All-party body to help support the industry

Comedy is to get its own Parliamentary group uniting MPs and peers with an interest in the sector, Chortle can reveal.

The move is the latest stage in an expanding dialogue between policy-makers and the industry as it lobbies for more government support. 

Richard Quigley (pictured) – a fish-and-chip shop owner and occasional stand-up who was elected Labour MP for Isle Of Wight West in 2024  – has put his name forward to chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group.

He said: ‘I’m very excited to take on the biggest job in politics: Chair of the Comedy APPG. It's a big job, all the training has paid off! We’re going to take this seriously and transform the sector, but let’s have fun doing it.’

The group was initiated by Craft, a trade body covering comedy in all its forms, including live, broadcast and digital.

Chair Lu Jackson said the new group will ‘give our industry a permanent, official presence in Parliament, creating a dedicated space where the ecosystem's pressing challenges can be brought forward, robustly evidenced, and kept firmly on the political agenda’.

Craft will also be behind the group’s secretariat, liaising between the comedy industry and parliamentarians and coordinating briefings and meetings.

APPGs are informal, cross-party groups formed by MPs and  Lords who share a common interest. While they are not official committees, the Parliament website notes: ‘These groups can sometimes be influential because of their non-partisan, bicameral [across both Houses] approach to an issue.’

Officers of the comedy group will be elected at an inaugural  meeting before summer recess starts on July 16.

Craft is also setting up a body called the Comedy Advisory Board to work with both the newly formed parliamentary group and its own decision-makers.

Its first chair will be Professor Dr Lesley Sloss – mother of comedian Daniel and a world-renowned expert on clean energy who has led US State Department and United Nations projects on cutting carbon emissions.

She said: ‘I am here to facilitate fair and unbiased consensus, as someone with no irons in any fires, and ensure all perspectives within the comedy community are heard.’

MPs have been increasingly willing to hear the concerns of the comedy sector. In March, creative industries minister Ian Murray held a roundtable with Arts Council England and people working in the sector, including promoters, comedians and representatives from Craft and the Live Comedy Association.

In April, the cross-party culture, media and sport select committee, chaired by Tory MP Dame Caroline Dinenage, held a session dedicated to live comedy, while the women and equalities committee launched an inquiry into the experiences of women in live comedy.

Dame Caroline is one of the patrons of Craft – which is in the process of becoming a registered charity – alongside fellow MPs Samantha Niblett and Dr Simon Opher and Tom Walker, the comedian behind Jonathan Pie.

Among its other work, Craft has also been trying to resolve the issue of comedians not getting paid the money they are due from ticket sales at the Leicester Comedy Festival – including pressing Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and others for emergency support.

Chair Jackson – also the founder of ‘comedy-on social prescription’ group Craic Health – said: ‘Comedy is one of Britain's best-loved exports—yet it's the least-funded major artform. In fact, it isn't even recognised as an artform: two major arm’s-length bodies have recently declared comedy a "genre".

‘Comedy generates billions in revenue and millions in taxes, none of it reinvested in the sector. For too long it has sat outside the rooms where policy, finance and support get decided—and the situation is far worse than the sector

realises. Comedy is absent from every major public funding stream and from official government reports, while live comedy venue tax relief and film and TV tax credits remain woeful.’

More information about Craft’s work is available at https://thecraft.lol/

From left: Lu Jackson in Parliament with Tom Walker, Groove Armada's Tom Findlay, MPs Simon Opher, Samantha Niblett and Richard Quigley and former Lord Mayor of Westminster Paul Dimoldenberg, who is also father of Chicken Shop Date's Amelia. Picture supplied by Craft.

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Published: 24 Jun 2026