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Concessionary Television Licences

My Lords, five years ago a private deal was done over the funding of the BBC. The licence fee was frozen. The BBC took over funding of the World Service, BBC Monitoring, S4C, and picked up other costs. Together that amounted to a 16% cut in the budget. Here we are again: another back-room deal pre-empting the open consultative process that we have been promised on the BBC charter. However, what is different this time is that the Government are blatantly requiring the BBC to take on responsibility for a matter of social policy that is nothing to do with its main charter responsibilities. Surely if the Government want to maintain free TV for over-75s, as they said in their manifesto, they should fund it. Are we to believe that the Budget later this week will ask the bus companies to assume responsibilities for free bus passes for pensioners? If not, are we not entitled to see this agreement for what it is—a politically inspired attack on the BBC, ahead of and ring-fenced from the charter review process?

Where is the BBC expected to find this money—from the World Service or from S4C, or by cutting channels or reducing programme quality? The Chancellor in his

interview mentioned the BBC website. If the Government have views about the social policies the BBC should be pursuing, perhaps they also have views about content. Can the Minister tell us what is now expected of the BBC, since the relationship no longer seems to be at arm’s length? Finally, when this matter was raised in 2010, the then trust threatened to resign if the Government went ahead with their proposal. This time, we are told that the BBC Trust has agreed with the proposal. Does that not raise questions about the trust itself and its capacity to safeguard the vital charter responsibilities of the BBC now and in the future?