My life is my own!

NB: this post is by Tim Hewish, my Parliamentary Assistant, and the views expressed are his own.

Jim McGovern, Labour MP for Dundee, called a Westminster Hall debate to address the growing disparity between the UK and other nations on the latter’s favourable tax credits towards the video games industry.

The UK has a long history of innovative creative industries; video games are one such platform: from Rareware and Eidos to Media Molecule and Rockstar Games. Currently, what we are witnessing is rapid global competition whereby graduates who study game design are being tempted away from the UK to nations who offer sizeable incentives to ply their trade elsewhere. The list is in fact quite long:

• Canada has been successful in poaching UK companies to relocate through tax breaks. Their industry is predicted to grow by 17% over the next two years; while between 2008 and 2010, the Canadian games industry grew by 33%; although over the same period, the UK’s games industry fell by 9%
• Pennsylvania has introduced a 25% tax break and is the 17^th State to do so
• Our neighbour, Ireland, can see the tide turning and has reacted by discussing the possibility a tax break a few weeks ago
• Most recently, Australia has approved a $1.9Bn R&D tax relief scheme in support of its games development industry.

Industry heavyweights support these assertions, Andrew Wilson, the senior vice president of worldwide development at EA Sports, admitted that:

EA has many studios that take advantage of game tax breaks and EA Canada is certainly one of them.

He also acknowledged that EA employs, “lots of British developers at EA Canada.”

This begs the question: Why bother to train students in a growing industry in the UK for them only to move abroad due to poor incentives not enabling them to start up a business. Is UK PLC now closed for business?

As Mr. McGovern went on to say:

When we took evidence at Abertay University, we were told that, every day, students there who are studying the computer games industry and will graduate in that subject are receiving phone calls from France, Ireland and Canada saying that they will be offered a job there. Most of the students who study computer games do not end up employed by a company in the UK; they end up starting their own business.

In a climate where we talk about reorienting and rebalancing the economy and shift away from a London-centric model, this digital industry can provide investment in areas that would otherwise not be as competitive. The Regions are such examples.

As for job creation, TIGA, the body that represents the games industry, shows that tax breaks would help 2,500 new jobs to be created and would maintain and protect 3,000 current jobs.

Also of interest is that the film industry has an existing state aid exemption, which is an acknowledged piece of state aid that is registered with EU authorities. Why not other creative industries?

Mr. McGovern said that:

During the Scottish Affairs Committee inquiry, it was suggested that the tax breaks received by the film industry cost in the region of £110 million a year. The previous Government committed themselves to tax breaks for the computer games industry worth £55 million a year. However, the computer games industry generates more for our GDP than the film industry.

The Coalition has stated that the games industry is not an important cultural ambassador, while the Film Industry apparently fulfils this criterion. However, France views this rather differently. Former French Culture Minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, called for video games to receive a proper cultural recognition:

Video games are not a mere commercial product…They are a form of artistic expression involving creation from script writers, designers and directors.

There is a significant point to be recognised here. In the past, the greatest artists and musicians would have their work displayed on the easel of a gallery or at the music hall; while scriptwriters, directors and producers would be on Broadway or Hollywood. Now these talents can come together and be represented in video games. One only has to listen to the orchestral score of Zelda or Final Fantasy to hear the high calibre musicians. Rendered backgrounds also show off high quality artistic talent.

However, if we were to take the video game cultural stigma out of this argument, we have an industry that could provide more private sector jobs, reduce the brain drain that is taking place, and generate more start-ups while also retaining them. We could even fight back and make Britain more competitive and attract other talent to relocate to these shores.

This is a soundly conservative principle and one which should be backed by tax breaks, cutting red tape for SMEs and greater tax simplification. It is the only honest way out of the economic crisis because this industry generates real economic value.

Here’s interesting. Cella Energy seem to be solving the problem of how to replace gasoline:

Cella Energy have developed a method using a low-cost process called coaxial electrospinning or electrospraying that can trap a complex chemical hydride inside a nano-porous polymer that speeds up the kinetics of hydrogen desorption, reduces the temperature at which the desorption occurs and filters out many if not all of the damaging chemicals. It also protects the hydrides from oxygen and water, making it possible to handle it in air.

Read more via Cella Energy – Our Technology.

Something posted by Big Brother Watch on DNA prompted me to glance back at Albert Speer’s Inside The Third Reich. In the conclusions to this book, the war criminal wrote, referring to his final remarks at Nuremburg:

The criminal events of those years were not only an outgrowth of Hitler’s personality. The extent of the crimes was also due to the fact that Hitler was the first to be able to employ the implements of technology to multiply crime.

I thought of the consequences that unrestricted rule together with the power of technology–making use of it but also driven by it–might have in the future. [...]

“The nightmare shared by many people,” I said, “that some day the nations of the world may be dominated by technology-that nightmare was very nearly made a reality under Hitler’s authoritarian system. Every country in the world today faces the danger of being terrorized by technology; but in a modern dictatorship this seems to me to be unavoidable. Therefore, the more technological the world becomes, the more essential will be the demand for individual freedom and the self-awareness of the individual human being as the counterpoise to technology… [...]”

“The catastrophe of this war,” I wrote in my cell in 1947, “has proved the sensitivity of the system of modern civilisation evolved in the course of centuries. Now we know that we do not live in a earthquake-proof structure. The build-up of negative impulses, each reinforcing the other, can inexorably shake to pieces the complicated apparatus of the modern world. There is no halting of this process by will alone. The danger is that the automatism of progress will depersonalize man further and withdraw more and more of his self-responsibility.”

Dazzled by the possibilities of technology, I devoted crucial years of my life to serving it. But in the end my feelings about it are highly skeptical.

In the book’s afterword, Speer explains that he wrote the book not only to describe the past, but to issue warnings for the future. Though from time to time Big Brother Watch gets on my nerves through its tone, I feel it fills an essential niche: we shall always need someone to remind us how dangerous technology can be.

The Economist described Speer’s book as “A classic”. I recommend it for a perspective on why we shall always need Big Brother Watch.

An erstwhile and would be commenter complained that he could not comment. This was due to a configuration issue which I have now changed.

Previously, commenters had to be registered and logged in to comment. I had so many spam registrations — getting on for a thousand — that I deleted all subscribers and prevented registration. Apologies to those whose old comments have disappeared: please blame the spammers.

Given that people would like to comment, I have relaxed the requirement to name and email plus moderation for anyone’s first comment. I do not feel under any obligation to host abusive comments, so disagree by all means, but please use moderate language and please have the courage to use your own name. I may delete comments which are intemperate or anonymous.

To my surprise, a few people seem to think MPs should be available 24×7 online to the whole world. Much as I would like to engage in wide-ranging debate on all channels, there simply is not time.

My constituents come first and they are most welcome to contact me through any of the mechanisms listed on my contact page.

I have throughly revised and updated my Amazon bookstore, particularly the economics section.

Enjoy.