Caroline Frost
The UK’s new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced that plans to ditch the BBC’s licence fee are off the table, now the Labour Party is in government.
The Guardian reports that, during his trip to Washington DC this week, Sir Keir said:
“We are committed in our manifesto to the BBC and to the licensing scheme. There’s going to be some more thought between now and [2027], but we are committed to the BBC and we are committed to the licensing arrangements.”
2027 is when the BBC’s royal charter expires, and decisions will have to be made about how the BBC should be funded. The licence fee is currently set at £159 ($206.40) per year per any household with a television that can receive live broadcasts. It raises £3.2bn ($3.89bn) annually.
The Guardian reports that the previous Conservative government’s culture secretary Nadine Dorries sought to abolish the licence fee entirely on the charter’s expiry. That government agreed a six-year deal with the BBC that saw the licence fee frozen between 2024 to 2028, but that the government reneged on a deal to preserve an inflation-linked increase.
On its own news website, the BBC reports that a lack of increase has seen cuts across the organisation, including cuts to services and programs. It adds that the BBC’s Director General Tim Davie announced in March that the corporation would seek ways of reforming the licence fee.
A BBC spokesperson said today: “We remain totally focused on offering value to the public and will engage with the government on funding at the appropriate time.”