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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government is planning to create alternative grass-roots funding programmes for creative SMEs if the UK does not participate in EU funded programmes after the UK leaves the EU.

The creative industries contributed £91.8 billion to the economy in 2016, and the government recognises the important role of SMEs in this success.

Under the Withdrawal Agreement, the UK will continue to benefit from EU programmes such as Creative Europe until the end of the current period (until 2020). The White Paper published on 12 July states that the Government is open to looking at continued participation in programmes, such as Creative Europe. As part of the Sector Deal published in March, government is also looking at securing the sector’s future prosperity and growth and will invest more than £150 million across the lifecycle of creative businesses.