Old school TV licence rebels vow to force a Tory U-turn
Campaign chief: Ministers should be very worried
ACTION by over-75s to disrupt plans to strip them of their free TV licence should make the Government “very worried”, a campaign leader has warned.
Silver Voices wants its members to gum up the works by the way they pay and correspond.
The aim is to make the cost of administering and enforcing the licence fee for over-75s more expensive than keeping it free.
Silver Voices has urged those affected to only pay by cash or cheque and only communicate with TV Licensing by post.
It wants over-75s to use “creative but legal ways to complicate and delay payment” such as giving “slightly too much so that a credit note has to be organised”.
Group director Dennis
Reed said: “The BBC is very worried about the potential impact of our campaign. The Government should be too.
“Our action against private contractor Capita, who run TV Licensing, should persuade the Government to work with the BBC to ensure this essential benefit is retained.” He wrote to the BBC about the plans. BBC policy controller Paul Oldfield said in reply: “The vast majority of people pay for their licence by direct debit or other options... so they can pay in instalments for example. TVL [TV Licensing] offers payment by cheque but has to collect the full cost without instalment options.
“Under TVL’s current systems, we are trying to encourage customers not to post us information during this time.” The Tories pledged in 2017 to protect over-75s’ free licences for the rest of that Parliament, which was due to run until 2022.
But the Government had already handed the BBC the responsibility for funding the lifeline from 2020.
From August 1, the corporation is restricting eligibility to over-75s who receive Pension Credit.
About 3.7 million people will lose the £157.50-a-year lifeline. The Mirror is campaigning to save the benefit.
The BBC says free licences for all over-75s would cost £745million next year. Outgoing boss Lord Hall blames the Tories for the lifeline being axed.