Free TV Licences: Over-75s

Debate between Mike Gapes and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Change UK)]

It is not just this issue that is affected by the way the funding arrangements have changed. Until 2010, the BBC World Service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but £253 million in funding was stopped and the BBC was given the responsibility. Does the Secretary of State accept that the FCO has subsequently given money to the BBC for language services, so there is a precedent? Could we get around this by the Government paying the entirety of the World Service funding as they used to, so that we would not have this problem?

[Jeremy Wright]

Well, I do not know whether that is a way to deal with the whole issue, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, but he is right to point out that since the licence fee settlement, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has announced direct funding, in fact, of £255 million over three years to support language services for the World Service. He is right to point out that other streams of income are involved, but of course, we are talking about very much larger sums than that over a prolonged period in connection with this concession.