Don't boo George Osborne - he is the Jedi Knight of the UK film industry

With the Chancellor's tax credits allowing the British film and TV industry to boom, he deserved to be in the Star Wars credits

For every £1 in film tax relief, £12.49 is spent making films in the UK (Getty Images)

One might expect a few brows to furrow at seeing the Chancellor’s now infamous credit at the end of the new Star Wars film, but to boo him? A bit harsh. He might not have the movie-star looks or the ability to use The Force but the Chancellor is perhaps the secret and unsung Jedi Knight of the British film, animation, video games and television industries. Not everybody in TV-land will agree, as the debate over BBC Charter renewal proves, but the Chancellor has done more for these industries than any predecessor. And for that alone he probably deserves his seven seconds of fame as the credits roll by.

In February, the industry analysts published a report, The Economic Contribution of the UK’s Film, High-end TV, Video Games and Animation Programme Sectors. The report is clear that all these industries have blossomed as a result of the tax credits with significant indirect benefits for the UK tourism industry. The current version of Film Tax Relief has been in place since 2007 and triggered investment in the UK’s world-class filming infrastructure. The Chancellor added to that momentum by introducing similar tax reliefs in 2013 for High End TV Drama (HETV) and animation and then in 2014 for video games.

The report states that the screen industries are worth £6bn to the UK economy and of the £21bn spent by overseas tourists in 2013, £890m is attributed to film-induced tourism. People really do visit because of Harry Potter, Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones.

The Treasury must have been delighted to read that for every £1 in film tax relief, £12.49 is spent making films in the UK. In the first full year of HETV relief, nearly £225m of foreign money that was destined elsewhere was spent on British actors, crews and facilities.

For a government itching to prove that Britain still has manufacturing might, those are telling figures. Despite the perceived glitz and glamour, the screen industries are no different to any other manufacturer: we make stuff and sell it. Our company, Mammoth Screen, makes TV drama programmes and because of the HETV we can make more programmes than ever in the UK. But for the Chancellor’s tax credits, we would not have filmed Poldark on location in Cornwall – we would have tried to find similar cliffs and beaches in Ireland where there is a similar tax credit. Neither would we be able to make our new ITV series Victoria in Yorkshire. We’re recreating the interior of Buckingham Palace and, but for the tax credit, it would have been more sensible to use a film studio in Budapest.

The screen industries lobbied the Treasury for these tax credits and promised that there would be significant economic and cultural benefits throughout the UK. The Chancellor listened and delivered and we are all reaping the rewards. Offering a small on-screen credit seems a small price to pay. If the Chancellor wants to be an extra in any of our programmes then he’s more than welcome. He’ll just need to prove that he’s a fully paid-up member of the actors’ union which I suspect might be a problem.

James Penny is Commercial Director at Mammoth Screen