Government provides £1.1 billion cash boost to creative sectors

7 Aug 2019 03:17 PM

New figures reveal how much Britain's creative and art sectors have benefitted from tax reliefs.

Britain’s celebrated and world-leading creative and arts sectors have flourished in the last year thanks to £1.1 billion of support from Government, official statistics showed yesterday.

The award-winning TV series Killing Eve and the critically acclaimed film Phantom Thread are among the productions to have benefited from High-End TV and Film Tax Reliefs respectively.

Since these tax reliefs were introduced, 2,955 films, 485 TV productions and 1,075 videogames have benefited and, for the first time, museums and galleries exhibition tax relief has helped to showcase 300 exhibitions across the UK.

In 2016, the screen sector contributed almost £8 billion to the UK economy. In 2016, the film sector alone contributed over £1.71 billion of UK exports.

Jesse Norman, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, yesterday said:

The arts and creative industries make a vital contribution to the UK economy. These tax reliefs have helped support some astonishing and exciting work again this year, celebrating the very best of British culture.

Creative Sector Tax Reliefs were introduced to help UK businesses in these highly skilled and innovative sectors thrive at home and abroad. The reliefs support jobs and economic activity in all parts of the UK.

Amanda Nevill, CEO at the BFI, which administers cultural tests for the screen sector tax reliefs, yesterday said:

The BFI’s Screen Business report ‘How screen tax reliefs power economic growth across the UK’ demonstrated how they are helping to drive one of our fastest-growing sectors, creating jobs across the UK, investment in innovation and delivering a strong return on investment to the UK economy with close to £8 billion spent annually on production.

UK-made films, television programmes and video games are international award-winners and are enjoyed by audiences at home and abroad.

The combination of an explosion in global demand for high-quality productions, our creative and technical excellence, and the UK’s supportive fiscal environment creates huge opportunities for our sector to grow further and boost the future prosperity of the UK.

Additional information

Full annual tax relief statistics available here.

Table 1: Creative sector tax reliefs awarded in 2018/19

Relief	Number of projects	Amount of relief paid (£m)
Film	705	595
High-End Television	210	246
Animation	95	16
Video Games	535	103
Children’s Television	115	16
Theatre	3,380	78
Orchestra	555	16
Museums and Galleries	300	4