Licence fee row as only English dodgers face jail

PRESSURE to scrap criminal penalties for failing to pay the TV licence increased yesterday after it was revealed that no one in Scotland has been jailed for the offence for at least five years.

In England and Wales, dozens of people are jailed each year for not paying the £145.50 fee to the BBC.

But legal reforms in Scotland mean the threat of jail has effectively been removed already north of the Border.

Data supplied in response to freedom of information requests shows no one here has been jailed over the issue for at least five years.

Campaigners said the figures demolished the case against decriminalisation.

Ministers are divided over the issue after a Government-sponsored report warned that lifting the threat of criminal sanctions would lead to a major increase in the number of people refusing to pay, and a big drop in the BBC’s income.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, a leading campaigner for reform, said the evidence from Scotland showed the threat of jail was ‘totally disproportionate and unnecessary’.

Mr Bridgen said: ‘ In England and Wales there are 180,000 prosecutions a year for failing to pay the licence fee, and dozens of people are jailed each year. In Scotland, there were 32 prosecutions in the courts and no one went to jail. Yet we have not seen evasion go through the roof, as the BBC claims it would. It is a myth that it would happen if we had decriminalisation.’

Legal reforms introduced in Scotland over the past decade mean individuals are no longer jailed for failing to pay fines of less than £500 – well above the amount typically levied for non-payment of the licence fee.

The move means few prosecutions now reach court, although more than 13,000 people faced non-court fines.

In England and Wales, however, licence fee prosecutions account for more than one in ten of all cases handled by magistrates’ courts.

In 2013, more than 178,300 people were prosecuted for failing to have a TV licence. Some 153,369 were convicted, of whom 32 were jailed for refusing to pay court fines.

Non-payment of other utility charges such as gas and electricity does not attract criminal penalties, and critics say there is no reason why the BBC should be given special status.

Downing Street yesterday declined to say whether Mr Cameron still backed the idea, but said it would be considered as part of a wide-ranging review of the BBC’s charter next year.

Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who faces deep cuts in his budget, has said licence fee cases place an unnecessary burden on the courts system.