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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has taken recent steps to encourage British film companies to invest in production within the UK.

The Government is committed to ensuring that British film companies are able to invest in production, expand their businesses and offer opportunities for cast and crew across the UK.

In recent years, the government’s actions have helped the film and TV industry bounce back from the pandemic, with production now stronger than ever. This includes the £500 million Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, supporting over 100,000 jobs and productions worth more than £3 billion. In addition, the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas supported over 200 independent cinemas to ensure that films could be screened in cinemas following the pandemic.

To build on this, and support the industry to not only survive but thrive, further actions have been taken. This includes the government’s current £1.6 million annual funding of the British Film Commission, which has driven a near doubling of UK studio capacity, the £28 million UK Global Screen Fund, which is expanding the global reach of UK independent content, and the continued success of our screen sector tax reliefs (for film, high-end TV, animation and children’s TV), which in 2021-22 provided £792 million of support for over 1000 projects.