Tag: over-75s

Stop the switch off and Save Over 75s Free TV

Cllr Alan Hall has joined campaigners, trade unionists and pensioners’ activists and written to the Government and BBC to ask them to stop the switch off for the over 75s. The covid lockdown isn’t over and many older people are shielding. How can this cruel decision be taken now?

Read the letter:

Age UK are campaigning to stop the switch off

Dear Secretary of State Oliver Dowden and Director General Tony Hall,

I’m writing to urge you to sit down and work together urgently to save free TV Licences for over 75s.

The Labour Government introduced the free tv licence for the over-75s when Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer produced a ‘budget that unites the whole country’ and ‘offers stability and security for all.’

Fifteen years later, the Chancellor, George Osborne cut £650m from the BBC’s budget, transferred the responsibility for the over-75s licence fee directly to the BBC as he met Rupert Murdoch before the announcement in June 2015.

This sleight of hand was to fund £12bn of benefit cuts mainly from the Department of Work and Pensions – the DWP funded the over-75s free TV licence.

I was bitterly disappointed by the announcement that the BBC are going to proceed with their plans to take away free TV licences from most people over 75. This is a kick in the teeth for older people during a terrible year.

Last year I alongside 634,333 other Age UK supporters signed a petition to keep TV free for all over 75s. I never received a reply from Government.

I am really worried about older people on low incomes who will find it hard to find £150 plus a year to pay for a licence so will have to give up some other essentials, or try to survive without TV at all. I am particularly concerned about older people battling loneliness and isolation, people who aren’t online and for whom the television provides a lifeline to the outside world, information, entertainment and companionship.

I implore you to work together and find a solution to save millions of older people from this decision which will cause enormous anxiety distress and for hundreds of thousands, real hardship.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Alan Hall

Cllr Alan Hall and Unite Community Greenwich Lewisham & Bexley outside the BBC with pensioners protesting


‘Don’t Switch Us Off’ say pensioners as Over-75s Free TV Licence Faces the Axe

The Labour Government introduced the free tv licence for the over-75s when Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer produced a ‘budget that unites the whole country’ and ‘offers stability and security for all.’

Fifteen years later, the Tory’s Chancellor, George Osborne cut £650m from the BBC’s budget, transferred the responsibility for the over-75s licence fee directly to the BBC as he met Rupert Murdoch before the announcement in June 2015.

This sleight of hand was to fund £12bn of benefit cuts mainly from the Department of Work and Pensions – the DWP funded the over-75s free TV licence.

Following a consultation the BBC concluded that the current scheme will end and from 1 June 2020, a free TV licence will only be available to a household with someone aged over 75 who receives pension credit. 

Age UK has launched a petition stating:

“For over a million of our oldest citizens the TV is their constant companion and window on the world. And now it’s under threat.”

“The BBC has announced they will means test free TV licences from the over-75s. Means-testing may sound fair but in reality it means at least 650,000 of our poorest pensioners facing a big new annual bill they simply can’t afford. But this is really the Government’s doing. They pushed the scheme onto the BBC without asking any of us what we think or providing the funding to sustain it.”

Age UK are calling for the Government to take back responsibility for the free TV licences for the over 75s. Your can sign the petition here.

On Friday, 21st June 2019 a protest was held outside the BBC in Portland Place, London where trade unionists, pensioner groups and their supporters held a rally demanding “Don’t switch us off” and they marched to Oxford Circus causing traffic chaos in the capital. Buses, taxis and pedestrians signalled their support for the pensioners.