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It is down to the government to administer means-tested benefits – not the BBC

It is plain wrong that the government should dodge the blame for cutting universal TV licence provision for over-75s through bureaucratic sleight of hand

Monday 10 June 2019 20:41 BST
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Even if subsidies for the elderly were scrapped, the corporation would have a funding crisis on its hands
Even if subsidies for the elderly were scrapped, the corporation would have a funding crisis on its hands

Like the corporation itself, the BBC licence fee is approaching its centenary. Since 1923 it has helped the BBC inform, educate and entertain successive generations, with often brilliant broadcasting on the wireless, television and, now, via its vast web and social media operations. The one thing the BBC is exceptionally poorly suited to, and was never designed to be, is an arm of the benefits system. This it was persuaded to do three years ago in return for a guarantee of uprating the licence fee in line with inflation. It has taken on the responsibility for the subsidy required for the over 75s to enjoy a free licence that was originally funded by HM Treasury.

Whatever pressure was placed on the BBC to do so by the government, this was a mistake. The BBC now has to take the kind of tough decisions on what amounts to a kind of welfare benefit that should properly be the job of politicians. By the same token, the politicians – today’s government ministers – must not be allowed to evade their responsibilities by dumping the blame on the BBC.

The BBC, in other words, should be making excellent programmes and working out how to rise to the challenge set by new megaliths such as Netflix; instead it is being pushed into administering a means test on Britain’s pensioners. Defining eligibility for a free licence by reference to pension credit is bristling with dangers – as it is a benefit that has to be claimed, it is not particularly easy to make such a claim and, arguably, there are poor pensioners who are not eligible for pension credit in any case. Thus some poorer pensioners will lose out by £154.50 a year.

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