TV Licences for Over-75s

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), and I want to begin where she left off. I agree with her that free TV licences were introduced as a welfare policy. That is very much how it was seen at the time, alongside benefits such as free bus passes and free eye tests. The Government’s decision to pass responsibility for this on to the BBC in the knowledge that the BBC would be under this kind of pressure has two impacts. The first is on the BBC itself; the other is on the pensioners who receive the benefit at the moment.

Passing this responsibility on to the BBC is the policy equivalent of a hospital pass. The Government know that the BBC is under pressure. At the moment, the policy costs some £660 million a year, rising to more than £700 million in a couple of years’ time, and asking the BBC to fund this out of its own resources will leave it facing a cut of around one fifth of its budget. As has been said, that is the equivalent of the budgets for BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, the BBC News channel and the children’s channels. This will have a major impact and major implications for our national public service broadcaster at the very moment when the broadcasting and entertainment environment is changing and the BBC is under more pressure than ever from Netflix, Amazon and other providers. The direct impact of this on the BBC is that it will be faced with the awful choice of cutting quality or hitting pensioners.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr McFadden]

I am not going to give way, if that is okay, because there is a lot of pressure on time and others want to speak.

The first impact of the policy will be on the BBC itself. The second impact will be on pensioners, and it will be a dual impact—financial and social. The House of Commons Library estimates that there are around 5,600 households in my constituency with someone who is 75 or over. Looking at the options in the BBC consultation, we see that if the free BBC TV licence were restricted to pension credit recipients, 3,390 of those households would lose out, to the tune of £154 a year. If the qualifying age were raised to 80, around 2,200 households would lose out.

It has been said that we should means-test and restrict the benefit to those on pension credit. We are asked, “After all, what about the very wealthy pensioner with a huge estate?” The problem is that, as with changes to any universal benefit, it will not be just the pensioner with a huge estate who loses out. It is estimated that some 40% of pensioners entitled to pension credit do not receive it. If we go down the road suggested, not only the pensioner with the huge wealth will lose out, but some of the poorest pensioners in my constituency and the other constituencies that have been mentioned in the debate.

Then there is the social and cultural impact of cutting much-needed entertainment and information. What is the Government’s justification? The Minister came close to saying in opening that the change was a consequence of the financial crisis and that the Government were ultimately asking pensioners, some of them the lowest-income pensioners in the country, to pay the cost of it 10 years on. That would be unjust and unfair to pensioners in my constituency.

The free TV licence is, after all, a benefit. The Government should fund it and keep the manifesto promise they made in 2017 to maintain it. They have told us that austerity is over. What better way to start proving that than by changing their minds about the TV licence fee?

The debate is not just a party political joust. Let me act for a moment as the Under-Secretary’s political adviser and give him some friendly advice. If the Government go down this road, they will incur the wrath and lasting anger of pensioners, who have come to expect and are used to this benefit after the 20 or so years of its existence. It will do the Government no good to claim at the next election, “It wasn’t us; it was the BBC.” There is no evading the responsibility for the decision. It comes from and is owned by the Government, and the Government will pay the political price if they proceed with this policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I welcome the opportunity to debate free TV licences for over-75s. My mam, who I know will be watching, as a lot of pensioners do—I am sure lots of people besides our mams will be watching the Parliament channel—is very passionate about this issue because she is turning 75 in January. To her, this is personal, as she keeps telling me. She feels it has been done deliberately to give her a hard time. It is also personal to the thousands of pensioners who will be worse off if the free TV licence for over-75s is revoked, curtailed or means-tested.

In March, I hosted and addressed the National Pensioners Convention in Parliament for its rally on the BBC’s consultation. I share all of their frustrations about these proposed changes, because I know—I heard this at the rally, from the pensioners—how important their TVs are to their everyday lives. That is why I contributed to the BBC’s consultation in February this year. I have received notification that my letter will be included in the consultation document, so I hope all my points will be taken on board by the BBC and, in turn, listened to by the Government.

The introduction of free TV licences in 2000 for those aged over 75 was one of the many great achievements of the last Labour Government. That is why I and many of my colleagues opposed the Conservative Government’s outsourcing of this social benefit to the BBC as part of its 2015 royal charter. As we have heard, the cost to the BBC is roughly equivalent to the total it currently spends on all of BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, the BBC news channel, CBBC and CBeebies, so I strongly disagree with what the Prime Minister said at last week’s Prime Minister’s questions in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). She said that

“there is no reason why the BBC, with the money made available to it, is not able to continue that.”—[Official Report, 1 May 2019; Vol. 659, c. 203.]

I am incredulous that the Prime Minister really believes the BBC can fund all of this without detriment. Even to try to do so would be extremely detrimental to the content the BBC is able to offer, and risks causing immense damage to the quality of the service that we all currently enjoy.

I agree with BECTU—the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union—which has said, in opposing the proposals to scrap or limit free TV licences:

“as a welfare benefit, meeting the cost of free licence fees should be the duty of the government”.

It is a disgrace that the Government not only feel able to wash their hands of the responsibility for providing this welfare policy, but are now refusing to rule out breaking the commitment they made in the 2017 Conservative manifesto to maintain free TV licences for the over-75s up to 2022. More than 5,000 households in my constituency are eligible for a free TV licence as they have someone over the age of 75. I am sure that those households will feel let down and unable to trust the Conservative Government if their free TV licence is taken away.

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The BBC is under a lot of pressure in respect of new services, and has introduced BBC Sounds, on-demand services and social media services. These services are less likely to be used by the over-75s, but the Government expect the BBC to introduce these services and take away the benefit for over-75s or take the costs. This cannot stand. Does she not agree that the Government need to pay for this, because the BBC needs to continue to innovate?