Stoke-on-Trent: Video Games Enterprise Zone

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a video games enterprise zone in Stoke-on-Trent.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela. I am delighted to be joined by my fellow Stoke-on-Trent Members of Parliament for the debate, as well as by the Minister—although she may feel that she has drawn the short straw in dealing with the combined might of the Stoke mafia.

In 2019, during the historic general election campaign, I first raised the idea of Silicon Stoke—a bright new future for our great city, which was once the heart of this country’s industrial revolution. I believe we have a huge opportunity in Stoke-on-Trent to be at the forefront of the new revolution, which will be digital. Having set out a vision for what Silicon Stoke could mean for the Potteries, I am incredibly grateful to Councillor Abi Brown and her city director, John Rouse, for buying into the idea. Since then, we have been united in promoting our vision for a Silicon Stoke, and we have taken it forward by setting up the Silicon Stoke board to create and drive progress. We have published our Silicon Stoke prospectus, setting out how Silicon Stoke could transform our city and local economy. Our prospectus sets out a vision in which Stoke-on-Trent can stand alongside the most hi-tech smart cities of the world.

In the same vein as Leamington Spa, which has its Silicon Spa down the road, we believe that Stoke-on-Trent has a massive opportunity to become a hub for the UK video games industry, as well as for digital and creative jobs more broadly. There is a huge prize waiting for us if we can make this a reality.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this excellent debate. We in Stoke-on-Trent know that we are the best connected for gigabit fibre broadband in the whole UK. We now have absolutely fantastic connectivity—better than any city in the country—and are putting massive investment into skills, including gaming skills. We also have much cheaper office space than almost any other city in the country. Does my hon. Friend agree that our city is the perfect location for these industries to move to and create the jobs we need to level up places such as Stoke-on-Trent?

[Jonathan Gullis]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, who is Stoke-on-Trent-born and bred. He is doing his city proud in representing it. There are so many fantastic reasons why Stoke-on-Trent is the right location for these industries, and I will discuss the gigabit installation that was provided by VX Fiber and Stoke-on-Trent City Council, with funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that came under budget. We sent £600,000 back to DCMS because we are that efficient in Stoke-on-Trent—I look forward to boasting about that later.

The gaming industry is one of the most exciting sectors of the worldwide economy and it is growing year on year. It is far from the niche hobby that it used to be, and it now dwarfs the value of other entertainment media. The global market for video games is huge: approximately 3 billion people play games, and the market is worth around $180 billion. In the UK alone, there are more than 32 million players, and the domestic market for video games reached a record £7 billion in 2020.

Unlike other sectors, video games have been pandemic-proof. Last year, UK games revenue was up by 32% compared with 2019. Research by the international game developers’ association, TIGA, shows that between April 2020 and December 2021, the game development sector’s annual contribution to UK gross domestic product increased from £2.2 billion to £2.9 billion.

We should be proud that the UK is already a world leader in this area, with well-known developers such as Rockstar North in Scotland and Codemasters in Leamington Spa putting out some of the best known games, such as the Grand Theft Auto series. The industry is immensely valuable, and offers fantastic opportunities that are well paid, satisfying and future-proofed. About 80% of the games development workforce is qualified to degree level or above, and Rockstar alone has more than 650 staff in its headquarters in Barclay House in Edinburgh. TIGA has revealed that between April 2020 and December 2021, the number of creative staff in studios surged by almost 25%, and by an annualised rate of 14.7%, from 16,836 to 20,975 full-time and full-time equivalent staff. Additionally, the number of jobs indirectly supported by studios rose from 30,781 to 38,348.

The video games industry is also very much in line with the levelling-up agenda. The industry supports economic growth in clusters throughout the UK, with approximately 80% of the workforce based outside London. The UK has the largest games development workforce in Europe. In the era of global Britain, games development also offers us a fantastic chance to showcase the UK to the world. Games development is hugely export focused. with around 95% of games studios exporting at least some of their content.

