Nadine Dorries hints at upcoming axing of BBC licence fee as funding is frozen
Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has hinted the BBC licence fee will soon be scrapped as she oversees a two-year freeze on funding for the public broadcaster.
Dorries took to Twitter today to confirm a Mail on Sunday story about the BBC licence fee being frozen for two years, which will lead to an effective funding cut, and to say “this licence fee announcement will be the last”.
“The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors, are over,” she said.
“Time now to discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling great British content.”
The licence fee will be kept at £159-a-year for the next two years, with The Sunday Times reporting that it is a part of a package of populist policies that Boris Johnson hopes will help save his premiership as he becomes further engulfed in the Downing Street parties scandal.
BBC officials calculate that the freeze, due to the current 5.1 per cent rate of inflation, equates to a £2bn funding cut.
It comes as a part of a larger war on the BBC that has been waged by Dorries since she was installed as culture secretary last September.
The culture secretary has previously labelled the BBC as “left-wing”, “hypocritical” and “patronising”.
This has included publicly criticising BBC political editor Laura Kuennsberg for reporting on disquiet among Tory MPs over Johnson’s leadership.
It was also reported that behind closed doors Dorries threatened to withhold funding from the BBC as a direct result of Nick Robinson’s tough questioning of Johnson during an edition of the Today programme.
Labour shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said: “The Prime Minister thinks those reporting on his rule breaking should pay consequences, whilst he gets off free.
“The Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary seem hell-bent on attacking this great British institution because they don’t like its journalism. British broadcasting and our creative industries are renowned around the world and should be at the heart of Global Britain.”
A BBC source told the Mail: “There are very good reasons for investing in what the BBC can do for the British public, and the creative industries and the UK around the world.
“Anything less than inflation would put unacceptable pressure on the BBC finances after years of cuts.”