Television Licences: Non-payment

(asked on 27th October 2022) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of preventing TV Licensing from prosecuting people who are unable to pay their TV licences during the period of increased cost of living.


Answered by
Julia Lopez Portrait
Julia Lopez
Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This question was answered on 3rd November 2022

The BBC is responsible for the collection and enforcement of the licence fee, not the government. The Government is therefore not involved in TV Licensing operations. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is responsible for collecting and enforcing financial penalties imposed by the courts which includes fines imposed for the non-payment of a TV licence.

In 2021, 49,126 people were proceeded against by HM Courts & Tribunals Service for non-payment of the licence fee, and 44,364 were fined. The BBC has recently confirmed that no enforcement or prosecution action has been taken against over-75s who previously held a free licence and therefore no over-75s have been fined. The Department does not hold data on the amount collected from TV licensing fines and will engage with relevant departments to follow up with this information.

The Government is independent from the BBC, and any decision to suspend enforcement action by TV Licensing, or assessment of the impact of this decision, would be a matter for the BBC. Given the BBC’s independence it would not be appropriate for the government to seek to intervene in operational decisions on enforcement action. Nonetheless, the government expects the BBC to collect the licence fee in an efficient and proportionate manner, and to treat all vulnerable people with sensitivity in doing so.

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