My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. As only the fourth spear-carrier on this amendment, I want to make just a few, very brief points.
We are, I hope, widely agreeing that this debate is purely about timing. As we have heard, there are supporters of the amendment who may go different ways. I happen to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that this measure is in a sense a Trojan Horse designed to damage the BBC, but I suspect that there are many others who will disagree with me, including the noble Baroness, Lady Corston.
As we have heard from around the House, it is vital that licence fee penalties are considered in the round as an integral part of the review of the BBC’s charter and funding. The BBC has an agreed settlement until March 2017 and based its long-term planning around that. Unforeseen reductions in income will impact services and content to the detriment of licence fee payers—that is, if a different arrangement is made beforehand which has an impact on licence fee collection.
As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, there is another very important reason, quite apart from that budgetary one. It is about the undertaking given by Government back in 2010. The noble Lord quoted from the letter.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has retabled her amendment and of course I strongly support it. We were not given a very decent response by the Government in Committee. My noble friend Lord Gardiner stated:
“Surely it does not make sense to apply any constraints that could hinder moving to a new enforcement regime; nor would any such constraint represent the best approach for licence fee payers, or the courts system”.—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. GC 42.]
I believe entirely the opposite: this amendment, if adopted, would represent the best approach for licence fee payers. This is not an artificial limitation on timing. As my noble friend suggested, it is about keeping to the letter and spirit of the 2010 licence fee settlement to avoid unforeseen reductions in income adversely impacting BBC services and content, and to make sure that any changes to the enforcement regime are part and parcel of the charter review.