§ Mr. Lawrenceasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the shortfall between television licence fees assessed and those collected in each of the past three years.
§ Mr. BrittanThe estimate of television licence evasion throughout the last three years is of the order of about 1 million licences a year. Taking account of changes in the level of the licence fees, and the increasing number of people with colour, as opposed to monochrome, sets, the estimates of the revenue lost for the last three years are:
1977–78 about £15 million; 1978–79 about £18 million; 1979–80 about £25 million. Estimates in connection with evasion are of necessity imprecise and subject to considerable error.