Trades Council Responds to consultation on “Decriminalising TV Licence”
From March 2020
The March Trades Council meeting considered a response to the Government’s consultation on decriminalising TV licence evasion.
Whilst the Trades Council has concerns about the TV licence as a “regressive” tax, and would be willing to consider some alternative form of national funding for the BBC, it saw the Government’s current initiative as being inspired more by hostility towards the idea of our having a nationalised broadcaster than by concern at the ability of the poorest to pay.
Growth in public acceptance of subscription TV services has led to some people seeing the BBC simply as one amongst many providers, and one that they don’t particularly watch or listen to. Many on the left have become even more reluctant to support it because of how it has reported on Mr Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party and the imbalance in the range of “pundits” invited onto current affairs programmes.
The most significant opposition, however, still comes from those pressing what may be called the “Rupert Murdoch Agenda”. This is the belief that the BBC “crowds out” commercial alternatives and that weakening it would be to their advantage – and give more space for “Fox News” type influencing. As we should have learnt from the Brexit debate, it is important to know where things are coming from and what they are leading to.
We have, therefore, made our response to this consultation an affirming of our commitment to the BBC as a public asset. We have said that we want our national broadcaster to be big and strong and to offer a comprehensive and diverse service across a whole range of genres and media. We want this offer to be “free to air”. And we want these things because we believe they are the best way for us to continue to receive the range and quality of programmes to which we have become accustomed. A full copy of our argument is available below.
You can download a full copy of our response to the Consultation on Decriminalising TV licence Evasion here:
The Trades Council had previously agreed to support and advertise the campaign demanding that the Government takes back responsibility for funding free TV licences for everyone over 75:
“The Government currently provides the BBC with an annual amount of money to compensate for the fact that persons over the age of 75 are exempt from paying for a TV Licence.
According to its Annual Report for 2017-2018, the BBC in that financial year received £655.3m from the DWP in relation to this provision. This formed a part of its £3,830m annual income from licence fees. In addition, it attracted an income of £1,283m from commercial activities. .
In 2015 the Government announced that it would cease funding the free TV licence for people over 75 from 2020 onwards. The BBC was told by the Government that it could continue to support this benefit, but that it would have to absorb the financial consequences itself.
According to the BBC “it is expected the cost of free licence fees to the over-75s will total £745m – a fifth of the BBCs annual budget by 2021/22” . .
This appears at first sight to be a little misleading, insofar as the payments from the DWP represent about a fifth of licence fee income rather than a fifth of total income. The loss of the DWP money will, nonetheless, be hugely significant. .
The BBC says: “We think this reduction in the BBC’s budget would fundamentally change the BBC. We think this level of cuts to services would not be consistent with sustaining the BBC’s mission and purposes for all audiences and it would reduce our ability to reinvent the BBC for younger audiences” .
In handing “responsibility” for this tax exemption to the BBC the Government has behaved like it thought no one would notice if either the exemption or the funding to the BBC disappeared. It has hardly even put forward any arguments to support its policy. The Conservative Party manifesto for the 2017 General Election presented a sort of “half-truth” swerve around the issue: “We will maintain all other pensioner benefits, including free bus passes, eye tests, prescriptions and TV licences, for the duration of this parliament” . In 2015 the then Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, John Whittingdale drew particular attention to the “universal” character of the exemption: “I still think, for exactly the same reason as the winter fuel allowance and a free bus pass, it is very difficult to justify why my mother doesn’t have to pay a licence fee. Means testing it would be administratively more complicated but nevertheless in the present climate I can see no real reason why it remains a universal benefit.”
It is no doubt true that a number of over-75s who benefit from the exemption could afford to pay for a Licence with no great difficulty, just as there are no doubt also households which benefit because they actually contain a mix of working and non-working age residents. .
The reality remains, however, that the exemption is a real help to a good proportion of those to whom it applies. Gordon Brown, who introduced it in 2000, wrote in the “Guardian” on 02.01.2019 that: “pensioner poverty, which was halved between 1997 and 2010, is now on the rise again – from 1.6 million three years ago to 1.9 million now – and forecast to pass 2 million by 2022. In the BBC’s statements, there is a complacency about today’s pensioner poverty that I find distressing and alarming, especially when over-75s are almost 50% more likely to be in poverty than the 65-75 age group. In fact, one in every four of the over-75s is eligible for pension credit because their income is so low”.
