HC Deb 21 July 1988 vol 137 cc1277-8
7. Mr. Livsey

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a further statement concerning his policy towards the provision of concessionary television licences to pensioners.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Tim Renton)

No. The matter was fully discussed in the debate in the House on 12 July.

Mr. Livsey

Now that the Government have decided to put up the concessionary television licence from 5p to £5, will the Minister seek to end the discrimination between one group of pensioners living in a small street who pay the full licence fee and others who do not? Surely the time is right for all pensioners to have a concessionary television licence of £5, as has recently been introduced.

Mr. Renton

No, Sir. The purpose of the new regulations that we brought in was to return help under the scheme to those for whom it was originally intended, who were not those living in mainstream housing. If we followed the hon. Gentleman's suggestion it would mean a substantial increase in the licence fee for everyone else—about 50 per cent. if we were to give free licences for all pensioners—and that would greatly damage some people who are not pensioners, and who are much worse off than some pensioners, such as those on income support.

Mr. Andrew MacKay

Have we not just heard a classic example of SLD woolly thinking? If free television licences were given to all pensioners, a lot of very affluent people would be getting their television licence at no cost at all, while others on limited incomes and looking after children would have to pay.

Mr. Renton

Before I answer my hon. Friend's question, perhaps he could define the SLD for me. Of course it is woolly thinking, which does not try to concentrate help on those most in need. It is not a thought-out or practical policy in any sense of the word.

Mr. Corbett

We know that the Government and their supporters do not like the concessionary licence scheme in any event, but will the Minister at least reconsider the Peacock committee's suggestion of exempting pensioner households which depend on means-tested benefit as a start and concentrating help in that way? Or is he saying that those of us at work would resent paying the estimated £5 a year extra that it would cost to give such help to the 1½ million pensioners who would qualify?

Mr. Renton

As I told the hon. Gentleman in the debate last week, the point behind the Peacock recommendation is that if anyone should get a concessionary television licence it should not be pensioners specifically, but those on income support. That is the point to which Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen failed to address themselves, and they have returned instead to the simple election bribe of free television licences for all pensioners.

Mr. Kilfedder

Will the Minister look again at this question? Many pensioners to whom I have talked ask for compassion from the Government. Does the Minister accept that many pensioners live on their own, often far from municipal and shopping centres, and that their movements are restricted virtually to the four walls of their dwelling and their garden? The television opens the world to them. Will the Minister therefore grant concessionary television licences to pensioners?

Mr. Renton

I accept the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of television to many pensioners. However, I would point out that last spring when representatives of the National Federation of Retirement Pensioners Associations called on my hon. Friend the Minister of State and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who was then at the Home Office, they made it absolutely plain that they opposed free television licences for pensioners because most pensioners do not want to seem to be supported by such charity.