Brexit: Creative Industries — House of Lords, 2017-01-19
Topic: Domestic Commerce
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on moving this excellent and important debate. The UK creative industries are a tremendous British success story in terms of jobs created, growth, profits and exports. In 2014, the last year for which we have figures, they employed 1.8 million people, many of them in the north of England in the gaming industry. Their job creation has been running at 5% per annum. Over the last few years, their gross value added has grown by more than 4%—twice the rate of growth of the rest of the economy. That is £84 billion and more than 5% of our total economy. Their export achievement is phenomenal. It is £19 billion, with America accounting for 25% of that—our largest single market—at about £5 billion, followed by Germany and France at about £1 billion each The major sectors are: advertising and marketing at £13 billion; film, TV and video at £10 billion; IT software and computers at £36 billion; publishing at £10 billion; and music and performing arts at £5 billion. The UK is the third-largest gaming producer in the world after the USA and Japan. That is not going to change because of Brexit and our largest gaming export market is the USA. We apparently employ a lot of EU nationals and since they are highly skilled workers they will obviously qualify under any new type of visa regime we invent Of course, we also get EU funding from the Creative Europe stream, which boasts that the UK received the largest grant ever for any EU country. A lot of people have said that funding is vital for the gaming industry. So how much was the funding from Europe? It was £547,000, to be precise. But since 2014 the gaming industry has received £45 million in Treasury tax relief. So what if we leave the EU? The British Government’s support is worth 82 times the EU subsidy. Then, take our film industry, which is the third-largest film entertainment market in the world after the USA and China, running at about £4.8 billion. It too gets funding from Creative Europe. That amounted to £3.8 million in 2014, but Treasury funding in 2014 was £414 million, or 110 times more. How can anyone make an argument that leaving the EU would deprive the film industry of vital public subsidy? All told, taxpayer support for the creative industries and the arts runs at more than £1 billion, whereas total EU funding through Creative Europe was a mere €40 million None of our export markets would dry up after Brexit, whether it is IT and software, accounting for 46% of our exports, or film and TV at 24%, or architecture, or publishing. They will all thrive. Our creative industries are the most innovative and can benefit from the most freedom. They are not making cast-iron widgets based on the technology of the last century, but are in the forefront of trying out exciting new ideas at which British innovators excel The House does not need to take my word for it that the creative industries will thrive outside the EU. I have a document issued by the Creative Industries Council called 100 UK Creative Industry Wins in 100 days, on building on the success of the EU referendum. I will not read out all 100 wins, but here are just a dozen that the Creative Industries Council boasts about since 23 June. Australia and New Zealand networks have confirmed that Brexit will not affect their TV orders from UK. The UK and South Africa have co-signed a production treaty. AMC has bought UVI and Odeon cinemas for £921 million. Japan’s SoftBank has bought ARM for £24.3 billion. Gateshead architects have won a major contract in Mongolia. Foster Partners has won a major award in New York. Leach Design has won a contract for Kuwait National Museum. A UK firm has won a stadium project for the 2024 Los Angeles Olympics. The Chinese firm, Huawei, confirmed plans for a £1.3 billion investment in the UK. Google announced London as its European HQ. An Australian TV company chose Cardiff for its new European HQ. Dyson announced a £250 million investment in R&D in the Cotswolds. Apple is to create a spectacular UK HQ at Battersea power station. Disney has chosen Northern Ireland as a production home for TV and Salford’s Media City has had a £1 billion expansion plan approved Those were just 12 of the 100 good news announcements up to 1 October last year, since when there has been no slowdown in our creative industries expanding, winning new orders and exporting more, especially now that the pound is down to a more sensible level against the dollar and needs to drop a bit more still if our industry is to survive and export Therefore, we should welcome getting out of the EU. Our creative industries do not need an EU comfort blanket. An industry producing £84 billion per annum and exporting £19 billion does not need a paltry €40 million subsidy from the EU. We are better than that, so let us drive forward, maintaining and enhancing our hugely successful creative export market and showing a fraction of the courage demonstrated by the Prime Minister in her wonderful speech on Tuesday.