Andrew Neil describes BBC licence fee as a 'Straitjacket'

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Mr Dyke, former director-general of the BBC from 2000-2004, said he did not think the annual £159 licence fee was satisfactory as it costs the same for everyone. He gave his assessment on Tuesday to the Lords Communications and Digital Committee as evidence to an inquiry considering how the BBC should be funded in the future.

Mr Dyke said: “I have always been of the view that the licence fee has always been an unsatisfactory tax and it is an unsatisfactory tax largely because it costs the same if you are the poor or the rich.”

He added: “No one would invent the licence fee today. The idea I would come in here and say ‘I’ve got this great idea, we are going to charge people £150 a year so they can receive radio and television’, we would be laughed out the room.

“But if you are going to get rid of it, you have to have something better to fund the BBC.

“It could be there is a method which says part of it is a licence and part of it is that the BBC could make more money.”

Mr Dyke, now chairman of the London Film School, added: “The reason I think it survives is because when you start to look at what you replace it with it becomes difficult.”

The licence fee costs £159 per household each year and up until August 2020, all over-75s had the fee waived, benefitting more than 5.3 million properties.

Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, a campaigning organisation for senior citizens, said: “We’ve always known it’s an unfair tax. It’s a bit late in the day for Greg Dyke now to come public with this. 

“The current incumbent at Broadcasting House, Tim Davie, has actually made the tax more unfair by scrapping the free licence for the over- 75s, and refusing to consider wider exemptions from the licence fee for those who can’t afford to pay it.”

He added: “You’ve got a very aggressive, unfair, flat-rate tax that hits poor households more than it does wealthy households by the nature of the tax. I hope whatever replaces the licence fee will be made much fairer.”

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries announced earlier this year that the licence fee will be frozen for the next two years. 

She has also signalled that the “completely outdated” fee will be replaced by a new model after 2027. 

So what do YOU think? Do you think the BBC licence fee is an ‘unfair tax’?. Vote in our poll and join the debate in the comment section below.

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