BBC

Debate between John Whittingdale and Robert Courts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

As I say, the matter was extensively debated during the passage of the Digital Economy Act 2017, and it was Parliament that agreed that the responsibility should be transferred to the BBC, so that is not likely to be reversed. It is a matter for the BBC as to how it goes about this. The Government are disappointed and believe that alternative options were available. I encourage the pensioners in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to check whether they are entitled to receive pension credit and therefore to maintain a free TV licence. The exemption was introduced only 12 years ago, at an age that was relatively arbitrary at the time; it did not need to be set at that age and that is something else that the BBC might have considered.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

My constituents are dismayed at the BBC’s decisions in respect of licences for over-75s and the proposed cuts to local coverage. Does the Minister agree that after having so recently received that “strong deal” in the renegotiation, the BBC ought to have raised this issue before it was three years into the period if it was not intending to continue with the obligations it has set out?

[Mr Whittingdale]

To give the BBC some credit, it did hold quite a lengthy consultation in which it put forward a number of options as to the future of the exemption. In my view, some of those other options were greatly preferable to the one that the BBC finally chose, which was the decision to abolish it in its entirety. I think the BBC could have done more. I am at least assured that the BBC has now said that every person over 75 who currently has a free TV licence will receive a letter: first, to point out that they can still receive one if they are on pension credit, and secondly, to say that no action will be taken in pursuit of the BBC’s requiring a licence until after those letters have been dispatched and received.