Television Licence Evasion Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Lord Birt
Main Page: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Birt's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The figures that my noble friend refers to—the 91 people receiving a custodial sentence—are for the period 2015-18, and those numbers have declined significantly in recent years. In relation to a civil sanction, it needs to be sufficiently robust to underpin the legal requirement to hold a TV licence, and, as I mentioned, it might result in higher financial penalties. We are keeping this matter open for further review.
Lord Birt (CB) [V]
My Lords, in recent times we have seen a rapid decline in the funding of one of our greatest achievements as a country, admired and envied the world over: British public service broadcasting. Over the past 15 years, investment in original UK production has been cut by 30%. Does the Minister accept that addressing this massive decline should be top of the agenda when the BBC’s licence fee is soon reviewed?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. In the review of the licence fee—which, as he knows, we are committed to until 2027—a very wide range of issues will be taken into account, including, of course, the importance of our independent production sector. As he understands better than I, it has been enormously successful and vibrant, thanks to a great deal of other investment as well as that from the BBC.