§ Mr. DavidsonTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage (1) how many people qualified for concessionary television licences in each year since 1990 in the area covered by the Govan parliamentary constituency; [41208]
(2) how many people qualified for concessionary television licences in each year since 1990 in the area covered by Glasgow city council. [41209]
§ Mr. SproatThe BBC, as licensing authority, is responsible for the administration of the television licensing system, including the maintenance of detailed licence records and the determination of eligibility for concessionary licences. We understand that the sort of information that the hon. Member requests is held only by individual scheme and by category of concessionary scheme.
§ Mr. DavidsonTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage (1) what plans she has to review concessionary television licences for the elderly; [41210]
(2) what assessment she has made of the advantages of relaxing the criteria for concessionary television licences, which restrict eligibility to those living within a group of at least four dwellings which fall within a common and exclusive boundary, in order to allow a larger number of individuals to qualify; [41212]
(3) pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) of 20 June, Official Report, column 567, when and how she proposes to overcome the difficulties caused by a whole housing scheme applying for a concessionary television licence but who are ineligible solely because of the ownership circumstance of a small proportion of dwellings within its boundary. [41225]
§ Mr. SproatThe concessionary television licence is available to retirement pensioners and disabled people living in nursing or residential homes. It also extends to certain sheltered accommodation which meets a number of qualifying criteria and is directly comparable to a residential home.
At Committee stage of the Broadcasting Bill, the Government undertook to address a specific anomaly whereby some sheltered housing schemes which meet all the other qualifying criteria fail to qualify for the concession because a small number of units within the scheme were purchased under the right-to-buy provisions before the accommodation was designated as sheltered 1121W housing. We intend to bring forward new consolidated television licensing regulations before the end of the year, and they will address this anomaly.
There are no plans for any wider changes to the concessionary scheme. As was said in the 1994 White Paper "The Future of the BBC", Cm 2621, the Government believe that the right way to help the less well-off, of all ages, is through the welfare and benefit system.
§ Mr. DavidsonTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage what concessionary television licence schemes are in place for retired people in other countries of the European Union; and if she will consider adopting any of those which she assesses to be an improvement on that presently offered in the United Kingdom. [41211]
§ Mr. SproatThe Government do not have this information. Television broadcasting arrangements, including the size of the public sector broadcasters and the services they provide, vary widely from one EC country to another. Direct comparisons of this kind are therefore not always appropriate and our policy in this area is, and will continue to be, based on the circumstances which prevail in the United Kingdom.