Free TV licences for pensioners update as minister to | UK News

A marketing campaign urgent for all pensioners to mechanically be given free TV licences has made a major step ahead. The authorities can have to issue a formal response after help for the petiton on the Parliament web site surged past a key threshold.

Now virtually 20,000 people have signed up to the call, which may be read right here , and once a petition will get to 10,000 the Department for Culture, Media and Sport must reply.

This 12 months the usual UK TV Licence rose to £180 per 12 months. A black-and-white only licence prices £60.50. To get a free TV licence as a pensioner in the UK, the particular person or their companion at the same tackle must be aged 75 or older and either must be receiving Pension Credit.

Universal free TV licences for 3.7m pensioners aged 75 and over formally ended on July 31, 2020. At the time the BBC said funding free TV licences for all over-75s would have resulted in ‘unprecedented closures’.

The petition says: “We want the Government to fund free TV licences for existing pensioners and those who reach the official retirement age. When people reach retirement age, we think they should receive a state-financed free TV licence.

“Many pensioners live on the breadline with only the TV for company. With the cost of food soaring and utility bills ever higher, we feel there is a desperate need to provide all pensioners with at least this concession.

“We feel it is a double outrage that those who have given their all to this country in taxes and raising children have to pay a TV licence fee and are only exempt if they receive means-tested Pension Credit. Meanwhile, some media figures draw huge salaries.”

A authorities review of the BBC’s Royal Charter is underway, particularly analyzing its funding. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has already labelled the licence price “unenforceable” and “insufficient”.

The BBC has said that it’s “willing to consider radical options for future funding”. Last month the new director-general of the BBC has said the company can have to make “some difficult choices about its size and shape” in the future.

Former Google boss Matt Brittin also revealed that the BBC has begun working on modifications relating to its output such as programmes and companies, due to modifications in client behaviour.

Mr Brittin steps into the position during a turbulent time for the company as it appears to be like to slash 2,000 jobs to attempt to cut back prices by 10% over the next three years.

Mr Brittin, 57, said the BBC must “serve its content into the digital environment”, including: “We’ve got to make some choices about how to do that. Can we do it more efficiently?”

He added: “I think people trust journalists, individuals like yourselves and others at the BBC, to be there and explain the complicated world to them.

“We’ve got to find the right way to do that to take the values that the BBC has always had and reinterpret them for the modern world.

“How do we reinvent this institution to serve in today’s moment?”

To view and signal up to the petition click on right here.