John Whittingdale
I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the excellent news from Amazon Prime. Can she confirm that the film and TV production restart scheme, which was possible only as a result of Brexit, has so far supported production worth nearly £2.5 billion and supported 80,000 jobs? Given this success, will she consider extending the scheme beyond its end in April, and if that is not possible, will she try to obtain equivalent cover from commercial insurers at that time?
Julia Lopez
The Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out how successful the scheme has been. It has supported £2.8 billion of production spend and over 92,000 jobs, which means we have kept production going and had a fantastic year. As he knows, the scheme was established as a time-limited and short-term intervention in response to a market failure because of the pandemic. It will continue until 30 June, but in the meantime we are working very closely with industry stakeholders and insurers to make sure that there is an effective transition to market cover when that scheme closes to new applicants in April
