We recognise the recent challenges for the industry, and we are continuing our support with the video games expenditure credit, providing £5.5 million for the UK games fund next year. The UK is home to some amazing companies and developers, and we want to continue to support them as they grow and develop world-leading games.
The Secretary of State is right: the video games industry is a great British success story. It contributes £6 billion a year to our economy and 73,000 jobs, many of which are outside London, from Dundee to Brighton—it really is right across our nations. However, there are growing concerns that the UK is losing its competitive edge. Our tax relief rates have dropped below those of Ireland, France, Australia and Canada—all our biggest competitors in this sector. What is the Secretary of State doing to really push the Treasury to ensure that our video games expenditure credits and everything else are up to date so that we retain our competitive edge in this vital sector?
The hon. Lady will know that there has been a global slowdown in the video games industry as a whole. That is one of the reasons why we have stepped up to provide additional support. We always keep our tax relief regime under review and we are aware that this is an intensely competitive area—not just in video games, but in film, TV and other areas. The video games industry is part of a wider ecosystem that needs support, and we are determined to provide the fullest support we can so that our industry can thrive.
I am glad to say that we have a thriving TV industry in Wales. We have not only our own broadcaster, S4C, but phenomenal studios, including Dragon Studios just outside my constituency, where “Willow” was produced with the magnificent Warwick Davis. And, above all, we have “Gavin and Stacey”.
I know that it is completely out of order, Mr Speaker, but can I say thank you to Dawn in the Tea Room, who is retiring today?
We are absolutely determined to reach our goal of 50 million international visitors to the UK by 2030. I am very hopeful that the electronic travel authorisation system will be simpler and make it easier and safer for people to visit the UK in the coming years.
Diolch, Mr Llefarydd. Only 41.9% of my constituency of Caerfyrddin has gigabit availability, compared with the UK average of 78.5%. In fact, 2.6% of my constituency has very little broadband at all. While more and more people use on-demand and internet-based TV services, many still have to rely on terrestrial TV to watch their favourite Welsh programmes. Will the Minister support the TV industry in Wales and reassure viewers in my constituency that broadcast TV will remain available for them all to enjoy?
I think it is a three-part series, Mr Speaker. I commend the hon. Lady on managing to get gigabit-capable broadband, which is my other responsibility as a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Minister, into this session. We are determined to try to make sure that across her constituency, everybody is able to take part in the digital future. Incidentally, that is why we published a digital inclusion strategy yesterday, which I very much hope all Members will support.
Our travel, tourism and hospitality sectors continue to face huge challenges, yet the Home Office’s own impact assessment of the 60% increase in electronic travel authorisation fees concluded that it could reduce the number of tourists wanting to come here and result in a loss of revenue to the wider economy of £734.7 million over five years. If the Government are to succeed in achieving the inbound tourism target of 50 million by 2030, would an agreement between the EU and the UK to facilitate easier travel not be a good place to start?
I am absolutely delighted that even the Liberal Democrats are citing our target of 50 million international visitors by 2030; we have got that into this session three times now. The hon. Lady is right—of course we have to bear in mind all the issues that could affect those numbers. I do not know whether she has seen the recent video produced by VisitBritain, “Starring GREAT Britain”, which includes film clips from James Bond, Tom Cruise and many others, but we are determined, through the visitor economy advisory council, to make sure that we reach those numbers. We will work with the Home Office to try to mitigate the problems that we may have.
According to VisitBritain, the estimated value of inbound tourism in 2024 will be in the region of £31.5 billion, so it is a huge economic contributor to the United Kingdom. When speaking to tourism businesses that rely on seasonal tourism, alongside the rising cost of ETAs, they express great concern that the reduction in national insurance thresholds and the rise in employer national insurance contributions mean that many more workers will be caught in a damaging tax trap. It will mean that businesses have to reconsider how many people—many of them young, and many of them in their first jobs—they can employ while remaining profitable. Does the Minister have an impact assessment of the effect of those NI rises, and what does it say about how many jobs will be created or lost as a result of Labour’s jobs tax trap?
One of the problems with the Conservatives is that they want us to endlessly spend more money on things, but they do not want to find the money that enables us to afford that expenditure. There are lots of things that affect the tourism industry in the UK —incidentally, I think the hon. Gentleman mistook his millions for his billions in what he said—but it is really important that we look at how we can extend the season in the UK and make sure that more international visitors do not just come to London and the south-east, but go to places across the whole of the United Kingdom. That is precisely the kind of thing that I hope we will be able to incorporate into our national tourism strategy this autumn. It will be the first time that the UK has ever had one.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
LabourWigan
We are proud to have introduced the Football Governance Bill, which will establish an independent football regulator to protect the financial sustainability of English football clubs, and we recognise the key role that lower league football clubs play at grassroots level.