Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will bring forward proposals to part-refund television licenses for people affected by the Bilsdale transmitter fire.

Under the Communications Act 2003, the BBC are entitled to make refunds for the TV licence fee in such circumstances as they may determine.

Following the Bilsdale mast fire, the BBC has announced that affected households which have been unable to receive TV coverage for over a month, and are also unable to view BBC programming through BBC iPlayer, and satellite and cable platforms, will be able to claim a refund or be offered a free extension to their TV Licence, depending on their TV Licensing payment plan. The BBC will make information available on these arrangements from 10 September on the TV Licensing website: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/transmitter.