Should Free Tv Licences For The Over 75 Be Scrapped?

[Gromit]

Free TV licences were introduced by Gordon Brown, largely as a bribe to get the grey vote. The new Government has decided it does not want to pay for this anymore, so the cost, £650million will now be met by the BBC. In effect money which would go to making programmes is now to be diverted to subsidising pensioners.

Rather a neat trick by The Government, not cutting the subsidy which would be unpopular, but deciding not to fund the subsidy themselves.

Is it time to do away with Gordon's old bribe? Is it not a con that money we all pay to fund the BBC is now being diverted to fund lucences for old people. Or perhaps National Lottery money could be used instead of cutting programming money.

[sandyRoe]

If an earlier government gave the bribe isn't it up to the present one to remove it?

[maggiebee]

Maybe need to catch up with the licence fee dodgers first?

[Bazile]

I'm not sure that funding of free licences for any specific age group is warranted - and even if it was , we have the age old problem of , why should people within that group , who can afford the licence get a freebie .

It's like child benefit or the winter fuel payment

[Davemano]

Personally I would be able to pay the fee without difficulty but appreciate that there are others who are not so fortunate. People tend to get less spare cash once they retire so I can't see how the magic 75years was arrived at, why not 65?. What is peeving is the amount of money the BBC waste, which had been given quite a lot of publicity lately.

[maggiebee]

Agree Bazile, but my comment still stands. No such thing as Child Benefit these days, but winter fuel payment is a bit of a joke.

[Bazile]

really , has child benefit been scrapped or does exist under a different
name ?

[maggiebee]

Think it's called Child Tax Credit now and not everyone gets it - think it depends on the parents' income. My daughter certainly doesn't get anything for her two boys.

[Bazile]

I suspect as in any large organisation there is bound to be a lot of waste and duplication .

It would be interesting to see the lists of jobs in the BBC compared to other channels like sky and ITV

[Quizmonster]

"Rather a neat trick by The Government, not cutting the subsidy which would be unpopular, but deciding not to fund the subsidy themselves."

Not at all unlike their plan to reduce drastically the number of children living in poverty by the simple expedient of creating a new definition of what 'poverty' actually means!

[Davemano]

Child benefit and Child tax credit are two different things and both still exist - google Child Benefit for full details

[MargoTester]

As far as I know child benefit still exists, it appears on Gov.uk website. I thought everybody got it until the child was 16,unless one parent earns over a certain amount. £50.000

[maggiebee]

You may be right Margo, my son in law is quite a high earner therefore they may not be entitled to anything.

[anotheoldgit]

What about the £10 Christmas Bonus we get, not to mention the £0.25p extra we get on on our pensions when one reaches 80years old, should they also be scrapped?

[Gromit]

// It would be interesting to see the lists of jobs in the BBC compared to other channels like sky and ITV //

The BBC is the biggest broadcaster in the World with nearly 20,000 employees.

[Gromit]

Just checked and SKY claim to have 25,000 full time employees.

[anotheoldgit]

Maybe they should introduce a BBC sports channel and increase their licence fee for all those who wish to watch it.

And why do TV companies always have to have two news presenters on their news broadcasts, generally one male and one female, or one black or Asian and one white?

On the late news they only have one newscaster.

[chaptazbru2]

A bribe to get the grey vote - how do you know ???

[Bazile]

I daresay that this report will say that they are efficient ( i haven't got the will to read it ) and no money is wasted

http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/bbc_efficiency_report_2014.

Would an independent review of how they spend the licence fee help ?

[Bazile]

try this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/bbc_report_pwc_update_efficiencies_july_2015

[Old_Geezer]

No it should not be scrapped but extended to those under and equal to 75 also.

Surely it is not a payout so needs no funding, it is simply less dosh coming in. Consequently it should not be removed from a budget agreed to be needed to cover the cost of the production. The collection of money to pay for the BBC is quite a separate issue from the budget allocated to run it.