Tax breaks shouldn’t stop at animation

Medialease managing director Paul Robson argues that animation isn’t the only part of the UK television market that needs financial assistance.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the UK animation industry and the need for tax breaks. It is said that if this crucial sector is to survive it needs to be given a financial helping hand so that it can compete with cheaper alternatives abroad.

I agree with this. Government should definitely step in, especially in these times of austerity. They didn’t do it for Britain’s once great manufacturing sector. And look what happened to that.

However we should not just stop at animation. There are other parts of TV that could benefit from tax breaks.

Drama is one of them. Each year millions of pounds are lost to South Africa, Hungary and other parts of the world because those countries offer tax breaks for shooting drama and we don’t.

In the long term, if animation and drama continue to be made overseas, this trend will start to impact on the number of available qualified, skilled people in this country as there won’t be enough breeding ground here for new talent and we’ll start to fall behind the rest of the world.

Both animation and drama are culturally and financially important to the UK. Let’s recognize that with some financial incentives that allow producers to keep their productions – and their production spend - at home.