MONDAY 1 JULY 2002

MS SUE STREET, MR GREG DYKE, MR JOHN SMITH AND MS ZARIN PATEL

  40. What was the reason for that change?
  (Ms Patel) I believe it had been a concession granted by the Postmaster General in the past and it was regularised in 1997 in the regulations.

  41. Could you send me details of those regulations and when they were put before the House?
  (Ms Patel) I will.[1]

  42. Ms Street, in answer to the Chairman's question, you said that as a result of the consultation for the Communications Bill the Secretary of State may be given powers to make orders to re-define what constitutes a licensable set or piece of equipment. Have I understood your answer correctly?
  (Ms Street) Yes: to define television receivers, that is the apparatus that needs to be licensed; to define what is a television dealer; and also what constitutes a set, which is the equipment, the sale of which needs to be notified.

  43. The Chairman in his question was citing the example of a computer that can receive Big Brother and all kinds of things. Are you saying that as a result of this in the Communications Bill the Secretary of State, the Government, may be given power by order to define a computer screen as a licensable set, so that we will all have to buy a TV licence for our computer? Is this what you were implying in your answer to the Chairman?
  (Ms Street) I certainly did not mean to imply that. All I am saying is that at this stage the challenge of keeping up with the advanced technology is tremendous and what the Government is minded to take, subject to parliamentary debate, in the Bill are powers to look at preserving the principle that those who receive over the airways or by other means the BBC service should pay.

  44. You are saying that many people can receive Big Brother through their computer screen so you are saying this includes a computer?
  (Ms Street) I am certainly not implying that the ownership of a computer screen would require a licence, certainly not, but one would have to look at how to capture the principle of preserving the use of the service.

  45. You have not allayed my fears. You have confirmed them, I am afraid. Can anybody do better?
  (Mr Smith) Would it be helpful, Chairman, if I make one small interjection to clarify this? If a PC is capable of receiving a television signal, i.e. it has a TV receiving card in the back, then it already requires a licence.

  46. Yes, but if you received at TV signal for a programme through the internet, are you saying there is no chance of you requiring a licence fee for that? Can you rule that out?
  (Ms Street) I cannot rule it out but it is certainly not in the proposition that is currently being considered.

  47. That was an implicit part of your answer to the Chairman.
  (Ms Street) I cannot rule it out.

  48. I ask this question of Mr Dyke. What are people paying for when they purchase a TV licence?
  (Mr Dyke) They are paying for the right to receive a television signal, as I understand it.

  49. Why should they have to pay for that right in a free society?
  (Ms Street) That is a much bigger argument than the collection of licence fees.

  Chairman: It is still very interesting. Can you make a stab at answering it?
  (Mr Dyke) As you know, the money is used entirely to fund the BBC. Parliament has decided over many decades that it thinks that is something that is worthwhile.

  50. It might have been worthwhile in the Fifties but is it right in today's modern society to have to pay a fee to have a TV set to watch Channel 4, to watch ITV, to watch cable and Sky, particularly if you do not watch the BBC?
  (Mr Dyke) There are not many people who do not at some stage watch the BBC during the week. We have all those figures in our reach. Above 90 odd% of people use some of our services. You could have a very long and open-ended discussion on that. Personally, I happen to believe that it is well worth the money but I recognise that some in society have an ideological view against it, and that is quite a small number. There are people who are struggling to pay it, and I understand that. You must look at what the BBC delivers to our society for £112 a year. I ask people at all the public meetings I ever go to if they would like the choice of losing everything that the BBC gives them from Radio 4 right the way through and they all vote overwhelmingly to keep it. Those would be the sorts of people who come to public meetings.

  51. That is fair enough. In that case, if 90% watch it and come to public meetings and say people are very happy with it, why do you not encrypt your signal and then charge people to decode that signal?
  (Mr Dyke) I believe the single most important element of the BBC is that it is universally available, that actually everybody can get it, rich or poor, north or south, black or white.

  52. Including licence fee evaders. You are very happy for licence fee evaders to receive this signal?
  (Mr Dyke) I think that is part of the price one pays for having a universal service. I think universality is essential. If ever there was an interesting time to discuss it, it is in the last couple of months. What is the purpose of the BBC? One of its major purposes is that it brings the nation together, our nations together at certain times, at times of joy, sadness and celebration. You can take the Queen Mother's funeral, the Jubilee and the World Cup, and they alone will give you a reason for the BBC.

  53. You are quite happy then for 5.8% of TV licence fee evaders to receive the signal?
  (Mr Dyke) I did not say I was happy with 5.8%. I have already said I would like to get the figure down further.

  54. If you want to get it down further, then you are reducing the universality of the service, are you not?
  (Mr Dyke) No, I am not saying they cannot receive. The technology is not around to stop them receiving.

  55. Why can you not encrypt the code? I do not understand why you cannot do that.
  (Mr Dyke) It is because 50% of the homes in this country would then not receive any television at all because they have not got the systems to de-encrypt.

  56. You cannot encrypt a signal through the aerial?
  (Mr Dyke) No. If you go back to the Peacock Report, a long time ago, that recommended that everybody should have a scart socket in the back of their television, and then that would become possible. However, even then, even if it was technologically possible, there is an argument about the value of what the BBC does which is about that universal availability. You would fundamentally change what the service is if you say it is only available to those who can afford to pay.

  57. Only 4 or 5% do not pay. We are talking about 95% of the population that does pay the licence fee. I am asking why you do not encrypt it because then—and I take the technological point—if you put all this extra equipment on the television, you would avoid having hundreds of people wandering around the country collecting TV licence fees and the huge cost of the TV licence fee collection arrangements could be avoided.
  (Mr Dyke) If people could not receive, you would switch them off and then I think therefore the cost of collection and the cost of people who do not pay—and we would like to reduce that figure—is a price worth paying for universality.

  58. The BBC is not exactly water or food, is it? I could live without the BBC for a week or two.
  (Mr Dyke) We have to ask what the advantages and the disadvantages are to our society. Overall, I think parliamentarians have taken a view over the years that the advantages it brings outweigh the disadvantages. As you say, quite clearly the system is open to abuse but in a sense it is abused by comparatively few people

  Mr Gibb: Perhaps it was important in the Fifties. I am not sure it is quite so vital now.

  59. I was going to go down this line at some stage as well but I will follow on for the moment. I understand that digital television comes in during the next X number of years. What is the objection to doing what Nick was saying? Presumably, if I want to watch the sex channel on BBC, it could be switched on and switched off if I do not pay the money. Why can somebody who has not paid their television licence, getting their service through digital television, not just be switched off? Presumably that can be switched on and off.
  (Mr Dyke) In 50% of homes—