Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Minister for Justice, whether he has made an estimate of the potential increase in the number of prosecutions there will be of people over 75 who have not paid for a TV licence from June 2020.

The lead department on TV licencing is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DDCMS).

The responsibility for TV licence fee concessions will pass from government to the BBC in June 2020, at which time the BBC has taken the decision to end free TV licences for all over 75s.

The Ministry of Justice has reviewed prosecution data between 1992 and 1999 for TV licence fee evasion, prior to the introduction of the concession, and established that there were no prosecutions of defendants over the age of 75 during this period.