The creative industries received a boost with expansion of the film tax relief scheme and similar reliefs for theatres from April 2015. 'We are making our successful film tax relief even more generous and look to extend the principle to regional theatre,' said Chancellor George Osborne.

The government plans to introduce new support for theatres from April 2015. A formal consultation will be launched in early 2014 that considers a limited tax relief for commercial theatre productions and a targeted tax relief for theatres investing in new works or touring productions to regional theatres.

The proposed scheme will make relief available at 25% on the first £20m of qualifying production expenditure and 20% thereafter, for small and large budget films from April 2014, subject to state aid clearance.

The government will also reduce the minimum UK expenditure requirement from 25% to 10% for film relief, and will modernise the cultural test to align it with incentives in other EU member states and support visual effects and wider film production.

The government will seek state aid clearance to increase the rate of relief to 25% for all qualifying expenditure when renotifying film tax relief in 2015.

CCH tax specialist Stephen Relf said: 'The UK's film tax relief has been very successful, supporting over £5bn of investment into British films since its introduction in 2007, and the changes announced today can only increase its appeal.

'With an improved film tax relief, a new tax relief for theatres and the tax reliefs for television, animation and video games introduced in 2013, the UK's creative industries can look forward to bright times ahead.

'The only cloud on the horizon is that the changes will require State Aid approval and video games tax relief has taught us that that isn't always guaranteed.'