MONDAY 1 JULY 2002

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

  120. Big cities? Is that where the main problem is?
  (Ms Patel) It is spread. The others are London south, Liverpool, Cardiff and Leeds.

  121. The profile of an evader is they are urban dwellers. They live in a particular type of accommodation. They are young. We have a lot of people in this country who avoid paying road tax and insurance on their vehicles and is this a profile also that fits into people who do not pay their TV licence?
  (Ms Patel) Yes.

  122. You have a major problem to try and push this down. Like everything else, the first 50% is easy. When we do our identification, once you get to 75%, it is a damned sight harder because there are people who are never in and you wonder if they do live there at times.
  (Mr Dyke) You are always going to have a percentage who do not pay. You just try and reduce it to as few as you can.

  123. There is a cut off point, is there not?
  (Mr Dyke) We have not found it yet. If you look at the last 10 years, we are not there yet.

  124. I am surprised that no other Member has raised this yet but I am sure all Members have written to you about this. We do get people who write to us and say they have had a letter saying do they have a television because they ought to be paying for a licence if they do. These are people who often do not have a television at all and they get rather annoyed that they have to write back to you and spend time, effort, not to mention a stamp, to keep you off their backs when there does not seem to be any reason why a citizen should have to say whether they have a television if they do not have a television. What are you doing to reduce the harassment factor?
  (Ms Patel) Our experience has shown that when we visit people who claim not to have a television set, one in five do have. Hence the verification visit. After that, once we have verified a person does not have a television, we do not write to them for a further period of two years, and I am looking at extending that to four years.

  125. How many letters do you send before you do a visit?
  (Ms Patel) Typically, about four.

  126. If somebody has not got a television, they get four letters in a row saying, "You have not paid up yet"?
  (Ms Patel) If someone does not talk to us, we send them four.

  127. Why should they talk to you if they have not got a television? They have to spend time, effort and a stamp to tell you something that is none of your business, in a sense.
  (Ms Patel) It is about our duty to enforce the law equally across the country. Is it fair to those who pay that those who do not pay get away with it? The only way that we can verify that people do not have a television set is to do a visit and we are reliant on the cooperation of the vast majority to do that, to catch the one in five who don't.

  128. Should you not at the very least perhaps consider a policy of sending them a reply paid, return card so they can simply sign the bottom and send it back to you saying, "I do not have a television"?
  (Ms Patel) We will definitely look at that. We do that in quite a variety of circumstances[5].

  129. I have had cases where people have had up to four letters when they simply have not had a television and did not see why they had to tell you they had not got a television. It seems to me to be a strong case for saying that if you are to enquire of people who maybe have nothing to do with you, to force them to pay even just a stamp to reply to you and to take the time to reply to you, why should they, when they have not got a television?
  (Ms Patel) The policy of changing contact from every two years to every four years will help that.

  130. What about the over 75s? Now that they do not have to pay for their licence, do you still enforce in exactly the same way?
  (Ms Patel) They still have to register for a licence, but we do not prosecute anyone. We help them fill in the paperwork and explain that they have to register for a licence.

  131. Even if you find out they are over 75 via a visit, for example, you still go through the same process of enforcement?
  (Ms Patel) No. We help them fill in the paperwork. We will not prosecute someone who is over 75. We explain that they need to register for a licence, even though they do not have to pay. It is not an enforcement visit.

  132. If you find an evader and you prosecute but you then do not go to court because they pay up, is the licence backdated to when the evasion started?
  (Ms Patel) Licences cannot be backdated, but we cover the period of unlicensed use and short date the licence. For example, if you had your licence today but had not had a licence for the last two months, we would not give you an annual licence from here on; we would only give you a short licence.

  133. At the cost of an annual licence?
  (Ms Patel) Yes.

  134. Of those who are fined by magistrates for not paying as a result of a prosecution, have you any idea how many pay their fines?
  (Ms Patel) Something like 56% has been uncollected over the last three years.

  135. It is something of a worry, is it not, that a large proportion of those who you are prosecuting are ending up not paying anything as a result of that?
  (Ms Patel) The collection of fines is a matter for the magistrates' courts.

  136. Have you suggested any other way of dealing with people who are not paying?
  (Ms Street) We await the response to Lord Justice Auld's recommendation for fixed penalties with some inducement or incentive for paying up quickly, which we in the Department think is a good idea. I have spoken to policy officials in both of the Criminal Justice Departments concerned and they have some sympathy for it. The position at the moment is that the Home Office is about to trial fixed penalties for disorder offences and they are starting work at the same time on them and there have been discussions with the BBC and ourselves about whether the fixed penalty would help.

  137. The fixed penalty is a quick way of dealing with this but it does not necessarily get better paid than anything else.
  (Ms Street) It does not necessarily get better compliance. I think it is the element of incentive that might, which would be new, but you are right. At the end of it, you are dealing with a group of people who have not paid for their licence and have not paid their fines.

  138. Has anyone ever looked into the possibility of confiscating televisions?
  (Ms Street) I think that has been looked into. I asked the same question myself. I understand the legal position is that the television remains the property of the person who bought it. It is the receiving of the service which they need to pay through the licence. There appear to be some difficulties with that. They have the right to their television because they have bought the piece of equipment. The licence entitles them to receive the service.

  139. Are you saying it would be impossible in some way, under human rights legislation or something, to introduce legislation that gave the BBC the right to confiscate a television where the service was not being paid for?
  (Ms Street) It would give us difficulties under the ECHR. I do not think it would be impossible. I would have to take advice. The issue is would it really work given that people can buy second hand televisions for very small amounts of money, sometimes at or below the cost of the licence. The effectiveness might not be as one would first think.