BBC: TV Licence Evasion Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Trefgarne
Main Page: Lord Trefgarne (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Trefgarne's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberAs the noble Lord, knows, very few people have been jailed—only five. We are consulting because we think that it is right to look again at whether the criminal sanction is appropriate. There are ongoing concerns that it could be seen as unfair and disproportionate, but at the risk of stating the obvious, the point of a consultation—and this is an open consultation without a recommended approach —is to get to the truth. There is enormous interest. Over 2,000 responses have been received already, and the consultation only opened at 11 am. There is a lot of public interest in this.
The noble Lord rightly probed whether this will be sufficient time. The Government may need to consult further on the detail of any potential changes before taking a decision, but not before we have found out what the public think.
My Lords, following the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, I heard recently of a case in which an unmarried mother with four children who had not paid her TV licence was sent to prison for a month. Her children had to go into care, with a cost to the public purse of many tens of thousands.
I am very sorry to hear of that case. As we know, women and people from black and minority ethnic communities are overly represented among those who are sanctioned for evasion. One of the things that we want to explore though this consultation is the impact of a changed approach on those groups.