Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of the creation of a British Games Institute and its potential effect on the video games industry.

The video games industry is a great success story and we are committed to promoting its growth. Companies in the sector have received some £119 million from the UK’s video games tax relief since its introduction in 2014. Additionally our UK Games Fund has supported more than 60 games projects and our funding for the programme has recently been extended to 2020. The games sector will also benefit from the Government’s new transformative £33 million “Audience of the Future” strand of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

We are continuing to work with other Government Departments, public organisations and representatives from industry to consider what else we can do to drive growth in the games sector and the wider creative industries, including as part of the planned sector deal.