The UK government may as well have told the UK video games industry to take a long swim in the Atlantic as far as tax concessions were concerned in 2007-08.

According to a Parliamentary response to the question from the Conservative MP for Shipley in Yorkshire, Philip Davies, thus: "how much financial support was given by UK Trade and Investment to the video games industry in 2007-08?"

The response from Ian Lucas (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Business and Regulatory Reform), Department for Business, Innovation & Skills; Wrexham, Labour... phew) was almost laughable if it didn't speak so highly of the disdain the government holds of one of its most creative and potentially lucrative industries:

"Sector Codes used to account for spend by UKTI in 2007-08 do not include a 'video game' subsector. When one includes activities beneficial to the Video Game Industry through support of the entire Software sector in the UK and overseas, the approximate spend is £464,484."

In short, not very much at all.

Thanks, as ever, to Theyworkforyou.