TV Licence Fee

Mike Hill Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petitions 170931 and 200239 relating to the TV Licence fee.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. A number of people who have signed the petitions or emailed me are concerned that they still have to pay the licence fee, arguing that they do not see why they should have to pay for another service in an age in which subscription and streaming services are the norm. They also think that the licence fee is too high. That is certainly true of one of our petitioners, who said that he only uses streaming services and Freeview, while someone who emailed me said:

“It now seems absurd to pay for something which you have absolutely no control over”,

and that he

“will typically watch only four programmes the BBC produces a year”.

He must keep detailed records of his TV watching, if that is the case.

They also make the fair point that the licence fee is a regressive tax. We cannot get away from that, which is why the previous Labour Government introduced free television licences for the poorest pensioners—those aged over 75—which the previous Chancellor then put on to the BBC’s budget. However, its being regressive is outweighed by its simplicity, and by the fact that nowadays people pay a lot more for satellite and subscription services. What is missing from the arguments I have received is any consciousness of the role of public sector broadcasting as a good for all society, and of the wide range of services that the BBC is expected to provide as a condition of the licence fee.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that obligations placed on the BBC, as part of the licence fee arrangements, to fund community-based broadcasting services, such as Made in Teesside in my area, are a useful element of the scheme?

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend, who I am pleased to say is now a member of the Petitions Committee, is quite right. The BBC has to meet obligations that commercial broadcasters do not, which is very important.

Those who argue against the licence fee find it quite difficult to come up with an alternative, or at least a viable alternative. The then Culture, Media and Sport Committee suggested in a previous Parliament that over time we might move to the German model by having a broadcasting levy on every household. That has the merit of being simple and relatively easy to collect, and it would also ensure that those who use only, say, BBC radio or its online services contribute something to their cost. However, it does not get away from the regressive argument.

Finland funds its public sector broadcasting through personal taxation, which allows it not to be regressive. However, I do not feel that would work in this country, since the Treasury is notoriously resistant to hypothecation; it would be far too easy for any Chancellor to raid that budget. It would also be very damaging to the BBC’s independence, which I think many of us feel is worth preserving.