TAC welcomes the publication of the UK Government Creative Industries Sector Plan. Particularly notable is the increase to the UK Global Screen Fund, something which TAC has been calling for. We also welcome the commitment to working with devolved Parliaments and acknowledgement of the important part Creative Wales is playing in developing Skills. It is also good to see an increase in funding for the National Film and Television School.

The commitment to strengthen the North Wales corridor will also be important in ensuring more communities in Wales can fully benefit from having creative businesses.

We are also pleased to see a growth in plans for trade missions and markets, TAC is already working with the Department of Business and Trade on these areas and will look forward to engaging on this.

We note the Plan’s acknowledgement of the importance of the independent TV production sector. In terms of any planned further work on preserving the public service broadcasting system, it is important that the balance between broadcasters and producers is preserved in terms of not weakening the protections for producers’ IP included in the regulated Terms of Trade, which Ofcom is currently looking at.

Lastly we note that the tax relief system will be maintained and consideration given to possible further changes, on which note we will continue to call for a lower High-End TV tax credit threshold for minority language productions, to assist S4C, TG4, MG Alba and others to produce more high-end content that can be marketed internationally.

We note the Government’s reassurances on protecting creative copyright from uncontrolled scraping by AI models, but would reiterate that measures to ensure transparency in terms of what content is being scraped, and a fair remuneration process that doesn’t place the burden on the copyright holder, are crucial and need to be delivered as soon as possible.