UK games industry
Ed Vaizey MP reveals he never lobbied for tax breaks, according to pressure group Gamers' Voice.
Contact: twilliams@gamersvoice.org.uk
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London, UK – 1 st November 2010
The ongoing Scottish Affairs Committee enquiry on the video games industry heard evidence from Ed Vaizey MP last week and he inadvertently dropped quite a bombshell.
During his evidence to the Committee, Vaizey was read a series of quotes he gave supporting Tax breaks and was asked to explain why he and the Treasury had changed its mind. When pushed he revealed that he did not directly lobby George Osborne for video game industry tax breaks during the lead up to the budget.
"I can’t clarify the position for you. I didn’t get a chance to lobby the Treasury directly on the video games tax break. I lobbied indirectly and made my views known, but I wasn’t aware the Treasury regarded the tax break as poorly targeted. So I can only really extrapolate in terms of why they decided to describe it as poorly targeted and that would probably be unhelpful."
In the face of comments made to develop in April 2010 this is quite a turnaround for a minister who claims to be a champion of the industry.
“Things move fast in an election, timings change; it is our policy to introduce game development tax breaks,”
“emphatically, 100 per cent in support for game tax breaks. No ifs, no buts.”
Gamers Voice can only assume there was a but....
Notes to Editor
Gamers' Voice is an independent pressure group representing video and computer gamers in the UK which seeks to act as a conduit to make our voice heard in the government and mainstream media In November 2009, Tom Watson MP founded Gamers' Voice on Facebook in order to bring together gamers from across the UK in response to negative articles on gamers in the UK media; Gamers’ Voice has over 16,000 members.