Culture, Media and Sport committee

Debate between John Whittingdale and Robert Neill

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is correct; it was a very long time ago and I had rather hoped that people had forgotten that particular headline. I did not mention this in my statement, but of course we recognise the BBC’s important role not only in providing BBC Wales and Welsh programming, but in supporting S4C, which was a creation of the Conservative Government. That is very important. The BBC’s reputation for accurate news reporting is absolutely essential, and no member of the Committee would ever want to see that put in jeopardy.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that one advantage of decriminalisation is that it would be welcomed by many magistrates and their staff, because it would stop their work loads being clogged up with cases that are often uncontested and result in non-appearances, which wastes time and money? On the other hand, in relation to the household levy, does he recognise the concern among local authorities about one idea that was posited, which is that it might be collected using their resources, perhaps along with the council tax bill? Does he agree that it would be unfair to force hard-working local authorities that have kept council tax down to become the vehicle for passing on a levy over which they have no control?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for both points. The collection mechanism currently costs about £100 million. If we moved to a different system, perhaps by attaching it to council tax, we could probably provide an incentive to councils to take on that responsibility and still save money. His point about magistrates courts is entirely right, as there are about 150,000 convictions every year for failure to have a licence, and that clogs up the courts. It is one of the many reasons why there is a strong case for decriminalisation.