Yesterday on Wednesday 15th May there was a written request from Thangam Debbonaire, the Labour MP for Bristol West and the document is entitled Film and Television: Government Assistance and the question from Thangam is “To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support lower budget film and TV programmes.”. Her request was responded by Julia Lopez who is a Conservative Minister member and she is also the MP for Hornchurch and Upminster. The document can be obtained from here which enables us to respond regarding the suitability of the response. The statement from Julia is also below and at the end of the session she mentioned Audio Visual.

The UK Government has a clear plan to grow the creative industries by a further £50 billion and support another 1 million jobs by 2030. This was set out in June 2023 in the Creative Industries Sector Vision, which was accompanied by £77 million of new funding to support the sector’s growth.

We are taking steps to support producers of all sizes and the production sector more generally. This includes generous tax reliefs across studio space and visual effects, investing in studio infrastructure, and supporting innovation and promoting independent content through the UK Global Screen Fund.

At Spring Budget 2024, the Chancellor also announced the UK Independent Film Tax Credit. Eligible films with production budgets (excluding marketing and distribution) of up to £15 million will be able to opt-in to claim enhanced Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit at a rate of 53% on their qualifying expenditure.

This is in addition to our long standing interventions supporting the independent television production sector, including the independent productions quota and associated Terms of Trade regime, which have been extremely successful in furthering the diversity of the sector and its output.