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 support the UK’s film and television industry.

The Government is committed to ensuring that British film and television industries are able to deliver for audiences, 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 sector to not only survive but thrive, the government has taken further action. 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. HM Treasury has published a consultation on reforms to the audio-visual tax reliefs, which aims to ensure they remain world leading and continue to best serve the needs of creative companies.

In addition, the Government intends to update the existing legislative framework to ensure that our public service broadcasters have the tools to grow and flourish in the digital age. Our proposed reforms will, for example, ensure that public service content is always carried and easy to find on connected devices and major online platforms, including on smart TVs, set-top boxes and streaming sticks.

These and other reforms set out in our Broadcasting White Paper, published earlier this year, will ensure that our television and film industries continue to prosper in our new media landscape – an outcome that is good for both audiences and the creative economy.