Deregulation Bill
Debate between Baroness Corston and Lord Lipsey
Baroness Corston
The amendment is about the fact that the status quo remains until the renewal of the charter in 2017. I am merely flagging up the point that we should not allow continuing criminalisation in respect of this penalty, because of the malign effect it has on, admittedly, a small number of people. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said, the BBC itself confirmed in an article in the Guardian in September last year:
“Licence fee evasion is low”.
It is not low because people think they might go to prison, it is low because people believe in the BBC. I simply do not think that the signal that we are sending, that the status quo is all right, is acceptable.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment, despite the fact that I have considerable sympathy with the argument put by my noble friend Lady Corston. The status quo has persisted for a good long time. It will inevitably be re-examined on charter renewal—which I will come to in a minute—and it therefore seems to me that we can take a decision on whether decriminalising makes sense when we see whether it is relevant or not to that environment.
I sat on the Davies inquiry into the BBC licence fee in 1999 and, at the end of a year of study, probably knew as much about the licence fee as any man living. Unfortunately, like the man who once understood the Schleswig-Holstein question, I have long since forgotten all of it, save that the licence fee is a perfect way of funding the BBC but unfortunately is a poll tax that bears heavily on poor people. That core dilemma, if I can call it that, is something that we shall have to face up to when we come to charter renewal and to discuss BBC finance at the end of the current period.
At least four options are likely to be available: leave the licence fee as it is; what I guess the BBC will come down for, which is a slightly modernised licence fee, with people paying it for computers as well as televisions, which I am told are the same thing these days; a much greater modification to the licence fee; or some new form of finance. Those will be the broad options available when we come to charter renewal. This will be a very interesting argument.
I will just slip in something that I think would be very helpful at this stage. As part of the charter renewal process, it would be a very good move by the Government to set up an independent inquiry, such as the one I sat on with the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, into the licence fee. In particular, it should produce a menu with prices to tell the public that if you want to pay this much licence fee, you can have these services, or if you want to pay that much licence fee, you can have those services and so on. At the moment, we are very much in the dark as to what that menu would be and what the choices would be, and an independent inquiry would greatly illuminate public debate.
To come to the kernel of this point, it does seem to me to be arse about tip—if I am allowed to use such an expression in this House—to take powers to change the basis on which the licence fee is collected long before deciding whether you want a licence fee at all, let alone what kind of licence fee you want. An inquiry into this is sitting, which will report. Then is the time for Parliament to take a view of its findings, together with the whole scenario for the funding of the BBC. Arse about tip is the only phrase I can think of for doing it right now.