Posing the licence fee exemption as a universal benefit makes sense in several ways. It avoids costs to “policing” what is quite a small benefit at the level of the individual and it means that those elderly who could claim pension credit but don’t are covered (two in five of all the pensioners who are on such low incomes that they would qualify for pension credit fail to get it). It is also a way for the country to show some small token of regard for all those who have reached a certain age.
It recognises that television can be important to older people whatever their material circumstances. In 2014 a TNS survey for Age UK found that over one million people aged 65 plus in the UK described themselves as always or often feeling lonely and that two in five (41%) said that their TV or pet was now their main form of company.
When the Government passed future responsibility for the licence fee exemption to the BBC the Trades Council said that: “if the Government wants to abolish or modify such a concession it should be identified as being the responsible body”.
This surely still applies today. The TV Licence fee is essentially an hypothecated tax to enable us to enjoy the benefits of a having a public broadcasting service. We have argued in the past that, whilst nothing is perfect, the BBC on balance represents a public good and that it would harm the quality of our public life to have it weakened or commercialised. Whether or not individuals, on grounds of age, or of income or of savings, are to be exempt from a tax should be a decision to be taken by Government alone. As should be the matter of how much money we give as income to the public broadcaster from the public purse”.
Lessons From “I, Daniel Blake”
From February 2017
Ken Loach’s film “I, Daniel Blake” has received critical acclaim both home and abroad. It has received the BAFTA Outstanding British Film of the Year award and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Many people, nevertheless, will have seen it not at their local cinema but at a “pop up” screening organised by local volunteers.
One such event took place in Blackburn on Wednesday 22nd February, thanks to Blackburn with Darwen Branch of UNISON (with the support of the Trades Council).
In the film Daniel Blake is a man whose doctors have advised that he needs to stop work following a heart attack. He makes a claim for sickness benefit, “Employment and Support Allowance” (ESA), but he is told after a “Work Capability Assessment” (WCA) that he is fit for work. He is consequently forced to claim “Jobseekers Allowance” (JSA) at the same time as he tries to make an Appeal against the ESA disallowance. He then faces absurd levels of “conditionality” relating to his JSA claim, whilst reaching a point where his ESA Appeal is accepted into the system becomes a bureaucratic nightmare.
Through an encounter at the Jobcentre Daniel befriends Katie, a single mother who has been moved to Newcastle because she could not get social housing in her native London. It is not clear what benefit Katie is claiming, but she is struggling because she has incurred a sanction on it. The help and kindness Daniel and Katie show each other contrast with the largely unsympathetic face of the welfare state.
Close followers of welfare procedures will see that some of the technical scenarios in the film are questionable. You would have expected, for instance, that when Daniel was disallowed ESA he would have been offered an “ESA to JSA Transition” (if moving from ESA(C) to JSA(C)), which would have spared him the confusion of making a JSA claim “online”. And larger Jobcentres do now have PCs available on which you can make a claim, along with staff to help you.
These are, however, but nitpicking issues when placed alongside the film’s success in evoking how many people feel about making a claim and being forced into a position where they have to be “on benefits”. A number of people at the Blackburn screening said that the film powerfully reflected their own experience. As one woman tearfully put it, “I am Daniel Blake”.
The March 2017 meeting of the Trades Council discussed the film and agreed a number of policy issues that seemed to flow directly from the issues it raised. These are:
1)
In demonstrating incapacity for work, we should be able to rely on the opinion of a GP or hospital doctor who knows about our illness and how it affects us. Much of the public debate over ESA criticises the failings of the “Work Capability Assessment” process, but then goes no further. When ESA was introduced, however, (by a Labour Government) it was the devaluing of the opinion of the claimants own medical advisers that was central to the whole exercise. Peter Hain, the Secretary of State who set the ball rolling, spoke of putting an end to “sick-note Britain”. It seems fundamental to us that the state should have in these matters no rights different to those we would expect of an employer. If we are sick from work, we expect that a sick-note is enough to “cover” us. Why should claimants be any different?
