KEIR Starmer has said his government is “committed” to keeping the TV licence in place.
After years of speculation about whether the £159 annual fee would be scrapped by the Tories, Starmer confirmed that his party would be keeping the licence fee in place at least until the BBC’s current royal charter expires in 2027.
“We are committed in our manifesto to the BBC and to the licensing scheme,” he said.
“There’s going to be some more thought between now and [2027], but we are committed.”
The fee raises £3.2 billion annually for the BBC but has been critiqued as a means of financing public broadcasting due to the declining numbers of people paying and other countries getting rid of their own versions of the licence fee.
Previous Tory ministers such as Nadine Dorries had once threatened to abolish the licence fee entirely and replace it with a Netflix-style subscription service.
The Tory government froze the current licence fee for two years and agreed to annual increases linked to inflation between 2024 and March 2028.
However, in December 2023 then culture secretary Lucy Frazer reneged on the agreement and limited any increase to £10.
It resulted in the BBC making severe cuts to its programming with director general Tim Davie saying the corporation’s budget had been reduced by 30% over the past 14 years.
The statement comes after BBC executives upheld complaints against a Reporting Scotland broadcast which claimed that Scottish votes had been “crucial” to deciding who took power in “most UK elections”.
