Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the reasons for the gender imbalance in people prosecuted for TV licence evasion identified by the TV Licence Fee Enforcement Review conducted by David Perry QC.

TV Licensing completed a review of the gender disparity in TV licence evasion prosecutions and published a Gender Disparity Report in 2017. The report explored some of the reasons why a gender imbalance exists but noted that there is no evidence of any discriminatory enforcement practices on the part of TV Licensing.

The government also noted its concern about the ongoing gender disparity of prosecutions for TV licence evasion in the consultation on decriminalisation of TV licence evasion launched in 2020.

The government is keeping the issue of decriminalisation under active consideration as part of the wider roadmap of reform of the BBC.