YouTube launches Westminster forum to champion UK’s creator economy
YouTube has unveiled a new cross-party parliamentary group dedicated to championing the UK’s digital creator economy, announced at its annual YouTube Festival in London yesterday.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for creators, co-chaired by former digital ministers Feryal Clark MP and Lord Ed Vaizey, will act as a formal bridge between policymakers and the country’s growing creator industry.
Its launch follows YouTube’s first-ever Creator Consultation, which gathered feedback from more than 10,000 UK-based creators earlier this year.
Announcing the initiative at the event, Alison Lomax, YouTube’s UK and Ireland managing director, described creators as an essential part of Britain’s £115bn creative industries.
“Creators are a growth engine for the UK”, she told attendees. “They’re building businesses, attracting global audiences, and exporting UK culture around the world. Without targeted support for this critical creative sector, we risk undermining a key source of future growth and revenue”.
Lomax added that in 2023 alone, YouTube contributed more than £2.2bn to UK GDP.
“We built an economy together. You’re all the founders of that economy, so a big thank you”, she argued.
Bridging the gap between creators and policymakers
The APPG will be run jointly by the Digital Creator Association and the Influencer Marketing Trade Body, with support from YouTube.
Its remit will include tackling issues around access to skills, training, finance and studio space, as well as improving filming infrastructure and ensuring clearer representation for creators within government.
Clark described creators as “the rock stars of a new cultural age”, telling festival-goers: “From bedrooms, coffee shops and chicken shops across the UK, you have sparked movements and exported British creativity to every corner of the planet. For far too long, Westminster has lagged behind your brilliance – today we change that”.
Chris Curtis MP, chair of the Labour Growth Group and an officer of the APPG, said the forum would ensure that Parliament “fully recognises creators as the dynamic entrepreneurs they are”.
He added: “The creator growth story is integral to the growth of the nation – supporting innovation, creating good jobs, and building the industries of the future”.
Industry leaders welcomed the move. Phil Hughes, chief executive of the Digital Creator Association, said the APPG would provide “increased co-operation with, and access to, parliamentarians”, while Scott Guthrie, director general of the Influencer Marketing Trade Body, called creators “sophisticated media businesses” and said the group must now focus on “the regulatory and commercial frameworks that underpin this ecosystem”.
Policy spotlight on YouTube
The creation of the group comes as policymakers intensify scrutiny of major video platforms.
Earlier this month, culture secretary Lisa Nandy suggested that new regulations may be needed to ensure public service media content is given prominence on YouTube and other platforms, following warnings from Ofcom about the dominance of digital services in UK viewing habits.
The APPG will not be directly controlled by YouTube, but the company has made no secret of its push for greater recognition of the creator economy in official policymaking.
In July, YouTube called for a minister dedicated to the creator economy, alongside reforms to HMRC tax guidance and filming permit rules.
As Lomax announced: “This landmark parliamentary group solely dedicated to the interests of UK creators will provide a vital parliamentary focus to help turn the Creative Industries Industrial Strategy’s ambitions for our sector into reality”.