Department For Culture Media Sport
Good evening, it is an absolute pleasure to be with you today. Im delighted to be invited by Caroline who is a real tour de force, who is powering the Creative Industries.
Creative UK plays a critical advocacy role in convening organisations across the cultural and creative industries. I know hundreds of you are members, and I value the programmes Creative UK runs right across the UK. Creative UK believes creativity can change the world. I believe that too.
This evening I want to talk about some of the fruits of the joint collaboration between the government and the industry. Fruits which are helping to set a strong framework for the industry to thrive and helped pave the way for the sorts of measures we introduced today.
I wanted to begin by recognising some of the great creativity Ive seen over the course of the past year as your Culture Secretary.
Because there are so many amazing productions that are bringing joy and meaning to people across the country: the first class production of original work in The Motive and the Cue at The National; the modern interpretation of Othello at The Globe; the traditional and beautiful production of Cinderella at Royal Opera House; real British dramas like Happy Valley and Inside Man; outstanding films like Saltburn, and Oppenheimer; the See, Hear, Feel interactive Ukraine exhibition in Liverpool during Eurovision; the incredible Aviva Studios in Manchester, home of the new flagship destination Factory International; our iconic world leading fashion displayed in the NEWGEN Rebel exhibition at the Design Museum.
Each show, each production, festival or exhibition is incredible in and of itself but its also part of a much bigger picture of creative success. And each creative endeavour fundamentally relies on incredible innovation, technical expertise and the craft of so many. Like set specialists 4Wood TV & Film based in Wales and growing into the West Midlands, who build for Doctor Who and much more.
And while weve seen exceptional British talent recognised in recent weeks at the BRITS, at the BAFTAs, London Fashion Week the creativity coming through at the grassroots level is just as inspiring.
Our start-ups, our schools, our colleges, our grassroots venues are all incubators for ideas and home to the creative geniuses of tomorrow. And our cultural institutions are doing ground-breaking work like the Royal Shakespeare Company transforming literacy rates across England. The National Theatre bringing the best of theatre to schools, libraries and museums. Meanwhile, places like Roundhouse Works in London or The Junction in Cambridge are giving chances to the next generation of musicians and creatives.
And one of the most inspiring visits Ive done was to the London Screen Academy. Seeing how Charlie Kennard and the team are building a pipeline of talent of creative confident kids who are learning skills so fundamental to all jobs communication, team work, and presentation skills.
What is very clear to me is that your ingenuity, your skills, your creative excellence not only brings happiness and meaning to the lives of millions of people it also provides jobs right across the country and cements our status as a cultural superpower on the world stage.
And I wanted this evening to share with you - just in case its youve got any doubt about it - just how much this government backs you and the creative industries.
And I wanted to do this by way of a story. At the end of last year the Prime Minister and Trade Secretary organised the Global Investment Summit. That Summit invited over 200 top international investors to pitch the UK as a destination of foreign investment. There were only 4 plenary sessions and 2 were dedicated to the creative industries - that is half of the presentations reserved for the creative industries.
It was an overwhelming recognition by this government that today - in 2024 our companies, our innovators, our creators, our artists are putting a British stamp on every creative industry on the world stage. You are our shop window for the globe and we in government recognise that.
This British success across the globe is, of course, primarily the result of our ingenuity, your talent, your hard work and entrepreneurial spirit. But you have also worked with us in government in partnership.Throughout the last decade youve made clear how we can support your industries to thrive and we have listened.
Extensive tax reliefs.
1.57 billion worth of support through the Covid cultural recovery fund.
A range of funds to help creative entrepreneurs go from start-up to scale-up.
Consecutive Conservative Governments have identified the potential that exists across our creative economy; theyve understood the enormous dedication and determination of the businesses and people in these sectors; and theyve recognised the importance of Creative Industries to our way of life.
Over the last decade, every year the government has introduced tax reliefs in one form or another.
From film to animation to video games to orchestras to theatres, these tax reliefs have helped to attract huge global investment into the UK.
Global investment that translates into local jobs and livelihoods, into new businesses into our towns and cities - big and small - into a culture that encourages creativity at every turn and at every level.
We in government cannot guarantee success, but all we can do is create the right conditions and the right framework to foster it.
And I wanted to share with you this evening the impact of all this and what the statistics show. The statistics show: nearly a million new jobs in the Creative Industries since 2011;and the GVA of the sector has increased by 50 percent to 125 billion in 2022.
Exports of creative industries services are up 210% since 2010.
And recently published figures confirmed the sector has grown by more than 10% between 2019 and 2022.
These are not just statistics. Behind these numbers are hundreds, if not thousands of success stories up and down the country.Ideas brought to life by creative industries. Jobs that did not exist over a decade ago. And creativity we have all enjoyed, which could have gone elsewhere, but didnt.
None of this would have been possible without the energy, leadership, creativity, passion and investment of the people in this room, and beyond. So I wanted to take this evening to simply say thank you for everything you have done.
But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.Last year when I spoke to you at this very same event, I committed to bring forward an ambitious vision for your industries.
These were not just words, and I wanted to update you on what I have done over the course of the last year together with you.
In June we launched our Creative Sector Vision, developed in partnership with the Creative Industries Council, and the fantastic Sir Peter Bazalgette, which sets out our plan for the future.
We have a joint plan to deliver 50 billion of growth, a million more jobs and a pipeline of talent so that the industry can continue to thrive. And we say we will do that by 2030.
And our plan included 310 million of funding, of which 77 million was recently announced in June, to drive growth in creative businesses across the country, through projects such as financially supporting creative clusters in the regions because we recognise creativity is everywhere.
It includes a focus on skills from the first day of school to the last day of work, including for example creativity during primary school, specialist schools, more apprenticeships, boot camps in the Creative Industries.
At the same time as we announced the Creative Industries Sector Vision in June, we announced programmes like: the UK Games Fund to bring through early stage games developers; funding to support grassroots music venues; and a trebling of the Music Exports Growth Scheme that has helped so many emerging artists.
And today at the Budget weve built on all our existing support and the Creative Industries Vision, going further than ever before with a package of 1 billion in measures
It was a Budget that recognised that within the creative industries there are a whole range of subsectors, each with their own specific needs, each with their own nuances and each with their own huge potential for growth.
Today what we did was set out bespoke support for so many of these different, constituent parts of the wider sector.
So for our film studios - which are an essential reason that last year half of the top ten blockbuster UK movies were made on British soil - we are providing support through a 40% business rates relief until 2034, enabling our studios to attract the investment needed from around the world to bring more creativity and more creative jobs to Britain.
For British independent film we are backing those companies with a new UK Independent Film Tax Credit providing an increased benefit of 53%, enabling this part of the sector to continue to launch the careers of actors, producers and directors and to tell the cultural stories of the whole of the UK.
For our visual effect sector, there will be a 5% increase in tax relief and we are going to remove the 80% cap on UK visual effects qualifying expenditure. These new visual effects reliefs will come into force in 2025 and our aim is to make the UK a number one global destination for visual effects.
For our orchestras, museums, galleries and theatres, the CX confirmed today that the Government will set permanent higher rates of tax reliefs to continue the Governments support for new innovative productions.
From 1 April 2025 these