IS IT CRIMINAL NOT TO PAY LICENCE FEE? By Nicky Morgan

TWENTY years ago Blockbuster, the then heavyweight of video rentals, turned down a £38million merger offer from Netflix. Today Netflix is worth £50billion, 1,300 times its offer to Blockbuster – which has gone from 3,000 stores to a museum in Oregon, for people who want to remember what video cassettes look like.

Netflix now competes with the likes of Amazon, Google and Apple for dominance of the multi-billion dollar streaming market. The result is that people now spend three times as much time watching subscription services such as Netflix than they do BBC iPlayer.

More children now recognise the names Netflix and YouTube than they do the BBC.

I believe, no matter how wellfunded these international streaming giants are, UK public service broadcasters are vital.

We need our national broadcasters to bring people together, to reflect our common values, and to showcase these values to the world.

As the Prime Minister said last week, the BBC is a cherished British institution. Look at the incredible public response to this year’s Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special. It was the most-watched TV comedy for 17 years. Then there is the breadth of its output – from radio and TV to podcasts and online. But the pace of change is fast. Broadcasters which do not remain relevant will find themselves left behind by viewers.

So we need to think carefully about how the BBC – and indeed public service broadcasting more generally – can stay relevant in the years ahead.

As we move into an increasingly digital age, where there are more and more channels to watch and platforms to choose from, it is clear that many people consider it an anachronism that you can be imprisoned effectively for not paying for your TV licence. Decriminalisation of TV licence evasion was previously looked at by David Perry QC. It has now been five years since the Perry Review, when a TV licence wasn’t required to watch or download content on BBC iPlayer.

The Daily Mail has shone a spotlight on concerns over the way the licence fee is collected. And there remains legitimate concerns that the criminal sanction for TV licence fee evasion is unfair and disproportionate.

And after the BBC’s decision to drop free TV licences for all over-75s from June, we’re disappointed some vulnerable people in the UK will be liable to pay for the first time since 1999.

So we are today launching a public consultation on whether to decriminalise TV licence evasion, making it a civil rather than a criminal offence. We’ll also announce a new payment plan to allow people who struggle to pay the licence fee to spread out their payments evenly.

We will closely consider the impact it could have on the BBC, as well as the British people who pay for the BBC. Accountability and value for money for taxpayers must be at the heart of how the BBC is funded. That’s why we have made the BBC be more transparent about what it pays its highest-earning stars.

Our mission is to help public service broadcasters be better prepared to meet the challenges of the digital age. We make no apology for being bold and ambitious. As the world around us changes, our laws must change too. It will require the BBC to be innovative and to move with the times. We don’t want a beacon of British values and world-class entertainment ending up like Blockbuster.