Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has had recent discussions with industry stakeholders on increasing investment in the creative industries; and what steps her Department is taking to support new investors.

Yes, ministers and officials have had many such discussions and we are committed to increasing investment in the creative industries from a variety of sources.

One of the ways that the Government incentivises investment in the sector is through the creative industry tax reliefs, which provide generous support for production costs of theatres, orchestras, museums and galleries and film, TV and video games companies. The reliefs delivered £2.2 billion of support to these industries in the financial year 2022-23.

DCMS also works with other government departments and bodies including the Department for Business and Trade and UK Research and Innovation to encourage new investors to consider investing in the creative industries. This includes work through the activity of DCMS’s Create Growth Programme and the Seed Enterprise Investment and Enterprise Investors Schemes, which are available for those looking to invest in start-up and scale-up creative industries businesses, offering tax reliefs to individual investors.