Television Licensing Telephone Number

HC Deb 13 February 2001 vol 363 cc68-9W

Mr. Chope

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many telephone calls were received in each of the last three months on the television licensing telephone number; and what the cost of responding was. [150342]

Janet Anderson

TV Licensing, which administers the television licensing system as agent for the BBC, operates several different telephone inquiry numbers. Information provided by the BBC shows that the total number of telephone inquiries received by TV Licensing in each of the last three months for which information is available was:

	Number of calls
October 2000	87,869
November 2000	727,400
December 2000	528,972

Of these, the number of calls to the over-75 helpline were as follows:

	Number of calls
October 2000	242,508
November 2000	150,733
December 2000	104,748

Information on the cost of responding to these calls is not available.