Scrap it now! (TV Licence)

Member Name: paul-marcus

Product:	TV Licence
Date:	14/08/01 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: unfair , bureacratic

Imagine Gordon Brown standing in Parliament delivering the Budget, ‘to finance the expansion of internet services by the BBC we propose to charge an annual licence fee of £100 on all web-browsers’.

It would never happen, any government imposing it would be committing political suicide. Yet the licence for owning a television is no less ridiculous. This is not an argument about the worth of Public Service Broadcasting, though the current output from BBC TV is very poor especially in comparison with its own radio output.

My argument is with the method of funding the BBC. One concern is that this is a form of regressive taxation. You pay the same licence fee whether you are on £15,000 a year or £15,000 a week. Surely if we believe that the BBC is a service worth having the funds should come from general taxation.

Having a separate licence has also created a vast bureaucracy to collect the fees and also to monitor who has not paid. One of the worst aspects of this is that people who do not possess a television are harassed as there is an assumption that they are lying. It also tempts families on low incomes to dodge paying and then live with the consequences of receiving a £1,000 fine.

I can think of no good reason for keeping the licence fee. The argument about keeping the independence of the BBC has never been explained to my satisfaction. It appears that the whole business is the product of another cosier age when the government dictated to us what we could view, the BBC governors would put up a token fight and before you know it they would be become Lord or Lady Somethingorother.

Scrap it now!

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