â??Tax relief loss paid for corp taxâ?? â?? Cameron

On the third time David Cameron was quizzed on the decision to scrap tax breaks, an answer came.

Yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions he was asked – for the third time in the Commons since the summer – why the Coalition Government scrapped game tax breaks.

Jim McGovern, a Labour MP for Dundee West, repeated the question on the back of new revelations that some government officials didn’t feel tax breaks for games were ‘poorly targeted’ – a conflict with the Treasury’s line on the matter.

“The Prime Minister said tax breaks for the computer games industry were poorly targeted,” said McGovern, whose constituency was the home to fallen studio Realtime Worlds.

“This seems to be in contradiction to the conversations I’ve had with his ministers, who say his government policy is to not give any tax breaks on any industry in the future.”

Cameron’s response, this time, brought more back than before.

“The steps that we took in the budget were to look at the tax system and try and simplify the corporation tax regime and bring about one of the lowest rates of corporation tax in the developed world,” he said.

“That’s what we’ve done, we’re cutting corporation tax this year, the next year, the year after to bring it down to 24 per cent.

“That’s what we’re doing, and we’re paying for that by removing a number of allowances.

“The reform will make Britain, including Scotland, one of the best places in the world to do business.”

Before the General Election rumours spread that George Osborne, then the Shadow Chancellor, had pulled the plug on tax breaks as no mention was made in the Conservatives’ pre-election Manifesto.

A Develop report that backed the claims was vehemently denied by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, who promised his party would introduce tax breaks “no ifs, no buts.”