Tories to publish game tax plan â??next weekâ??

The Conservatives will next week publish a ‘mini-manifesto’ for the game industry that will outline tax breaks and more, the party has told Develop.

Tory spokesperson for the game industry, Ed Vaizey, confidently assured that his party still plans to support the game industry.

“We’ll be publishing details of our support for the videogame industry very shortly,” said Vaizey in an interview with Develop.

“I can assure you that all the details will be published next week,” he added, “and that will include details for our support for video game tax breaks.”

Such a pledge was not present in the party’s own policy manifesto, raising further doubts on whether the Shadow Treasury team echos Vaizey’s own support for the sector.

A Conservative spokesperson declined to offer comment from the shadow Treasury.

But Vaizey remains confident that his party will come through.

“[Tax breaks are] an issue I’ve been talking about for three years, long before the government got involved, and it is going to be our party policy.”

There may be a few more days of deliberation before the Conservatives finally put an end to months of ambiguity on the issue.

Next week’s mini-manifesto will, said Vaizey, explain in more detail how the Conservatives will support the industry.

“There’s a whole range of other measures that we think we should look at that could provide support for the videogame industry,” he said.

But he hinted that the Conservatives policy will differ from the Labour Government’s.

Said Vaizey: “There are some people in the game industry that think a tax break might be too narrow, or inappropriate.

“We also need to look at venture capital trusts and research and development tax breaks to see if they can be tweaked to ensure that video game developers can access that kind of support as well.