Europe
BBC slammed for ‘outrageous’ licence payment hike as Brits face largest enhance in 20 years | Politics | Information
BBC slammed for ‘outrageous’ licence payment hike as Brits face largest enhance in 20 years | Politics | Information
2023-03-17 19:29:00
The BBC faces contemporary fury over ‘outrageous’ plans to hike the licence payment (Picture: GETTY)
Mr Reed mentioned: “I don’t suppose there’s any justification for elevating the licence payment throughout a price of dwelling disaster and it’s nonetheless going to be a disaster in a 12 months’s time.
“It’s sure to extend evasion and it’s sure to extend the variety of people who find themselves criminalised as a result of they will’t afford to pay the payment.
“But additionally it’ll undoubtedly strengthen the resolve of the lots of of 1000’s of over-75s who nonetheless haven’t paid the licence payment for the reason that free licence was scrapped two years in the past.
“So it’ll definitely strengthen their resolve to maintain combating for that free profit to be restored.”
The licence payment rise might see households having to pay £172 (Picture: GETTY)
Mr Reed known as for the Authorities to launch a session on what’s going to substitute the licence payment forward of the present royal constitution ending in 2027.
He mentioned: “In the mean time all people appears to be ready for 2027 to return alongside and there doesn’t look like any type of reside session happening for the time being about what ought to substitute it.
“It undoubtedly wants changing by one thing as a result of it’s the most regressive tax that there’s, simply being a flat fee with no regard to the flexibility to pay.”
The licence payment is because of rise according to inflation in April 2024 following a two-year freeze.
The Workplace of Price range Accountability (OBR) this week forecast the determine used can be 8.2 per cent, which might see the levy go up from £159 to £172.
Politicians additionally condemned the transfer and declared the BBC ought to not have the ability to depend on taxpayers’ money.
Tory MP Scott Benton mentioned: “The licence payment is a a long time outdated, regressive tax and this slap within the face to viewers at a troublesome time will solely hasten requires it to be scrapped for good.”
Baroness Hoey, a former Labour MP who now sits as a non-affiliated peer within the Lords, added: “A £13 enhance can be outrageous. Increasingly persons are not watching the BBC and shouldn’t be compelled to pay a payment to look at different channels which they might have chosen to subscribe to.
“I’d hope that if this enhance was to be introduced in there can be a widespread refusal to pay. A state-funded BBC is not tenable.”
Jan Shortt, common secretary of the Nationwide Pensioners Conference, mentioned: “£13 a 12 months doesn’t appear a lot – simply over a pound a month. However for these on an insufficient state pension it means one more selection. Pay or not have a TV.
“For older individuals, particularly those that are remoted, the TV is usually their solely companion.”
The BBC is below intense stress after an impartiality row erupted over tweets by Match of the Day host Gary Lineker criticising the Authorities’s unlawful immigration crackdown and evaluating language used to that of Nineteen Thirties Germany.
Gary Lineker is the BBC’s highest-paid star on £1.35 million a 12 months (Picture: GETTY)
The company was plunged into disaster final weekend when the 62-year-old’s fellow pundits and commentators staged a boycott in a present of assist after he was taken off air.
Lineker – the BBC’s highest-paid star on £1.35 million a 12 months – will return to his soccer programme in the present day [SAT] after director-general Tim Davie apologised for the saga and introduced a evaluate of social media tips on the broadcaster.
Conservative MP Peter Bone mentioned: “Many people who find themselves pensioners will discover this very troublesome to afford. And but on the similar time it appears that evidently Gary Lineker and the opposite overpaid sports activities presenters can push the BBC round.
“The easy reply to that is scrap the licence payment and if individuals need to subscribe to the BBC so be it. However to drive individuals to pay an additional £13 for a service they don’t need within the first place is grossly unfair and it simply reveals how out of contact the BBC is.”
Conservative MP Philip Davies branded the hike “not acceptable”, saying: “The BBC must cease sucking on the teat of the licence payment payer and earn a dwelling as everybody else has to do.
“If – as they declare – the BBC licence payment is such great worth for cash then they don’t have anything to worry from going to a subscription mannequin as presumably everybody can be queuing as much as pay it.
“Then these of us who don’t need to subscribe can decide out and Gary Lineker and mates can trot out as a lot left-wing drivel as they need and we’ll all be glad.”
Former minister Andrea Jenkyns mentioned: “The BBC’s licence payment is a hard-hitting tax for the poorest individuals in our society, it’s disgraceful that it’s rising one other £13 subsequent 12 months.
“I’m calling on our Authorities earlier than the tip of Parliament to defund the BBC.”
A report by the Nationwide Audit Workplace in December 2021 discovered that throughout the BBC’s three principal tv channels, 56 p.c of the schedule is repeats. The determine stands at nearly a 3rd for its flagship channel BBC One.
A BBC spokesperson mentioned: “The Authorities agreed a six-year licence payment settlement in January 2022 which froze the licence payment for 2 years, with will increase according to inflation from 2024.
“It isn’t for the BBC to invest on what inflation is perhaps and the way which may affect the licence payment in future years. In the end it’s for Authorities to set and ensure the price of a licence annually.
“The BBC will proceed to give attention to what it does finest: working to ship world-class content material and worth for all its audiences.”
A DCMS spokesperson mentioned: “We agreed a good settlement with the BBC that may see the licence payment stay at £159 till 2024 to guard licence payment payers from present inflationary pressures, after which rise according to inflation till the tip of 2027. The precise degree of inflation is but to be confirmed.
“The BBC’s funding mannequin faces main challenges attributable to modifications in the way in which individuals devour media, which is why we’re working with it to have a look at methods to make sure it’s sustainable in the long run.”
COMMENT BY DENNIS REED
“You have to be having amusing” was my first response to the information that the BBC and the Authorities could also be concocting an eight per cent rise within the TV Licence payment from subsequent April.
Sadly not, it appears, with the licence payment freeze attributable to finish this 12 months.
There’s completely no justification for any rise within the licence payment whereas the cost-of-living disaster continues, and the Price range anticipated an additional fall in dwelling requirements throughout 2023.
Older households who survive on the essential state pension are already at their wits’ finish with hovering meals and heating payments, and the really fizzling out of power assist within the subsequent few months will plunge many extra into pensioner poverty.
And an eight per cent uplift when inflation is about to fall to under three per cent this 12 months makes a mockery of getting a freeze in any respect.
If a rise within the licence payment to £182 per 12 months takes place subsequent April, it’ll result in a pointy rise in evasion as households prioritise meals and power.
If the BBC had agreed to our repeated pleas for prosecutions for TV licence non-payment to be suspended during the disaster, I’d have had barely extra sympathy for the rise, however Tim Davie and his executives have proven no compassion in any respect concerning the plight of hard-pressed households.
As a substitute, extra households might be criminalised unnecessarily if this rise goes by.
The BBC and the Authorities must be understanding a fairer system to fund the BBC, based mostly on skill to pay, to exchange the regressive licence tax, which hits the poorest, the toughest, moderately than jacking up the associated fee nonetheless additional.
An increase within the licence payment subsequent 12 months will, nonetheless, harden the resolve of the lots of of 1000’s of over-75s who’ve been refusing to pay the payment for over two years, in assist of the Silver Voices marketing campaign to revive free licences for our senior residents.
- Dennis Reed is the Silver Voices director
