HC Deb 07 March 1991 vol 187 cc440-2
1. Mr. McAllion

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he next intends to review the regulations relating to concessionary television licences for pensioners in sheltered housing.

2. Mr. Skinner

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent representations he has received on the need for legislation to provide free television licences for all pensioners; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd)

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced on 28 February our intention to clarify and consolidate the wireless telegraphy regulations. The new ones will be laid very shortly. They will remove the "communal facility" condition for the concessionary television licence, which in practice has proved unnecessary to the operation of the more tightly defined scheme that we introduced in 1988. Since 1 January we have received 30 letters about free or reduced-price television licences for pensioners. We have no plans to review further or to extend the present concessionary scheme.

Mr. McAllion

Concessionary licences are granted to some but not all pensioners who live in warden-controlled houses, they are granted to some whose incomes are well above income support levels, but denied to others whose incomes are on or below income support levels, and they are denied to those who need them most—single pensioners living alone without family or friends to visit them. Has not the time come to end such cruel contradictions? Will the Minister stop such random discrimination against pensioners and undertake to grant concessionary licences to all pensioners who need them?

Mr. Lloyd

Our scheme is fair because it applies to all those in local authority or housing association homes that are clearly within an exclusive boundary and where there is a warden at work for 30 hours a week. The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should extend that to all pensioners. If we did, many pensioners would be enjoying a benefit which is not enjoyed by others who are very much worse off. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) recognised that when he made it clear last week that the concessionary scheme should not apply to all pensioners. He was talking about a scheme that extends to those who are least well-off. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), whom I hear chuntering, should address their questions to their own Front-Bench spokesmen.

Mr. Skinner

I do not have any problem with that. I addressed questions to Members on my Front Bench when the Labour party was in power and I shall do it again when we return to power after the general election.

There is nothing fair about the system when some pensioners do not get free television licences because there is a means test, some because they are not disabled in a certain way and some because they do not live on the right side of the street. Now the Government have introduced another anomaly whereby pensioners have to have qualified before May 1988. Why cannot they be treated in the same way as those at Buckingham palace?

Mr. Lloyd

The hon. Gentleman has shown why the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has such difficulty drawing up a scheme that he can agree with his Front Bench, let alone the rest of the Labour party. The scheme that we have is carefully constructed to enable people in the original scheme—those in local authority homes with some warden control—to have the concession, and there it remains.

Mrs. Maureen Hicks

To illustrate my question to my hon. Friend may I draw his attention to one of my constituents, Mr. Rushton? Perhaps he can visualise Mr. Rushton, who lives in a high-rise block of flats in the middle of Heathtown in Wolverhampton in which many other elderly people live. He has a concierge on duty to look after his needs. Next door——

Mr. Speaker

Order. Could we have a question about it, please?

Mrs. Hicks

I shall be brief, Mr. Speaker. Next door are two high-rise blocks of flats, Tremont house and Lincoln house, which have wardens. People in the two blocks of flats next door to Mr. Rushton have £5 television licences, but the elderly people in the adjacent building, Longfield house, have to pay the full price because they have no warden. Does not he think that there is a ridiculous anomaly in that system and will he investigate it?

Mr. Lloyd

Whichever way one draws up a scheme, there will be someone on the wrong side of the rules. The rules enable local authorities so to organise their provision for the elderly that they can come into the scheme. That is why, since the scheme was introduced in 1988, more people enjoy the concessionary licence than before. It is quite possible for local authorities to organise themselves within the scheme.

Mr. Roger King

Is my hon. Friend aware that the level of licence fees is directly related to the cost of the provision of broadcasting services by the BBC? Is he fully satisfied that we are getting the correct value for money from that organisation, or does he agree with some industrialists that the costs should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb and some of the waste sorted out?

Mr. Lloyd

As my hon. Friend knows, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary allowed the BBC to increase its licence fee by less than the retail prices index for the coming year, because he took on board suggestions that there was scope for the BBC to increase its efficiency. No doubt by addressing itself to that, the BBC will be able to make further savings in due course.

Mr. Corbett

Will the Minister confirm that in the coming changes in the regulations, which have been announced, he will deal with the case of my constituent who is in a block of properties that were otherwise council-tenanted? Under the right to buy, a flat was bought and then sold to someone under pensionable age, so all the people in the block lost that concession. Will the changes at least end that anomaly? Does the Minister understand that Labour will exempt low-income groups, including pensioners, from the licence fee and raise the cash to do so by ensuring that the fee is paid for each set in a hotel or other commercial premises?

Mr. Lloyd

That is the suggestion at the moment. I wonder whether it will be the same when the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have done their figures, because he proposes to increase the take from the retail and hotel trade from £5 million to £100 million. I hope that the trade knows that this extra impost is being placed on it. Labour will do that only by a massive increase in the fee, but I quite understand that the hon. Gentleman has not yet fully thought out the policy.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether I would make the matter clear. Our rules are clear beyond peradventure. If a local authority sells a flat in a block that qualifies under the rules, it is being extremely foolish, because there is no obligation on an authority to sell in those conditions.

Sir Anthony. Grant

Will my hon. Friend take into consideration pensioners—there are some in my constituency—who pay taxes but who absolutely loathe television and do not understand why they should be expected to subsidise it for others?

Mr. Lloyd

As the regulations clearly say, those capable of receiving a British broadcasted programme must pay the licence fee, which goes to the BBC. That matter will come under review as we move towards the renewal of the BBC charter in 1996.