2)
It is not unreasonable for the benefits Appeal journey to involve a preliminary “mandatory reconsideration” stage. What is unreasonable, however, was the decision made by the Government that the decision being challenged should be the “status quo” whilst this part of the review process takes place. In the case of ESA, for instance, it used to be the case that if a claimant was disallowed ESA following a WCA the benefit would remain in payment whilst their Appeal was considered. It is still the case that ESA can continue to be paid once an Appeal has been accepted into the system. But it is not paid during the “mandatory reconsideration” stage. This is not only perverse, it makes the whole experience even more complicated and confusing for the claimant.
3)
The terms set for “conditionality” in the “claimant commitment” that is required in claims for JSA and Universal Credit ought to be more tailored to what is reasonable in the case of each individual. The reality would appear to be that a mixture of official guidance, managerial pressure and interview time constraints mean that they too often are seen as being absurd and unrealistic by the very people they are supposed to engage. Ideas like “spending 35 hours a week looking for work” and “being available for jobs within a radius of 90 minutes’ travel time from your home” are really more about playing to the public gallery than setting targets that you could really expect most people to achieve. It is no wonder, if you set people up to fail, that they then feel belittled and patronised by the experience. We would rather that Jobcentres were seen as sources of advice and support.
4)
Achieving point 3) would require changes to both guidance and culture. It would also be helpful if the “claimant commitment” were to be less an agreement secured by essentially twisting claimants’ arms up their backs. If a claimant currently refuses to accept the terms of a “claimant commitment” the matter can be appealed – but there is no payment of benefit whilst this is being done. We feel that there should be a proper balance of power between the citizen and the state in such matters. Claimants should be able to refer upwards a “failure to agree” without fear of financial penalty.
5)
A lot of effort goes into forcing claimants to us “digital” channels. It is expected that claims for JSA and Universal Credit will be initiated “online” and that claimants seeking employment will register with “Universal Jobmatch”, a national website advertising vacancies. Both of these requirements can leave claimants feeling flustered and frustrated. The first requirement means that large numbers of claims need extensive repair work. The second gives “Universal Jobmatch” a market position it would be unlikely to achieve if claimants were able to follow their own preferences. There does not really seem to be any justification for any of this or real benefit to be gained from it. 6)
The recent House of Commons Public Accounts Committee Report on “Benefit Sanctions” has reinforced the view that “sanctions” are a feature of our welfare system whose consequences are far more often malign than beneficial. Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Committee, has said :
“Benefit sanctions have been used as a blunt instrument by Government. It is an article of faith for the Department for Work & Pensions that sanctions encourage people into work. The reality is far more complex and the potential consequences severe. Sanctions and exemptions are being applied inconsistently, with little understanding of why. Some people who receive sanctions stop claiming without finding work, adding to pressures on other services. Suspending people’s benefit payments can lead them into debt, rent arrears and homelessness, which can undermine their efforts to find work. A third of people surveyed by the charity Crisis who were claiming Housing Benefit had this stopped in error because of a sanction – an appalling situation to be faced with.”
The contentious question of whether or not sanctions “work” seems to us to be a matter rendered immaterial because of the damage that they undoubtedly do to peoples’ lives. Granted there may be dead-legs and freeloaders in the system. This does not justify a scatter-gun approach to flushing them out.
The Trades Council will write to local MPs to put forward these points.
It is sobering to think that there are other “booby traps” within our welfare system that “I, Daniel Blake” did not cover. Some of the worst ESA cases, for instance, involve those who are too unwell – particularly with a mental illness – to even make it to their WCA. And why is it seen as being fair to deny benefit for a period to people who have already suffered the penalty of being sacked from a job because of misconduct?
One final thought the film provokes is that it is advisable, if faced with a benefit problem, to seek independent advice and support. It seems to be the case that claimants are more likely to “win” an Appeal if they have experienced representation. This may, in part, be because decent advocates will tell people in advance if they on a hiding to nothing! But we think that in general the principle must be, if independent support is available it makes sense to get it.
Blackburn with Darwen Council has partnered with Shelter to provide free confidential welfare and debt advice to residents of the Borough. Help and advice can be obtained by telephone on 0344 515 1831, by email lancashire@shelter.org.uk , or by drop-in at Blackburn library. In the Ribble Valley, advice is provided by the Citizens Advice Bureau – 19/21 Wesleyan Row Parson Lane, CLITHEROE (Tel: 01200 428966).