Not only is the market for video games huge and ever growing, but there is a raft of media produced using the same techniques and technology. For example, Disney’s recent smash hit series, “The Mandalorian”, was produced using Epic’s Unreal Engine, which is one of the platforms that developers use to make games. Silicon Stoke is not just about games development; we very much hope it will propel Stoke-on-Trent to the forefront of other digital and creative sectors as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)]

Thank you for your chairing this debate, Dame Angela. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for highlighting the important role that the video games industry plays in supporting very high-skilled jobs and levelling up across the UK. I appreciate the characteristic forcefulness with which he makes the case for his exciting vision of Silicon Stoke.

As my hon. Friend says, something is stirring in Stoke. It is a fantastic city with a very bright future and, through our investments in gigabit broadband—another area that I lead on—it is one of the best connected places in the UK. It is represented by three MPs who have great belief in and passion for the place they represent, and it has great local leadership from Councillor Abi Brown and one of our nation’s youngest Lord Mayors, Councillor Hussain.

I am glad to see Stoke’s three MPs in the Chamber—they are giving Teesside a run for its money as a powerful parliamentary lobby. They are united in their efforts to keep building on the city’s success story and proud history in the creative industries. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for her close working with Stoke-on-Trent College, Staffordshire University and creative businesses such as Carse & Waterman. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), who was banging and clattering his pottery drum for the city in the dark days of the previous Parliament, long before these two 2019 upstarts came along.

I want to set out how we are supporting the video games sector to build on very strong growth, and how we think video games can contribute to our mission of levelling up the country. I will also talk about the importance of skills in achieving those goals. It is great to hear about the really strong partnership working between local MPs, councillors and educators in Stoke.

[Jack Brereton]

Can my hon. Friend the Minister think of a possible reason why the video games industry would not locate to Stoke-on-Trent? I cannot think of a single one.

[Julia Lopez]

I agree. With great digital connectivity and the partnership working between central and local government, there is a great story to tell about Stoke. It is certainly something that I will take back to my Department after the debate, as we look at the initiatives we are focusing on in the creative industries.

The video games sector, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North rightly pointed out, is flourishing. It contributed about £2.8 billion to the UK economy in 2019, and that is reflected in the number of people employed in the sector, which has grown from 13,000 in 2011 to 27,000 in 2019.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is incredibly proud to support the growth of our creative businesses, and we are doing a lot of work to ensure that the games sector, in particular, can thrive. We are putting together a £50 million creative industries programme—a sector vision—as part of our spending review settlement, and I will take away some of the really exciting ideas that have been put forward. That includes up to £18 million invested in the Create Growth programme, which will help high-growth, creative businesses access finance across six regions in England outside London so that they can reach their growth potential. We will be announcing the regions for the Create Growth programme this summer. That builds on the success of our £400 million Creative Scale Up pilot programme, which to date has supported more than 200 businesses across three regions, increasing a total aggregate turnover of £13.5 million.

We have also announced specific support for the video games sector through a £800 million expansion of the UK Games Fund, which will accelerate the growth of the UK games industry. Since 2015, the fund has supported more than 190 early-stage video game development projects, and supported businesses that have the potential to grow and flourish. That builds a strong vibrant SME developer community. I am interested to hear some of the ideas that have been put forward, and I very much encourage small businesses in Stoke to apply for that programme.

My hon. Friend asked what more we can do to support local businesses through tax incentives. Obviously, a lot of this is outside my remit, but we recognise that the future growth of the games sector requires us to maintain our competitive edge in tax reliefs. We must ensure we that continue to be an attractive place to do business, given the global competition. Our games tax relief has strengthened the UK’s reputation as one of the leading destinations across the world to make video games, and it has really worked. Since it was introduced in 2014, it has supported 1,640 games, with UK expenditure of £4.4 billion. In 2020-21, the relief supported the development of 640 games. We have to ensure that we continue to be internationally competitive. We keep all these tax incentives under close review, and I will continue those discussions with the Treasury in advance of any economic statement.

