BBC: TV Licence Evasion

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I shall quote my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in describing the BBC as a cherished national institution, which I guess is not far from a national treasure. The World Service is obviously an absolutely key part of that. The royal charter states that the BBC must spend at least £254 million a year on the World Service up to 2022. In the last year for which we have accounts it spent £289 million, but I absolutely agree with the noble Lord’s sentiment that that reach of over 400 million people a week is invaluable to us as a nation.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that an eight-week consultation is about to take place. In 2015, David Perry QC undertook detailed, evidence-based research. It took as long as it needed to consult 190,000 people, 75% of whom said that they supported the licence fee as fair, proportionate and good value for money. Things may have changed, and we may need to reach different conclusions, but is she honestly telling the House that an eight-week consultation period will achieve the same quality of material upon which to make decisions?

A headline in this afternoon’s Evening Standard reads:

“It’s time to stop jailing BBC licence fee evaders”.


That is going to be the tone of much of the debate in the next eight weeks. Is it going to be a fair and dispassionate discussion, with headlines like that? In a pressurised period, such situations may deny the public any opinion of the Conservative Party conserving very much.

[Baroness Barran]

As the noble Lord, knows, very few people have been jailed—only five. We are consulting because we think that it is right to look again at whether the criminal sanction is appropriate. There are ongoing concerns that it could be seen as unfair and disproportionate, but at the risk of stating the obvious, the point of a consultation—and this is an open consultation without a recommended approach —is to get to the truth. There is enormous interest. Over 2,000 responses have been received already, and the consultation only opened at 11 am. There is a lot of public interest in this.

The noble Lord rightly probed whether this will be sufficient time. The Government may need to consult further on the detail of any potential changes before taking a decision, but not before we have found out what the public think.