This attack on the BBC is scandalous

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/07/bbc-attack-public-future-licence-fee

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Forcing the BBC to fund free TV licences for the over-75s from its licence fee revenue, as the government has announced it will do, is profoundly unconstitutional. Free licences are currently a welfare benefit, introduced by Gordon Brown in 2001. If the bill has grown too high in these austere times, the government should take the decision to end it or phase it out. It looks like ministers are too frit to do so.

Instead, shockingly, the BBC will be responsible for deciding in 2020 whether to continue with the free-licence perk. It should not: the licence fee is paid by almost everyone, and should only ever be used to pay for universal public broadcasting. Young people or parents would be right to ask themselves why a fifth of the money they pay for the BBC and its programmes should be going to pensioners.

This raid on the BBC’s budget is also a further and massive attack on the broadcaster’s independence. Over time this convention has been steadily and dangerously eroded. The last licence fee settlement, in 2010, was another example. It too was conducted as a hijack by the government with no public discussion. Then too the government demanded that the BBC take on the over-75s’ licence fee perk. I was one of several BBC trustees prepared to resign over this at the time, and that part of the plan was withdrawn. But we reluctantly accepted other elements of top-slicing then – taking the World Service on to the licence fee, subsidising broadband and local TV – as these were related to universal access to broadcast services, and the deal would bring five years of financial certainty.

A similar hijack was attempted in 2010. I was one of several BBC trustees prepared to resign over the deal

The BBC hasn’t just been subject to successive top-slicing raids. In addition, BBC executives and trustees were summoned by parliamentary committees more than once a month. during the last parliament, more than members of any other organisation. They were increasingly posed questions about editorial matters, in complete breach of longstanding protocol.

But it’s the erosion of financial independence that is the most serious issue. The problem dates from an obscure judgment by the Office for National Statistics back in 2006. The statisticians then concluded that the BBC should be reclassified, from being a public corporation to a part of central government. This meant that licence fee income was redefined as a tax, not a fee; that BBC and BBC Worldwide borrowing scores against the public borrowing requirement; and that the chancellor can now meet his target for reducing welfare spending in part by piling part of it on to the licence fee.

The BBC has been putting a brave face on this week’s heist. It has gained some small concessions, in the modernisation of the licence fee to cover all online viewing, and in the restoration of a link between the fee and general inflation for the first time in seven years. The former should have gone ahead anyway, just as the licence fee has been modernised several times over the decades to keep up with technology. The link to the consumer price index is welcome but will not involve much more money in a low-inflation era. The bill for the free over-75 licences will also be phased in.

However, beyond the first few years, and thanks to the rapid growth in the number of people aged over 75, there will probably be service closures as a result of the raid. The amount involved – £650m a year and rising – is so large that it is about the same as the budget for BBC2, or all of BBC radio, or all of BBC3, BBC4, Radio 5 and Radio 6 Music plus local radio. It will be hard to justify continuing to spend about £90m a year on S4C. The BBC’s spending on independent productions will have to be slashed.

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It is a scandal that such a profound cut to the BBC’s ability to deliver its services to the people who pay for it was imposed in a bullying backroom deal over a couple of days. The scope of the BBC and the size of the licence fee needed to fund its activities must be a matter of public debate. The charter renewal debate that will take place over the next few months is the time to involve the public.

One of the principles that ought to be agreed is that the licence fee settlement and discussions about the BBC’s responsibilities and services will always be linked in future, and will always involve a public consultation. A majority of people – 55% – think the licence fee should be set by an independent body, compared with 23% who say the government or MPs should decide. This would be a significant step back towards safeguarding the BBC’s independence.

It is also vital that the statistical categorisation of the BBC as part of central government be reversed. The ONS was naive to claim then that its judgment would not damage the BBC’s independence. It has done, profoundly, and the judgment was incorrect. I hope parliament will also debate seriously the delegation of the payment of a welfare benefit from a department of state to a public broadcaster, and reject this unprincipled move.