BBC bosses and Government ministers are holding urgent talks about ways of supporting over-75 TV licence holders, who recently became eligible to pay the annual fee.
The BBC recently reneged on its charter commitment to retain the universal concessionary over-75 TV licence. From 1st August 2020 the only over-75 households eligible to the concession are those in receipt of Pension Credit.
Around 3.7 million over-75 households, who would have been eligible for the concession before August 2020, are now expected to pay in full and the BBC has hired additional muscle to make sure they do.
Pensioners are livid at the changing goalposts and according to reports more than 700,000 households have simply refused to pay, leaving the BBC - who, as we all know, can barely afford a pot to piss in - with a funding black hole of £120 million.
If opposition remains at current levels, the BBC's losses will be even greater after the hike in the TV licence fee on 1st April 2021.
Speaking in the House of Lords earlier this week, Baroness Stedman-Scott, Minister for Work and Pensions, said: "We have written to the BBC.
"Officials have had a meeting with its representatives and we are awaiting the outcome of that meeting.
"As I say, this is a work in progress."
Addressing the Minister, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, Labour co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ageing and Older People, said: "The Minister will recall that many of us were concerned about the loss of free TV licences for those aged over 75, which broke a Conservative manifesto promise.
"Now only those on Pension Credit get free TV licences."
He clearly doesn't realise that it was the BBC that did the dirty on pensioners by defying the Government's expectations.
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