Film Industry

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Secretary of State mentioned my favourite film, and I promise that my contributions in the Chamber will always be in the spirit of Paddington Bear and not Mr Curry. As the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), will know after our exchange on Twitter, “Paddington 2” is the best film.

This is a positive statement. The Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement, as we did when it was announced in the Finance Bill earlier this year. It is good to see the Government following through on that. The creative industries are the heartbeat of British life and the film industry is a powerful tool for soft power and economic growth, too. This is a first step, but our view is that wider tax relief measures should be considered in future. We need to address the skills gap by reforming the apprenticeship levy, as has been mentioned—that is a positive thing. We should transform it into a training and skills levy.

We need to address the barriers to finance suffered by so many in the creative industries. We hear about that regularly, particularly from smaller operations. We believe that creative enterprise zones will help to regenerate cultural output across our regions and nations, and we believe that this country should apply to join Creative Europe to boost the funding options available.

I have three questions. In the light of Ireland’s announcement, is the Secretary of State satisfied that the measure announced today gives us enough of an advantage over our neighbours in Europe? On Europe, have the Government considered the merits of enabling full participation in Creative Europe? Finally, what steps are the Government taking to extend access to finance for the creative industries?

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank the hon. Member very much for his warm welcome for the measures. However, the cross-party consensus has now completely broken down—in fact, not just across the Benches but on them—because “Paddington” is a far superior film to “Paddington 2”. It turns out that the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) may have been right.

I welcome the issues that the hon. Member raised, particularly on finance. We know that there is a major gap in the amount of finance that the creative industries can raise in different parts of the country. We also know that the gender gap is a particular problem, and that is something that our Government are determined to address. On Creative Europe, he will doubtless know that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is currently involved in negotiations with Europe to try to build on the paper-thin agreement that the last Government secured. We are keen to secure a closer relationship with our European friends and neighbours, but obviously those negotiations are ongoing so I cannot comment on that at the present time.