HC Deb 17 December 1973 vol 866 cc940-1
21. Mr. Ashton

asked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will introduce legislation to bring in a specific television licence for sets used by hotels and business premises.

Sir J. Eden

There already are some such licences. If the hon. Gentleman has any problem about them I shall be pleased to do my best to try to resolve it.

Mr. Ashton

But why should the Savoy, with 450 television sets, pay for only one licence? Why do we have a situation, under the 1949 and 1970 Wireless Telegraphy Acts, in which the Grosvenor with 200 sets, Claridge's with 200 sets, the Churchill with 100 sets, the Inn on the Park with 100 sets and the Dorchester with 50 sets each pays only one television licence for the lot, when we are telling old-age pensioners that they cannot have a cheap or free television licence? Will the Minister do something to stop this racket? Will he charge the people who are staying at those places on expense accounts with the full cost of the television, and give the concession to the pensioners?

Sir J. Eden

There are various forms of multiple licences. Their purpose is to reduce the amount of paper work which individual licences would entail. The full information about multiple licences is given in Statutory Instrument 1970 No. 548.

Mr. Fernyhough

Does not the Minister realise that the meaning of what my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) has told us is that he has extended to the wealthy patrons of very prosperous hotels the same facilities that he has extended to pensioners living under warden supervision? Is not that completely wrong? When we are to have announcements such as are to be made later this afternoon, how can the right hon. Gentleman justify the fact that people who are in a position to rent suites in those hotels are having television for almost nothing?

Sir J. Eden

This has been a longstanding and very practical arrangement. The fees for hotels and business premises are the same as for domestic premises. The guidelines affecting multiple licences are clearly laid down.

Mr. Jeffrey Archer

Does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us on this side of the House still think that it is grossly unfair that pensioners in groups and pensioners individually pay a different sum for their licence and that we would like to see the situation resolved once and for all?

Sir J. Eden

As my hon. Friend well knows, the matter has been considered many times before and has been debated in the House. The difficulty has been to try to define a system which is administratively simple and cheap to operate and which does not produce new anomalies greater than those which already exist.