UK Film Investment (Tax Relief)

David Gauke Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) for securing the debate. It had two key and linked themes: investment in the film industry and concerns about tax avoidance. On both those issues, the Government have a strong, clear message. We of course strongly support the UK film industry and want to encourage genuine investment in film, but equally—and unapologetically—we condemn the use of tax avoidance schemes. We want low taxes and a competitive regime, but we expect those taxes to be paid.

We have in the United Kingdom a vibrant and successful film industry, of which we should be proud. In the past three years, employment in the creative industries has grown at five times the rate of the wider economy. The past year has seen film and television production in the UK boom, with, to pick names at random, “24” being filmed in London, “Outlander” in Scotland, “Da Vinci’s Demons” in Wales and “Game of Thrones” in Northern Ireland.

It is right that as a Government we lend our support to those who want to invest in the industry. We now have a robust corporate film tax relief, which was expressly designed to minimise the risk of tax avoidance and which has been in place since 1 January 2007. The new relief goes straight to those making films—in other words, it is the production company that gets the direct benefit of the regime.

The new regime has proved very successful in attracting inward investment. It is highly popular with film-makers and has helped to make the UK one of the top film-making destinations in the world. Since the film tax relief was introduced in 2007, 1,680 film productions have become eligible to claim the new relief, and total production expenditure by films claiming the relief was £7.8 billion, of which 72% was incurred in the UK.

As a Government, we have made the relief even more effective. From 1 April 2014, we increased the rate of relief for larger budget films, reduced the level of minimum UK expenditure and modernised the system of film tax relief qualification. To ensure that our creative industry flourishes across sectors, we announced in the autumn statement that we would introduce tax relief for children’s television and for orchestras.

With regard to the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), I should say that we have a successful record in this country. The existing film tax relief is working well and continuing to attract investment to the UK. I am pleased to confirm that there has been no reported avoidance activity with the new film tax relief.

[Mr Sheerman]

I hope the Minister takes the point that those of us who have spoken in the debate do not agree with tax avoidance, which is carried out by a minority. We are at a critical stage, having had such good news in the autumn statement—Opposition Members do not often congratulate the Minister on such things—about raising the social investment tax relief scheme to a much higher level, and about the seed investment scheme. The Minister knows that I am very keen on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, and we are seeing a new beginning when it comes to vibrant theatre and social investment across our country. The Minister must not send a message in his response to the debate that some of that might be seen as tax avoidance. We are talking about social investment and investment in our arts, and it is to be welcomed.

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman is nothing if not consistent; I have never known him to fail to take the opportunity to extol the virtues of crowdfunding and some of the other measures that we are taking. The point that I am making is that we have a film tax relief system that is working well and attracting investment. Nothing in what I am about to say should undermine that.

Our system is working, but I cannot, unfortunately, say the same about all investment under the film relief that was in place before 2007. The old relief was heavily exploited by partnerships of wealthy individuals. Typically, they sought to obtain tax relief out of all proportion to their economic investment. Many schemes used artificial and contrived arrangements to create excessive tax claims. In short, investors abused the relief to try to dodge paying their fair share of tax.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon argued that the old legislation was working well. The previous Government took significant legislative action over a number of years to try to prevent the various forms of abuse that were occurring, but they concluded in 2007 that they had to scrap the old regime and replaced it with a much better scheme that now works. HMRC is actively investigating and countering schemes under the old regime about which it has concerns.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am not dissenting from the Minister’s proposition that the post-2007 arrangement has been better than the arrangement that ran for the previous 10 years. Nor would I take issue with his assertion that there was some abuse of the previous system. However, when he says that investors used those schemes for the purposes of tax avoidance, is he seriously contending that every single investor who availed themselves of a tax relief that the Government had created was doing so for tax avoidance purposes, or does he accept that there were good and bad among those investors? Will HMRC please do more to distinguish between the two?

[Mr Gauke]

HMRC is not taking a blanket approach to all such schemes, and I will return to that point in a moment.

It might be helpful if I set out some of the problems with the old regime. At the extreme, the situation was so bad that some films were produced solely for the purpose of avoidance schemes, and they were never destined for release beyond the minimal qualifying requirements. Other schemes involved genuine commercial films, but the structure of the financing was designed to generate tax relief in excess of the scheme user’s genuine economic investment. Alongside the schemes that used the relief, other avoidance schemes were created that happened to use films as the avoidance vehicle of choice, even though they did not rely on the specific film relief.

Everyone should be clear that the use of films for tax avoidance is bad for the reputation of the UK film industry. I suspect that there is no dispute among us on that point. Such avoidance is unfair on the vast majority of the public who pay their fair share of tax, and it is correct for HMRC to tackle avoidance in whatever form it takes. HMRC has a strong track record in the courts, winning about 80% of tax avoidance schemes that go to litigation. In 2013-14, HMRC’s 30 wins protected some £2.7 billion of tax. HMRC has a strong track record of defeating film schemes in court. It is right for HMRC to challenge avoidance schemes, because that is its job, but it has not taken a blanket approach of opposing all schemes that involve the old film tax relief. If someone believes that HMRC’s view on a scheme is wrong, they can take the matter to the courts for a decision.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon has raised the concern that HMRC has not always worked the case properly. I cannot comment on specific cases or schemes, but let me reassure him that the resolution of existing tax avoidance schemes is a top priority for HMRC. During the past year, HMRC has created a dedicated counter-avoidance directorate, bringing together technical, policy and operational expertise from across the Department in one place to concentrate focus on tackling marketed tax avoidance. The Government have consistently supported HMRC’s work to counter marketed tax avoidance by introducing new legislation and investing in its resources.

That brings me to this year’s Budget, in which the Chancellor announced that from 17 July 2014, individuals and businesses involved in tax avoidance schemes must pay HMRC the disputed amount of tax up front while the dispute is being resolved. That new power, which is called accelerated payments, came into force as part of the Finance Act 2014, and it removes the cash flow advantage that those who deliberately try to bend the tax rules by avoiding tax previously had over the majority of taxpayers who pay their tax up front.

I am pleased to say that the collection of tax from avoiders has accelerated enormously since the introduction this year of accelerated payments, and avoiders have already agreed to pay more than £30 million since Parliament introduced that measure. It is quite right that the users of avoidance schemes involving films or film relief should also pay up front.

[Mr Sheerman]

Can we send the message to HMRC that although it must catch the rascals and make them pay, it needs to be more discriminating? If it is not, we on the Back Benches will put a lot of attention and focus on to making sure that it becomes so, to ensure that people who have innocently invested are not picked on. We have many powers, through Select Committees and from the Back Benches in Question Time, to keep our eye on HMRC and ensure that it does the job properly.

[Mr Gauke]

I am sure that that point has been noted, and I do not disagree that HMRC must pursue those who have engaged in tax avoidance and not pursue those who have not. However, an important part of HMRC’s role is to pursue tax avoidance thoroughly. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any ongoing litigation, but I stress that neither accelerated payments nor any other HMRC action to tackle avoidance will stop genuine investment in UK films.

The UK film industry goes from strength to strength, supported by a successful, avoidance-free film tax relief that goes directly to film producers. We want to continue to support investment in the UK film industry so that it can grow. Tax relief, properly due, has an important place in helping to provide that support. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield has made clear, further announcements of such support were made in the autumn statement. Tax avoidance has no place in a modern film-making environment. The UK has a hard-won reputation for world-class creativity, but we want that to be expressed in the creation of films, not in the creation of tax avoidance schemes.