My Lords, I support the amendment of my noble friend Lady Howe, not just because I am a producer in the BBC’s science and history department but, much more importantly, because I am a licence fee payer who very much appreciates and enjoys the wide range of programming offered by the BBC to the people of this country. To me, it is a beacon of education and information, and I fear that Clauses 50, 59 and 60 are a threat to that.
The amendment does not ask us to decide on the pros and cons of the decriminalisation of the non-payment of the licence fee, but it asks noble Lords to support a delay in the implementation of its recommendations until 1 April to ensure that it is incorporated in the full charter renewal process, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, said.
When thinking about the effect of suddenly introducing the results of the review, we ought to think about the sums of money involved. My noble friend Lady Howe suggested that £200 million could be taken out of the BBC budget. That has been based on research from the Debt Advisory Centre looking at the evasion of utility bills, which I think actually stands at about 8%. However, this situation risks being worse than 8%; after all, research from households shows that the payment of gas and electricity is a very high priority, while paying the licence fee is a lower one. Also, the BBC does not have the option of turning off its signal.
The reduction in income would affect the quality and quantity of programmes that we see on our TV screens and hear on our radios. There are comparisons that can be made internationally. In Finland, which I think is generally seen as a law-abiding country, there is a non-criminal enforcement regime and modest financial sanctions for non-payment of its television licence fee, and the evasion rate there is 12%. In Japan, which is so law-abiding that when I was there people would not jaywalk, there is a 27% rate of non-payment of the licence fee to NHK, the national broadcaster.
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