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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to protect public funding for creative industries during the period of increases to the cost of living.

The Government is aware of the number of issues facing the creative industries as a result of rising inflation and rising energy prices.

In September 2022 the government announced support for businesses, including businesses within the creative industries, through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This is expected to cut non-domestic energy bills by between one-quarter and one-third up until March 2023. BEIS recently launched a 3 month review into the effectiveness of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. DCMS continues to work with BEIS and industry to analyse the impact of the current Energy Bill Relief Scheme on our sectors.

Support is also available through the targeted support package announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in May, worth over £37 billion in total, to ease the cost of living burden on millions of households with the greatest need, including those working in the creative industries.

The creative industries are some of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy, contributing £116 billion in GVA and employing 2.1 million people. That is why we are developing a Sector Vision to set out our ambitions for the sector between now and 2030, which we will publish in the coming months.

Supporting the resilience of the creative industries’ workforce in the long-term is a key objective of the Policy and Evidence Centre’s Review of Job Quality and Working Practice in the Creative Industries which was co-funded by DCMS and is due to be published later this year. The Government will work with industry to consider its recommendations.

The Government is also supporting the creative industries through Arts Council England, which recently announced support for 990 organisations across the creative and cultural sectors as part of its 2023-2026 Investment Programme.