Speeches by Bryant.

“Well, it might not be a Government activity. For instance, if I go back to my data Minister side, there are companies working in this sphere that would like to create a data exchange like the stock exchange, because there are lots of organisations that simply do not know where to go to find data, to buy data that they …”

“This plan is funded and committed, and you know the specific sums, with the £380 million that was committed to. Some of that has come from us and some of it is coming from DSIT. I am grateful, incidentally, to my DSIT colleagues for wanting to embrace this. They will be able to say more later this year about R&D, about…”

“I feel I ought to say something witty and amusing. You obviously toyed with that but rejected that idea. The point has been well made by, in particular, people from Leicester, because there is quite a conglomeration of comedy clubs and they have a comedy festival in Leicester as well. Yes, I am keen to have a roundtabl…”

“Obviously, our sector plan is part of a wider industrial strategy, so we are mirroring the process in other industries as well. With another hat on, I have responsibility for space. Space is included in the advanced manufacturing sector, and there is a similar criticism there. You are absolutely right that we need to e…”

“I think I heard you welcoming that investment—it did not sound like a welcome, but anyway. Some of the skills policy area is obviously not ours. It is the Department for Education’s. The Department has had its spending review and it has to make decisions about how it can advance in this sphere as well. I have spoken re…”

“We must definitely be more efficient in the Department, as must every other Department. There are things that we need to learn about how we could run the Department more efficiently. There are some challenges in that. For instance, we have 42 arm’s length bodies, I think. They vary, but they include things like the Art…”

“He’s very good, isn’t he?”

“I am very painfully aware that it is one thing to make a film and another matter to get it in front of eyes and actually make a living out of it. That depends on distribution and a whole series of different things. Do we have enough cinemas? Do we have cinemas that know how to market? Do we have distributors that are a…”

“One of the questions that I was specifically asked was whether it will be a Minister. No, it will not be a Minister. It will be somebody with more independence than that.”

“Yes. We have to work out what the precise terms of reference will be. That is a discussion that is ongoing. Of course, we want to talk to all the different parts of the sector to work out precisely what that should be, so that it is both proportionate and effective and so it does not end up being drowned in so many tas…”

“You have had Jane Featherstone in the past, haven’t you? On whether or not we should do a streaming levy—which is one of the things where we disagree with the Committee—not everybody in the sector agrees that that is the route to go. Others would argue that it is better to tweak the tax credits. We are very alive to th…”

“Yes. I know that some have managed to keep it. For instance, they are making a film of “Heartstopper” at the moment, which I guess is for Netflix. That is being made by See-Saw productions, because it made the TV series as well; I think intellectual property is staying with See-Saw productions. I want to see a mixed ec…”

“No. We are very nearly about to do something. We are fully behind it and fully support it. There are so many parts, and I would urge all Members to get engaged in this. The intangible assets campaign is an important part of recognising what Britishness is about. Whether it is rolling cheeses down hills or whatever it m…”

“I don’t know whether Alastair knows more about the specific discussions about broadcasting. The only thing that I will say is that I used to work in the BBC, about 5,000 years ago. Back then, the BBC was very much a hermetically sealed unit; it did not work with ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 or anybody else. Now that is co…”

“If you think about the museums and galleries that we run on behalf of the UK—and they are arm’s length bodies—they absorb a large chunk of our funding. They had a good settlement this last year: it was roughly 5% above inflation and we have been privately congratulated by all of them.”

“By “visual arts”, you mean painting and—”

“There are tax reliefs for orchestras, for touring and so on, and for galleries, so it is a wider set. Of course, many actors move between theatre, cinema and television, so I would argue that it is much more cross-sector.”

“The first thing we needed to do was get an agreement out of the European Union-UK summit, which we did, which was that we were to take forward further work on this. One of the issues for us is that we are the people who want this to happen. I think it is in the interests of every other country in Europe to enable prope…”

“Of course, but who are the creators in the film and TV industry? They are actors, designers, writers, hair and make-up, cinematographers—they are an enormously wide group of people. Some of them are freelancers. Those are some of the things that we want to take forward with the freelance champion. We will be looking at…”

“We are doing it. You recommended it. Where I possibly can, Dame Caroline, I like to agree with you.”