Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department to support the UK as a major location for the visual effects industry.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The government is committed to supporting the UK’s visual effects and Animation industries, ensuring that they are able to remain competitive and with international reach. We will continue to focus on maintaining a strong and globally competitive sector by keeping tax incentives modern, agile and attractive; investing in infrastructure; supporting innovation; working with industry on skills development; and promoting independent content.
The audio-visual tax reliefs - administered by the BFI - play a key role in boosting competitiveness, incentivising the production of culturally British content, and contributing to the industry’s - and the nation’s - economic growth.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of unemployment in (a) the visual effects sector and (b) UK film and TV post production.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The last Parliament saw the biggest increase in economic inactivity in nearly 40 years. Film and TV employment rates were drastically affected by the US writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, and VFX and post-production was affected for longer than most. Figures from trade union Bectu suggest that the sector is recovering slowly, as unemployment across film and TV is down from 74% in September 2023 to 52% in July 2024. This clearly remains a difficult time for the sector and the government is committed to working with the sector to get it back to rude health, by attracting new film and high-end TV productions that require our VFX and post-production studios; providing competitive tax incentives; investing in infrastructure; supporting innovation, and promoting independent content.
The government will continue to ensure our tax incentives are modern, agile, competitive and attractive.
The government wants to ensure a creative career remains a viable prospect for people from whatever their background. We are working with industry stakeholders as they respond to the recommendations of the Good Work Review, a sectoral deep dive funded by DCMS into job quality and working practice. This sets out a number of priorities, including developing dedicated support and guidance for self-employed creators.
The government will continue to engage with sector organisations such as the UK Screen Alliance to support and champion our award winning VFX and post-production talent and make the UK an attractive and competitive place to do business.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage more women and girls to participate in non-professional sport in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
We are dedicated to supporting every aspect of women’s sport and ensuring all women and girls, no matter their background, have access to high quality sport.
Sport England, our Arm’s Length Body, directly supports Active Dorset to help get people active in the area. To date, activities have reached over 1500 participants, 58% of whom are girls.
There are also some fantastic initiatives that exist to encourage women to take up sport and physical activity, for example Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign, which has already inspired millions of women and girls to get active.
We, as Government, are committed to supporting girls and boys across the country to get more access to sport and physical activity, this includes a review of the curriculum to protect time for PE. Sport England has also developed the Studio You PE teaching resource which aims to get young girls engaged in PE lessons by offering a range of non-traditional activities, like boxing, dance, pilates and yoga.