Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people received custodial sentences in the last 10 years, broken down by gender, for the non-payment of fines relating to television licences; for how many of those people this was their sole offence; and how long the average sentence was.
Answered by Lord Faulks
Offenders found guilty of TV licence evasion may be sentenced to a fine and there is an expectation that fines are paid immediately where possible. HM Courts and Tribunals Service takes the issue of fine enforcement very seriously and is working to ensure that the recovery of fines is a continued priority nationwide. Failure to pay a fine imposed for TV licence evasion can lead to committal to prison for fine default, but only as a last resort once all other methods of recovering the money have been considered or tried and have failed.
Information about the length of time for which men and women were committed to prison for failing to pay a fine imposed for non-payment of a TV licence, since 2005, is provided in the table. The data relates to the fine defaulter's principal offence: information about whether it was their sole offence is not collected.
| Fine defaulter receptions for non-payment of a TV licence, by sex and average sentence length, England and Wales, January 2005- September 2014 | |||||||||||||
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010(1) | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | Jan-Sep 2014 | ||||
| Fine defaulter receptions for non-payment of a TV licence | |||||||||||||
| Males | 21 | 21 | 17 | 19 | 11 | .. | 10 | 25 | 15 | 10 | |||
| Females | 8 | 3 | 10 | 16 | 19 | .. | 38 | 26 | 17 | 24 | |||
| Average sentence length in days | |||||||||||||
| Males | 14 | 14 | 11 | 20 | 17 | .. | 20 | 19 | 25 | 19 | |||
| Females | 17 | 6 | 17 | 16 | 17 | .. | 24 | 25 | 23 | 18 | |||
| Data Sources and Quality | |||||||||||||
| These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. | |||||||||||||
| (1) During 2010 there was a disruption to the supply of the prison receptions data which is used for the purpose of statistical reporting. | |||||||||||||
Asked by: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what guidance is given to the courts on sentencing for non-payment of fines in relation to failure to pay for television licences.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The courts are provided with guidance on sentencing and other ways of dealing with offenders, such as fine enforcement, by sentencing guidelines. These are issued by the Sentencing Council, which is independent of Government. The enforcement of fines imposed for the offence of TV licence evasion, which is non-imprisonable, is dealt with by the magistrates’ courts. The Magistrates’ Court Sentencing Guidelines can be found at the link:
http://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/MCSG_web_-_October_2014.pdf
Pages 156 to 159 of the guidelines provide guidance to the courts on the enforcement of fines. This applies to all fines enforced by the magistrates’ courts: there is no specific guidance on dealing with offenders who have failed to pay a fine imposed for the offence of TV licence evasion.
The courts are required by law to follow any relevant sentencing guidelines unless it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so.