The head of the BBC has said it is right that licence fee dodgers are taken to court.
Director-General Tim Davie claimed that the public also back ‘enforcement’ for those who evade the annual charge to watch TV, which rose to £174.50 this year, despite growing calls for decriminalisation.
Asked if he approved of the current system, under which those who refuse to pay up can be prosecuted and slapped with a £1,000 fine, he told BBC Breakfast this morning: ‘I do approve of enforcement. And actually, when you talk to most people who are paying their licence fee, they would say if people are evading the licence fee, it should be enforced.’
Pressed on whether that meant he supported people being fined or going to jail, Mr Davie said: ‘Absolutely I support the current system.’
He went on: ‘I do think for the vast majority of people watching, who we’re there to serve, and this is what we get when we talk to people, they’ll say, we must make sure that actually those people who should be paying, are paying. That’s fair.’
His comments come despite Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy saying earlier this year that she had been ‘very concerned about the way it’s been enforced in the past’ and in particular the way that ‘vulnerable women’ had been ‘targeted for enforcement action’.
BBC Director-General Tim Davie set out his views on the licence fee to BBC Breakfast
The corporation’s boss was grilled by presenters Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty
Latest figures show that 25,550 people were convicted of TV licence evasion in 2024, of whom three-quarters (73 per cent) were female.
Rebecca Ryan of the campaign group Defund the BBC told the Mail: ‘The BBC’s aggressive enforcement of the licence fee is deeply discriminatory and an affront to fairness.
‘Around 70–75 per cent of those prosecuted are women — mostly single mothers and people on low incomes — even though they represent less than half of households.
‘This relentless pursuit of the poorest and most vulnerable clogs up the courts, wastes public resources, and props up an outdated funding model. It’s time to end this injustice and replace it with a modern, voluntary system that reflects how people actually consume media today.’
