Free TV licences to be scrapped for millions of over-75s - MSE News

Former_MSE_Naomi

Free TV licences will only be available for over-75s who receive pension credit from next June, the BBC has announced today...

Read the full story:
'Free TV licences to be scrapped for millions of over-75s'

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roddydogs

How many threads do we need?

Farway

Bad news for me, but a lot of water under bridges & General Elections could take place before then so I'll cross this particular bridge when it comes


PS, not aware of other threads, sorry if duplicating

Boohoo

I can see the headlines next June 2020 when a lot of the over 75's are being put into care homes or booted out of the family home as they only had them stay in the home because of them getting the free TV licence anyway.

Doc_N

Let's be quite clear on this: this is the direct result of the Conservative government's decision to dump the entire cost of this scheme onto the BBC.

So instead of its being funded by the government (ie all of us) it's now going to be funded entirely by the BBC - and that's despite Theresa May's promise in 2017 to maintain funding for pensioner benefits, including bus passes, prescriptions and TV licenses, until the end of the present Parliament in 2022.

So let's put the blame where it lies - not with the BBC, but the Tory Government.

[Deleted User]

Boohoo wrote: »

I can see the headlines next June 2020 when a lot of the over 75's are being put into care homes or booted out of the family home as they only had them stay in the home because of them getting the free TV licence anyway.

Not to mention the ones jailed after Capita have kicked in the door.

Cornucopia

Doc_N wrote: »

So instead of its being funded by the government (ie all of us) it's now going to be funded entirely by the BBC - and that's despite Theresa May's promise in 2017 to maintain funding for pensioner benefits, including bus passes, prescriptions and TV licenses, until the end of the present Parliament in 2022.

So let's put the blame where it lies - not with the BBC, but the Tory Government.

To be clear: instead of being funded by all of us through general taxation, it's going to be funded in part by some of us (through the TV Licence) and the remainder by the people who benefit from the service and will have the same option to opt-out that everyone else does.

Roll-on the pensioner wave of Netflix adopters.

Cornucopia

Colin_Maybe wrote: »

Not to mention the ones jailed after Capita have kicked in the door.

To be fair, Capita don't kick doors in.

Doc_N

Cornucopia wrote: »

To be clear: instead of being funded by all of us through general taxation, it's going to be funded in part by some of us (through the TV Licence) and the remainder by the people who benefit from the service........

Except that the government has the downright cheek to be blaming the BBC for this - when it's actually the government that dumped the financial responsibility for it from itself to the BBC.

Duplicitous, lying Tories - as always. Johnson would be an appropriate leader (but a hopeless PM!)

Benight

Meanwhile

Boris Johnson has pledged to cut income tax bills for people earning more than £50,000 a year if he wins the race to succeed Theresa May as prime minister.
The former foreign secretary told the Telegraph he would use money currently set aside for a no-deal Brexit to raise the 40% tax rate threshold to £80,000.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48577579

Wasn't this money supposed to help fund the NHS, as per the big red bus?

Couldn't this money be used to support our elderly?

No, it'll go to give tax break to our already high earners.
Under this new tax regime, someone earning £60,000 a year would benefit by £1,000 a year, while someone on £80,000 would gain £3,000 per year.

pphillips

Benight wrote: »

Meanwhile

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48577579

Wasn't this money supposed to help fund the NHS, as per the big red bus?

Couldn't this money be used to support our elderly?

No, it'll go to give tax break to our already high earners.
Under this new tax regime, someone earning £60,000 a year would benefit by £1,000 a year, while someone on £80,000 would gain £3,000 per year.

Boris is announcing a new tax regime to buy him enough MP votes to become PM:

"The basic annual salary for an MP from 1 April 2019 is £79,468."
https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps/