Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Harriet Harman and Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna will today launch a review on how Britain can capitalise on its cutting-edge creative industries and developments in the digital economy as a key part of growing our way out of the cost-of-living crisis through better-paid and high-skilled jobs.

The review will be led by former UK Film Council Director John Woodward, supported by a group of industry experts from the film, TV, music, gaming, publishing and digital industries.

It will look at the challenges and opportunities for policymakers and businesses alike as well as how can Britain can better compete and continue to lead the way globally in the sector.

Labour established the UK’s first strategy to support the creative industries when it took power in 1997 and since then the sector has become one of the most significant and fastest-growing parts of the UK economy.

Ed Miliband has argued that the UK will not win a race to the bottom on wages and skills. We need to earn our way out of the cost of living crisis by creating more high skill, high wage jobs, supporting key growth sectors in the economy and ensure that the gains from growth are shared more fairly.

New digital technologies have the capacity to improve the quality of life for British citizens – and to create wealth and new jobs.

However, significant social and economic concerns remain. These include whether new players are being excluded from markets; how best to protect Intellectual Property rights, which are the bedrock of the creative industries, while supporting access to information and platforms; and how we can ensure that the new commercial, ethical and social trends being set by companies at the forefront of commercial innovation meet the best interests of both the British public and our creative industries.

As Ed Miliband has said, the challenge for the digital economy is to “position the UK to take advantage of emerging internet-based innovations but also to ensure the gains from this and other technological innovations are equitably shared, and to build them in a way that helps shape the sort of society we want to live in”.

Labour’s independent review aims to answer these questions with regard to the digital and creative industries.

Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary, said:

“Our creative industries are a huge success story home and abroad. They punch well above their weight in terms of international success and help put Britain on the map.

They have also grown faster than the rest of the economy in difficult times and we want to create the best conditions to allow them to continue to flourish which will help us earn our way to a better future.

The creative industries also have the jobs of the future that our young people want – high skilled and well paid. I look forward to working with John and his team over the coming months.”

Chuka Umunna MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, said:

“Our creative industries - manufacturers of content - are one of our fastest-growing and most important sectors. We want to see them grow further and for the UK to lead the world. As we look to create an economy which produces more high-skilled, better-paid jobs, they will have a central role to play over the coming decades.

“This review will focus on the opportunities and challenges presented by the ways in which the digital economy is changing the way we do business. These include questions on access to information and platforms, ensuring there is strong competition with space for new entrants and that innovation is harnessed to grow new jobs, new companies, putting Britain in the best place to take advantage of opportunities which lie ahead.”

John Woodward said:

“I have two objectives for the Review: first, to deliver a clear agenda for an incoming Labour government to help ensure that the UK’s creative industries grow, focusing on the real ‘game changers’.

“Second, to look at the impact of the creative industries from the perspective of UK citizens - asking what all of us might reasonably expect in terms of protections, safeguards and access to quality content and information in the digital world.

“I’m delighted to be working with a dynamic advisory board of entrepreneurs and creative professionals whose knowledge and experience of this sector is unparalleled.”

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