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Mr. Fisher: I was going to take the Government to task before returning to the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes.
The right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) was probably the last film Minister who had an interest in and passion for the industry; since then, things have gone from bad to the worse. The Films Act 1985 began dismantling the structural support: probably correctly, it abolished the Eady levy, but it did not replace it with anything. When, later, capital allowances were abandoned, the industry was left in a much worse position fiscally than any comparable English language film industry. The Government put nothing in their place.
Although Mrs. Thatcher took a personal interest, held high-profile meetings at Downing street, asked all the right people and listened to all the right evidence, she did nothing. I suspect that that is another example of the DTI, the DNH--then known as the Office of Arts and Libraries--and the Treasury being unable to agree. Without cross-departmental co-operation and work, we shall not get this industry right. As every Member who has spoken has said, the key is not subsidy or direct grant aid but fiscal incentive, so the Treasury must be brought on board. We had no action, no policy and no understanding.
The debate cannot pass without the Government being held to book for the disgrace about Eurimages. As was said, for a £2 million ante-up dividend, as it were, we are losing out on £40 million to £50 million of co-production. Everyone in Europe wants to be our co-production partner. The Minister knows that something went terribly wrong. It slipped through people's fingers, I suspect because they did not understand its significance. I suspect that the Foreign Office was as angry as we were about our withdrawal from Eurimages, because it did understand, as did the rest of the world. The Minister should say something about Eurimages, and make a commitment to rejoining as soon as possible.
I now come to the point made by the right hon. Member for Mole Valley. The Labour party will have a policy. It will be an updating of, and similar to, the policy that we published in 1991-92, which, I am glad to say, was developed with my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), who is now the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was Labour's trade and industry spokesman before the last general election.
If and when we are elected, we shall at last have, in my hon. Friend, a Chancellor of the Exchequer who knows about, understands and is committed to the cultural industries generally, and the film industry in particular. His knowledge is perhaps not as great as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton, the Chairman of the Committee, but it is considerable. Although, obviously, what I shall say now must receive the approval of the various committees of the Labour party before it becomes policy, I am able to give an idea this morning of the direction in which we are moving, and of our priorities and approach.
Our policy is largely based on the report. It is a matter not of subsidy but of fiscal incentives--accelerated write-offs, an adaptation of section 35 of the Irish Finance Act 1988. It is not difficult to do, and we shall do it, although we shall do it, unlike the Irish, for a specified period--probably of five years, with a review after two. It should not be a permanent regime. It is a way of kick-starting, and we shall monitor how and whether it is working.
The industry has problems of internal inflation, and such fiscal incentives may attract investment for investment's sake rather than for feature film production's sake. Nevertheless, our approach is right and practicable, and a Labour Government will seek to adopt it. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient, and we would need to develop the Green Light fund, the £5 million national lottery fund administered by British Screen--ably managed by Simon Perry. We shall consider with interest new ideas being floated for studio franchises. We shall certainly rejoin Eurimages.
We shall have a wider policy, covering training, educational, national and regional film production--including Scotland, which is doing so well--post-production, and relationships within the audiovisual industry. We have in this country a fast-growing multi-media sector and a relationship between publishing, publishing and CD-ROM and film.
Perhaps we shall need to reconsider the definition of the word "film" in the 1985 Act, because the scale of budgets for CD-ROM interactive videos is about the same
as that of full-length feature films, and very profitable. We are very good at creating those interactive videos, but once again the investment is coming from Time Warner and so on. We should use our talent, but we are not making the investment. We need to, and the Labour Government will, see film in that context.
Most particularly, our attitude will be supportive of film. As the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Mr. Callaghan) said, the most interesting thing about Ireland is not the fiscal incentives. The Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins, is committed and passionate, and goes out and beats the drum for the Irish film industry. His commitment, wanting people to come to Ireland to make films, is as important as the fiscal incentives.
The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat):
I start by paying a true tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and the National Heritage Select Committee. Their report is extremely valuable. Unfortunately, I have but five minutes to reply to the debate. I do not complain about that, because it is more important for as many Back Benchers as possible to say where their concerns lie than for Front-Bench Members to take up time saying what we already know.
Nevertheless, five minutes is obviously not enough time in which to describe the considerable framework of help and support for the film industry, and I hope that another time will be found for hon. Members to discuss the different elements in depth.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) rightly said that the report was not, in a sense, about the film industry, but about the important part of the film industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has deep concerns about the exhibition process in this country, which merits a speech in itself. I therefore hope that it will be possible to get a real crack at this, consonant and commensurate with the importance of the industry.
I agreed with much of what the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Mr. Callaghan) said, but I am sorry if he gained the impression that the Department is not interested in the film industry; he is mistaken. Last night, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State went to the premiere of "Richard III". She is extremely keen to get this matter right. I know that she would point out that not only is "Richard III" a British film, but it was made in conjunction with the National theatre--another element of the Department's interests, the National theatre having recently received funds from the national lottery.
The film pulls together several threads, and we need time to debate them, but I can assure the House that my right hon. Friend is determined to work out a policy, which I hope would have bipartisan support, to support and encourage the industry.
In the few remaining minutes, I shall speak, not ludicrously fast but as speedily as is sensible, to say as much as I can.
The Government's detailed response to the Select Committee's report was published in June 1995 in our policy paper, "The British Film Industry". Our policy addressed all the recommendations made by the Committee except for those on tax incentives, which are, as the House has noted and said this morning, a matter for my Treasury colleagues. We had no hesitation in accepting many of the Committee's recommendations, and we are now advancing the work involved in implementing them. I am sorry that time does not allow me to say in detail what that work is, but I hope that we shall find another occasion.
We have also announced further initiatives of our own, which are proceeding. The debate takes place against a background of the growing success of the British film industry. Of course, we still wish to do many things that we have not yet been able to do.
It would be quite wrong if, in concentrating--as did some hon. Members--on what still needs to be done, we failed to remember the successes of the British film industry. The recent academy awards ceremony in Los Angeles underlined once again the excellent reputation that is enjoyed by British talent across the whole range of the film makers' arts. Britons were nominated in virtually every category, from acting, directing and writing to our costume design, documentary films and animation.
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