The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
Home of Larry The Cat London SW1A 2AA

Thursday 23 July 2026

Urgent request for meeting: comedy sector tax brief and reforms regarding the explicit inclusion of comedy

Dear Andy,
Congratulations on your appointment as Prime Minister.
We write on behalf of the comedy industry to request an urgent meeting with you in the coming days.

CRAFT — Comedy Representation and Artform Trust — is the national body for UK comedy. It has cross-party political patrons, initiated and serves as Secretariat to the Comedy APPG, and is guided by the UK Comedy Advisory Board, whose professionals bring over 300 years of combined experience in the sector — including our beloved comedy patrons and parliamentarians' favourite talents, Tom Walker (Jonathan Pie) and Matt Forde.

It was wonderful to welcome you recently as the premier guest on Simon Says, Let's Talk, the men's creative health Podcast-on-Prescription I co-founded with your colleague Dr Simon Opher MP, in my capacity as the tech Founder and CEO of Craic. On the show, you expressed your support of comedy, saying "it is a social intervention which lifts, helps, and takes a bit of pressure off people"; and that "we have to think differently; Lu you're definitely doing that". We ask you to think differently today — to become the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to correct a long-standing omission: ensure frameworks are redesigned to explicitly include, name, and recognise comedy.

We were delighted to see your announcement that pubs, clubs and live music venues are set to receive a 20% cut to their business rates bills. However, today, the rooms where British comedy is made cannot access the same relief as the pub next door. As with January's 15% relief, comedy was again systemically excluded. This is despite being a vital sector of the UK economy — one that sustains thousands of grassroots SMEs, drives local spend, and connects communities across Britain and beyond. Comedy has wide cultural reach, directly supports local communities and small venues across the country, including in government hard-to-reach target areas for increasing access to the arts, rather than benefits being limited to major cities with existing creative infrastructure. Comedy is also uniquely accessible, written and performed in real time, so it can confront social inequalities and drive social change.

Like music and theatre, live comedy is more than entertainment; it's evidence-based healthcare which sits at the heart of our communities. It's time the Government and key institutions recognised its potential and backed it equally.

British comedy is a paradox. It is one of Britain's major creative economies, generating billions each year across live, broadcast, recorded, digital and visual formats — yet almost nothing is reinvested back into the sector, and its wealth sits with a handful of major brands and names. The grassroots that makes tomorrow's headliners — the comedians, writers, producers, bookers and agents; the clubs, venues, festivals and production companies — has been quietly buckling since the pandemic. Talent is leaving and businesses are closing: Leicester Comedy Festival, Britain's second-biggest, brings in £10 million for the local economy, yet it is on the brink of collapse and without support.

CRAFT, the Comedy Representation & Artform Trust, is the dedicated national body for the entire comedy industry ecosystem, spanning live, broadcast, recorded, digital, visual/illustrative, and the surrounding businesses—and the public they serve. CRAFT is Secretariat of the Comedy APPG and a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in formation which exists to give comedy the infrastructure, policy representation, and professional support long afforded to other industries, including music, theatre, and sport.

In time, CRAFT would welcome the chance to discuss a wide range of issues and solutions with you. Today, our ask is modest: please give comedy parity of esteem with other sectors in existing rates, tax and relief schemes — we have set out an outline of proposals below for your consideration. These marginal extensions come at minimal cost to Government, but the immediate impact for the comedy sector is enormous. For example: one change to Theatre Tax Relief (TTR) is worth an estimated £1m a year to the Edinburgh Fringe alone: extending eligibility to producers of temporary festival venues, whose annual infrastructure spend cannot currently be claimed.

It regularly surprises parliamentarians that comedy is not a recognised artform, nor specifically named within the frameworks of the Arts Councils, NHS social prescribing schemes, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Charity Commission, the British Council and other key institutions. Comedy has never been given a seat on the Creative Industries Council since its formation in 2011. Downstream, this has resulted in comedy remaining unlisted or omitted from the very reports and funding frameworks that shape the creative economy, including the Creative Industries Sector Plan and the Copyright and AI consultations. Sadly, these lists are not exhaustive. CRAFT initiated the Comedy APPG to close that gap, starting with securing comedy's fair share of the support that already exists.

At the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's recent oral evidence session reviewing Arts Council England, it was said that "if you fund comedy, you are funding it at the expense of something else". My personal mission — and now CRAFT's — is to move the comedy sector from scarcity to abundance, with the belief that when comedy wins, nobody else loses; in fact, everyone can win. Can we recruit you to help us on this mission? Comedy needs a leader who thinks differently and sees the sector ecosystem beyond the jokes — the people and businesses — and for what it is: one of Britain's greatest cultural, healthcare, and economic assets.

Tom Walker, Matt Forde, your colleagues and our leadership team have offered personal statements, which follow below. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you urgently, to discuss implementation and share the evidence base assembled through years of research.

Finally, since Larry is surely the feline world's biggest comedy fan, could you pass on a G'day to him from the CRAFT team? Let him know we love his feed on X; it's almost as funny as Liam Gallagher's.

We wish you every success as you lead the country. Yours sincerely,

Lu Jackson

Founder & Chair of Trustees, CRAFT

on behalf of CRAFT Trustees

Alister Morgan, Jake Jefferson, and Jen Smith

e: [email protected] w: thecraft.lol 

Read the letter sent today by the Live Comedy Association here.

Below are the issues and initial asks for the comedy sector and other creative industries