is rivalling Hollywood as one of the best film industries in the world. She knows full well that we supported every one of the measures that, after years of opposing them—they had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the film industry—the Conservatives belatedly came to support. She also knows that we voted against successive Conservative Finance Bills because, as we are discovering now that we have had a chance to open the books, there was no money attached to any of the measures. It was a hoax and a con trick practised on the British people.

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Lady, and I am grateful to her not just for her welcome today and her warm words but for the support that she and others on the Opposition Benches have given me and the team to take up the mantle. But if I had left a sector with 25,000 vacancies that it could not fill, a legacy of creativity being erased from our communities and our classrooms and, most of all, a £22 billion economic black hole that working-class people are paying the price for up and down the country—all of that—and then had such a resounding rejection from the electorate only a few months ago, I would be speaking with a little bit more humility from the Dispatch Box.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement. When we met the film industry at roundtables in the last Parliament, it consistently called for this measure, so I am delighted to see that the Government are taking action. With 25,000 job vacancies in the creative industries, does the Secretary of State agree that if we can line up the training, T-levels and other skills taught in our sixth forms, further education colleges and education centres, we can create job opportunities for a generation?

[Lisa Nandy]

I put on record our thanks as a Government for the work that my hon. Friend has done to champion opportunities for young people in his constituency and across the country. One of the things that matters personally to our Government is not just that we put rocket boosters under some of the fastest-growing industries—the creative industries outside of London and the south-east, as well as in London—to offer opportunities in every part of the country, but, crucially, that we ensure that young people in those communities can have those opportunities. That is why we have already kick-started the curriculum review to put art, sport, music and culture back at the heart of the curriculum where they belong, after the mindless cultural vandalism of the last 14 years. It is why we are also reforming the apprenticeship levy, and it is why we are working closely with industry to ensure that there are no limits on our ambition for young people, so that we can match the ambition that they have for themselves.