Last week Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that the minimum UK expenditure to be eligible for the high-end TV tax credit will be reduced from 25% to 10% and the cultural test (with which all productions have to comply) will be modernised to allow more projects to qualify.

Though this seems like a good development for the production services industry – who will no doubt be benefitting from the increased number of foreign productions coming to shoot in the UK – the head of BBC Films has come out saying that this and other announced measures might actually prove counterproductive for the home-grown indie film industry.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Christine Langan, head of BBC Films and responsible for productions such as Saving Mr Banks, Philomena (see pic) and the upcoming Meryl Streep-starrer Florence Foster Jenkins, said: “We’re going to have a lot of American productions here in the UK which is going to soak up a lot of crew, a lot of production talent and possibly push rates up.”

Aside from the change to the high-end TV tax credit, the Treasury also announced last week that the rate of film tax relief will be increased to 25% regardless of the budget for all qualifying core expenditure and for all eligible film productions. At the same time, confirmation came that the new children’s TV tax credit will be extended to include game shows and competitions.

According to Langan, who has a long list of well-known indie credits to her name, the low-budget British indie sector would suffer due to this rise in costs, lack of crew and shortage of studio space which could be caused by these success-inducing measures.

She told the Standard: “There are two industries in this country. There’s obviously the ‘service’ industry that can pick up a lot of Hollywood work and foreign investment. And then there’s the British film industry that is telling British stories with a British voice and that is almost a different industry. There’s a lot of value in speaking the same language as the Americans, but we have to be mindful of safeguarding our own work.”