Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between John Whittingdale and Bob Blackman(8 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Last night you and I, Mr Speaker, attended the 10th anniversary of Asianlite, an Asian newspaper that is online and in print. Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State join me in congratulating it on 10 years of wonderful publication, and in looking forward to at least another 10 years of its celebrated works?
Mr Whittingdale
I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Asianlite. I have had several recent meetings with representatives of Asian media organisations to talk about how we can support them and work with them in tackling problems such as extremism. It is essential that those communities have thriving media, so I am very happy to hear about this latest edition and wish it every success.
Concessionary Television Licences
Debate between John Whittingdale and Bob Blackman
Mr Whittingdale
I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. On the iPlayer loophole, the original conception of the licence fee was that those who enjoyed watching television should pay a licence fee from which the BBC would be funded. Of course, at that time, the opportunity to view catch-up television did not exist, but I think those who created the licence fee would have thought that it should apply equally to those watching catch-up and those watching live TV. It is merely to reassert that principle that the Government have agreed to change the law so that catch-up TV is treated in exactly the same way as live TV in respect of the requirement to pay the licence fee.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what changes there will be to the processes of identifying those who are eligible and granting exemptions to the households that qualify?
Mr Whittingdale
The future of the licence fee and specifically the decriminalisation aspect, which relates to the enforcement point, have been examined in detail by David Perry. I do not want to anticipate the publication of his report, but that will feed into the charter review, as will the other aspects that my hon. Friend has raised.