Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the contribution of Video Games Tax Relief to (a) jobs, (b) investment and (c) productivity in the UK video games sector.

The government supported the completion of 150 video games in 2019-2020 via Video Games Tax Relief (VGTR), with UK expenditure of £355 million.

The government published an evaluation of VGTR in 2017, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/video-game-tax-relief-evaluation

Research showed that VGTR enabled developers to be more productive by giving them more stability and lowering their level of risk, enabling them to survive longer and look beyond immediate financial concerns to focus on expanding their business or improving their offer. The evaluation found concrete examples of inward investment, and indications that VGTR had stemmed the drain of UK talent to countries such as France and Canada.