George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on Wednesday announced the annual budget that included news that will bring cheer to the film, television and games industries. To further encourage growth in the sector the government will increase the rate of film tax relief to 25% for all qualifying expenditure, and extend the high-end television tax relief by reducing the minimum UK expenditure requirement from 25% to 10% and modernising the cultural test. The government will introduce a new children’s television tax relief from April 2015, which will include children’s programmes that are game shows or competitions. 

The government is also extending the Skills Investment Fund, providing £4 million to ensure that it can continue to match fund support for training and development in film, television, visual effects, video games and animation for a further two years; and promote a vibrant business environment for new and growing video games companies across the UK by committing £4 million to a new Video Games Prototype Fund over the next 4 years. However, the budget for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport remains static at last year’s figure of £1.2 billion.

Osborne said, “Our creative industries are already a huge contributor to the British economy – and today we make our TV and film tax credits more generous.” “Britain is a cultural centre of the world – and with these tax changes I’m determined we will stay in front,” he added.