Creative industries to get £380m boost ahead of industrial strategy launch
The investment, announced by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, will see £380 million spent on a range of projects intended to double private investment in the creative industries.
Ms Nandy said the investment would 'boost regional growth, stimulate private investment, and create thousands more high-quality jobs'.
The figure includes £25 million for research into cutting-edge technologies such as the virtual avatars used in Abba Voyage, and £75 million to support the film industry.
It will also see £30 million put towards backing start-up video games companies – an industry worth billions of pounds to the UK – and another £30 million for the music industry, including an increase in funding for grassroots venues.
Another £150 million will be split between the mayors of Manchester, Liverpool, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, the North East and the West of England to support creative businesses in their regions.
The announcement comes as the Government prepares to publish its industrial strategy next week, billed as a 10-year, multibillion-pound plan to back certain sectors and secure growth for the UK economy.
The creative industries are set to be one of the winners, with a plan for the sector expected to be published alongside the wider industrial strategy.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: 'The UK's creative industries are world-leading and have a huge cultural impact globally, which is why we're championing them at home and abroad as a key growth sector in our modern industrial strategy.'
But earlier this month, the Government also rejected a planning application for a major new film studio near Holyport, in Berkshire, over its impact on the green belt.
The £380 million has been welcomed by the industry, with the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (Bectu) saying it was a 'show of commitment to the sector'.
But Bectu chief Philippa Childs said creative workers would also be looking for 'sustained support' from the Government as the sector 'recovers from a series of external shocks'.
Recent years have seen the sector rocked by Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and concerns about the impact of AI and Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on films made outside the US.
Conservative shadow culture secretary Stuart Andrew accused Labour of threatening the 'very survival' of the creative industries.
He said: 'From their national insurance jobs tax to their business rates hike, Labour are pushing creative businesses to the brink, and we now know that Rachel Reeves has a secret plan to raise taxes – meaning things will only get worse.
'Labour must recognise that their economic mismanagement is dealing a devasting blow to the sector.'
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When Nigel Farage called for the nationalisation of British Steel on a visit to the Scunthorpe steelworks this spring, it was a marked change in direction for a man who had spent almost all of his political career campaigning for a smaller, Thatcherite state. Two years earlier, he had questioned why British taxpayers' money should be thrown into keeping the fires of the very same blast furnaces burning. Back in 2018 he told an interviewer: 'I supported Margaret Thatcher's modernisation and reforms of the economy. It was painful for some people, but it had to happen.' After gaining a fifth MP and sweeping to a string of victories in England's local elections last month, his Reform UK is coming for Labour in places Keir Starmer's party once considered its traditional heartlands: the former mill towns, pit villages and workshops of northern England and the Midlands, the steel towns of south Wales and the shipyards of Scotland. 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Signatories have to enter a postcode, enabling support to be plotted geographically. Hotspots included Essex and Lincolnshire – Reform strongholds. 'We're looking at how active they are, where we can assign a high probability that it [a petition] is being driven by Reform or their organised groups via WhatsApp,' said one adviser to a Labour MP. Almost all the Reform target seats backed Brexit, including 15 Labour won from the Tories in 2024. Most had only been Tory since 2019, when many decades-old Labour seats backed Boris Johnson's 'levelling up' and 'get Brexit done' messages. On average, leave voters tend to be more socially conservative and anti-immigration. Many 'red wall' MPs are pushing Starmer to adopt a tougher stance on immigration as a result, including the Blue Labour caucus founded by Maurice Glasman. Reform has pushed hard on the issue, in a high-stakes campaign after last summer's riots across the UK – including in many post-industrial towns. 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