The potential impact of Brexit on the creative industries, tourism and the digital single market

The United Kingdom: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) published a report called The potential impact of Brexit on the creative industries, tourism and the digital single market in January 2018.

Maintaining access to talent, UK production tax credits, and getting clarity around regulatory equivalence with the EU, were vital to resolving concerns about Brexit, said the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in its report.

Further information

The Committee's report examined the potential impact of changes to three key areas: the workforce, funding and the regulatory environment.

In producing this report, the Committee sought to identify areas of concern that needed to be addressed as part of the Brexit process. The working assumption of the Committee in making its recommendations to the Government had been that the UK would leave the EU at the end of March 2019, and would not seek to maintain its membership of the European Single Market, beyond any agreed transitional period following Brexit.

Report findings

Tourism, the creative industries, and the businesses that made up the digital economy were key sectors of the UK's economy.

+ Travel and tourism was the fourth largest industry in the UK, contributing in excess of £130bn to the economy.
+ The creative industries employed 1.9 million people across the UK in 2015.
+ The technology and digital sector grew 32% faster in 2017 than the rest of the economy, boosting GDP by around £145bn a year.

There were, however, a number of areas of potential challenge to these industries as a result of Brexit:

Workforce

+ The overwhelming message from businesses and organisations across the creative industries and tourism sectors was to retain the access to the talent they need from outside the UK, particularly as a large percentage of the international workforce supporting them is made up of EU nationals.
+ There is a need for reliable data now about the workforce and possible skills gaps, should this access to talent not be maintained.
+ Clarity of proposed revised immigration rules and processes is essential to businesses in the creative industries to allow them time to prepare for any new Brexit environment.

Funding

+ A Government mapping exercise setting out precise streams of existing, direct European funding for creative and cultural organisations, and an overview of future funding, should be published in order to assuage current uncertainty over the nature of long-term funding.

Regulatory environment

+ In the telecommunications sector particular uncertainty exists around possible price hikes for UK mobile phone customers using mobile data in the EU post Brexit. The Government must be open and honest about the latest predictions regarding data roaming charges.
+ A Government action plan describing how UK policy development on data protection will take place after Brexit is now a priority.
+ The Government must set out its intentions for co-operation with our European neighbours in respect to copyright protection, including enforcement actions.
+ To address profound industry uncertainty the Government must as an urgent priority state its negotiating intentions with respect to the Country of Origin rules framework and set out its contingency plan, should the rules cease to apply after Brexit. In addition, the Government should make clear whether the audio-visual sector will form part of the formal trading negotiations with the EU.
+ It is important that the Government sets out progress on negotiations regarding the single aviation market, and reassures the tourist industry that contingency plans are being made in the event of no deal.

UK: Parliament: House of Commons: Parliamentary Business: Committees: News, 25.01.18: Potential impact of Brexit report published http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/brexit-report-published-17-19/

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