BBC Funding

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

The Minister has explained that at the centre of the financial arrangements which he has described is the concept of fairness. If we consider fairness in respect of licence fee payers and in respect of the BBC, we are really talking about apples and pears. Could the Minister explain how the Government balance fairness to the licence fee payer with fairness to the BBC? It seems that there may be a bit of a risk that we end up with a solution that is rather fairer to one side than the other.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

That thorny question is one for the future funding review, but it is important. We want to ensure that the BBC has a sustainable income, but also that the sources of that are fair. I have pointed already to the declining number of people who are paying for a licence fee and the declining number who watch television live. Funding models which are predicated on some of those conceptions of the past will look increasingly anachronistic as we move into the BBC’s next century. We have also seen licence fee evasion rising, so it is right that we look at this to make sure that we are coming up with a good answer to the difficult question that the noble Lord poses.