Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost is to the public purse of the provision of free television licences to people over 75 years of age.

The cost of providing free TV licences to people aged over 75 years was £655m to the public purse in 2017/18. Cost outturn for 2018/19 has not been published yet, but was forecast to be £468m. This is the first year of the part funding agreement that was set out in the summer budget 2015. The cost is forecast to reduce to £247m in 2019/20 and then nil from 2020/21 when responsibility for the concession will transfer to the BBC in June 2020.

Note that all the figures quoted in this response are in nominal terms.

DWP publish expenditure and caseload information here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2019>