The BBC has set out plans to reduce the high proportion of women being prosecuted for licence fee evasion, after suggestions that the charge is sexist.
The measures including free debt advice and allowing all unlicensed households to spread payments, underlining the BBC’s determination to save the licence fee, which was frozen by the government at £159 until 2024.
Campaigners, including a woman who threatened to apply for a judicial review of the licence fee system on the basis of sex discrimination, said the changes did not go far enough.
Figures released last year showed that women made up 76% of the 52,376 people convicted in 2020 over TV licence evasion.
The figures have been seized on by politicians opposed to the BBC’s funding model. During last summer’s Conservative party leadership contest, Liz Truss said: “What I’m very concerned about on the TV licence fee is how many women have ended up in prison for non-payment, a disproportionate number.”
Full Fact pointed out that no one can be imprisoned for failing to pay the licence, only fined, and that while women were more likely to be fined for failing to pay the fee, since 1995 twice as many men as women have been jailed after failing to pay fines.
Earlier this year, the former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said scrapping the licence fee would stop the prosecution of “primarily women who don’t always remember to pay this poll tax”.
A BBC review led by the crossbench peer Lola Young concluded that the gender disparity in licence fee prosecution was due to societal factors outside the BBC’s control, including greater financial hardship faced by women; women making up more than 60% of single-adult households; and women being more likely to be at home and responsible for domestic bills.
The review also recommended increased support for those struggling to pay the fee, which the BBC has agreed to adopt. This includes extending a payment plan to help spread the cost of the fee in small instalments to all unlicensed households; a pilot scheme for free debt advice; and the offer of a two-month breathing space to those struggling to pay.
Clare Sumner, the BBC’s director of policy, said: “While we know societal factors drive the gender disparity, we’re committed to making improvements to our own processes wherever possible. Our action plan will improve support for people in real financial difficulty to help them stay licensed and reduce risk of prosecution.”
Lady Young said: “The BBC’s action plan has the potential to lead to fewer people – particularly those in real financial difficulty – being prosecuted and that is something to be welcomed. Women and men do not appear to be treated differently. Rather, the societal factors at play are also often present alongside disparities in the criminal justice system, and health and other services.”
Josiane, from Essex, who took legal action after she was prosecuted for failing to pay her licence fee during the pandemic, urged the BBC to go further.
She said: “Being prosecuted for not being able to meet the payments of my TV licence was a deeply stressful experience for me. I can’t help but think of all the people – mainly women – who are in that position now, especially during the cost of living crisis.
“That is why I have been trying to get the BBC to tackle this problem. I do not yet see how today’s proposals from the BBC will do that and sincerely hope they will work closely with my team at [the campaign group] Appeal when it comes to fleshing out the details.”
Her solicitor, Kate Egerton from Leigh Day, said: “We are concerned that the review’s recommendations will only scratch the surface of the problem and that women will continue to be the subject of indirect sex discrimination. The BBC should be bolder if it is serious about tackling the gender disparity and we will be looking at this plan closely to consider its implications.”
Emma Torr, a legal director at Appeal, which is supporting Josiane’s case, accused the BBC of “tinkering around the edges” of the problem. She said: “We had hoped that this review would kickstart that sea change. Sadly, today’s report does not convince me. The focus of the action plan is on getting more people to pay their licence fee rather than on ensuring that those in genuine hardship are not prosecuted at all.”
