Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Wood of Anfield and Lord Gordon of Strathblane

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane]

My Lords, I was a member of that licence fee commission under Gavyn Davies in 1998. It may interest the House to know that we had a subcommittee under the late Lord Newton looking at the issue of possibly funding a licence fee for over-75s and making it free. The unanimous conclusion of the committee was that that was a very bad idea and wholly inappropriate for the BBC.

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 222B, 222C and 222D, which go together and which draw on the spirit of the excellent arguments from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and share many of the features of what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, set out. The idea is to reinforce the credibility of the licence fee, to ensure the BBC receives the resources it needs to fulfil its responsibilities under the charter. These amendments go together because, logically, the problem is that the process of negotiating the charter and setting a licence fee level do not always sit easily together.

At present, the connection between the charter process and the licence fee process is, at best, an indirect one. Each has its own political dynamics, so in setting the licence fee Governments have a range of considerations and pressures to contend with. One of those is the interests of the BBC to fund what the charter says it has to do, but it also includes the interests of other broadcasters, the politics around the headline licence fee rate—which is a huge thing for Ministers, proving to the public that they have got more for less out of the BBC and the overall settlement—and, as we discussed earlier, financial pressure to offload government responsibility on to the BBC without extra cost. So the temptation always exists for government to inflate the ambition of the charter and to put a lid on the increases in the licence fee simultaneously. That not only threatens the BBC’s autonomy but risks casting the Government with the suspicion of unwarranted interference.