In the 1970s, “Dungeons & Dragons” coined the term “levelling up” for when the player reached certain milestones. Since then, the notion has become a central feature of many popular video games. We take that forward as a mission in our levelling-up agenda. We think the creative industries play a critical role in supporting regions across the UK, and game development has been key, from Sheffield to Leamington Spa, from Newcastle to Bristol, and from Knutsford to Dundee. Some 55% of game development roles are outside London and the south-east, so it truly is a UK-wide industry. Video game clusters are engines for local economic growth and jobs throughout the country. The £39 million Creative Industries Clusters programme, run by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has supported Dundee’s video games cluster through InGAME. I am keen to look at the lessons we can learn from that to see whether any of them can be applied to Stoke. The funding has created 337 new companies since 2020, and created or safeguarded 477 jobs.

We are committed to continuing that kind of cluster work and I want to see that success replicated in Stoke. It is great to see the investment in the Ceramic Valley enterprise zone and the announcement last week about the £56 million levelling-up funding that will be going to development opportunities in Etruscan Square and the transformation of Stoke’s Spode site.

We are also working extremely hard on digital connectivity. We invested more than £8.5 million through the local full-fibre network project, which has helped to incentivise commercial investment in the region, including the VX Fiber plan, which will be targeting more than 30,000 properties for a gigabit-capable connection. For those not in line for the commercially or publicly funded roll-out, we will be investing more in Project Gigabit. The procurement for Staffordshire, which includes Stoke, is anticipated to cover another 70,800 premises and will be taking place later this year.

Alongside robust growth and relentless innovation, we need to make sure that the skills are in place to help the video games industry reach its full potential. That is why we are working very closely with some of the bodies that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North mentioned. Our creative careers programme has given 27,000 young people hands-on experience with industry, through immersive events and work experience opportunities. The next phase of that programme, with a three-year grant competition launched this month, will launch fully later this year and do even more to support people, particularly those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Specialist skills are needed to support video games, from development and production to art and sound design. In Stoke, there are a range of further and higher education study opportunities in place for routes into the video games industry, from diplomas in games design and programming at Stoke-on-Trent College, to games courses at Staffordshire University and Keele University. I know that Staffordshire University, in particular, provides an excellent pathway to a career in gaming. The university won the 2021 excellence in university and industry collaboration award from the UK video games industry trade association, TIGA—you say tigger, I say tiger; I am not entirely sure which one is correct, but we should probably call the whole thing off. The award is supported by a partnership with UK Games Fund’s Tranzfuser programme, which supports graduates to take an idea for a game to a playable reality.

Staffordshire University was the first university in the UK to offer a degree in e-sports in 2018, and now offers postgraduate courses too. That shows that Stoke-on-Trent remains committed to becoming a hub for gaming. I am really interested to hear more about the e-gaming stadium and hope to learn more as the proposal is developed.

I am pleased to see that funding from the Build Back Better scheme has been secured to create a virtual reality hub for Stoke-on-Trent College. We continue to invest in important opportunities for young people across the United Kingdom to get the resources and knowledge they need to progress exciting careers in the creative industries. I look forward to working with my hon. Friends to support regional hubs, not only to keep local talent, but to attract new talent from across the country.

As we have already said this morning, Stoke is a great place to do business, with low office rents, great digital connectivity and inspired leadership. With a vision like Silicon Stoke, there is a really exciting future that we can build here. I will take away some of the comments on tax reliefs. We will continue to work in partnership with local colleges and I want to look at the potential for a creative cluster. With the levelling-up funding in place as well, all kinds of things are going on here. I say to businesses across the UK, “Go to Stoke; it has got inspired parliamentarians who are working very closely with us in Government and with a diligent and energetic local leadership.”