Letter from chair Baroness Tina Stowell reinforces warnings from major broadcasters
The Lords Communications Committee has joined the list of opponents to government proposals to raise the threshold for high-end TV (HETV) tax relief.
In a letter to chancellor Jeremy Hunt, chair Baroness Tina Stowell said the committee “remains concerned” that the positive impact of tax reliefs on the audiovisual sector is “not sufficiently well recognised by the Government”.
The government is currently mulling increasing the £1m qualifying threshold for HETV projects to better ‘reflect current production costs and budgets’, but Baroness Stowell has warned the Treasury to “consider carefully the potential impact” on the UK’s screen sector if it implements the plans.
The letter reinforces a similar warning sent last month by leading UK media bodies including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Netflix and Pact, which said raising the threshold would lead to fewer HETV projects being made in the UK and put at risk £1.3bn of additional tax revenue and 30,000 jobs.
Stowell reiterated that every £1 of HETV tax relief contributes a further £6.44 to the economy.
“Other countries are increasingly adopting similar or more generous tax reliefs and the UK is falling behind,” she added.
Programmes such as the BBC’s Ghosts and Inside No.9 as well as The Bay and Pembrokeshire Murders were all cited as the types of series at risk to an increased threshold.
In 2022, 195 productions qualified for HETV tax reliefs and contributed £4.3bn in annual production spend in the UK, the second highest on record.
A separate ScreenSkills report predicted the UK HETV sector will be worth £7.7bn by 2025.
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