Deregulation Bill

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen]

Not only do the majority of Members of this House think that the measure is disproportionate; I honestly believe that the majority of people in the country think that it is disproportionate. When I first proposed my amendment and canvassed support for it across the House, it was clear that a large number of Members did not initially think that it was a criminal offence not to pay the TV licence fee. It is within our power to correct this. In England and Wales, more people are imprisoned each year for the non-payment of fines associated with TV licensing than are prosecuted for evasion in Scotland, with little, if any, difference in the evasion rate.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

To be absolutely clear, people are not going to prison for refusing to pay the TV licence fee. The reality is that people are sent to prison for refusing to pay the penalty for not paying the fee in the first place. The former Solicitor-General has intervened a couple of times to suggest the opposite to that.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. People go to prison not for not paying the licence fee, but for not paying the fines. However, if someone has hit hard times and has no money and cannot afford a £145.50 licence fee, they are unlikely, as in the example cited by Baroness Corston, to be able to pay a £200 fine, which could result in a mother going to prison and her children being taken into care, with the consequent results for her family on release.

The avoidance rate for payment of the TV licence fee in Scotland is hardly different from that in England, despite the fact that we criminalise 160,000 to 180,000 of our citizens a year and imprison between 30 and 50, whereas Scotland prosecutes only some 30 people a year. Given the sparsity of population in Scotland and human behaviour being what it is, one might consider that there would be a greater chance of evading prosecution in a remote part of Scotland than anywhere in England. I would suggest that there was possibly a higher evasion rate in Scotland prior to the decriminalisation anyway.

Unfortunately, the BBC public relations machine seems to have won the day in the upper House, so I now come to amendment (a) in lieu, tabled in the name of the Minister for Government Policy and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin). As he says, there is no doubting the significant cross-party support for the clauses relating to TV licensing during the earlier stages of the Bill, and the firm commitments set out by the Government must be honoured. I therefore support the amendment to ensure that the review by David Perry QC, due in June 2015, to which I had the pleasure of giving evidence only last week, is promptly considered by the Government of the day, and that the changes that I very much hope come about are introduced with a clear timetable.

Whatever future funding mechanism for the BBC is decided at the next charter review, I hope that criminalising more than 160,000 of our fellow citizens each year, an estimated 75% of whom are women, will no longer be part of it. I therefore urge the House to join me in opposing the Lords amendment and supporting the Government’s amendments in lieu.