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FREE TV licences will only be available to households with someone aged over 75 on Pension Credit, the BBC announced yesterday.
More than three million pensioners will have to pay the fee from June 2020.
BBC director-general Tony Hall said the decision “has not been easy” but believes that the corporation “reached the fairest judgement after weighing up all the different arguments.”
NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said that “dumping” the responsibility for a welfare benefit on the BBC was “a wrongheaded act of sabotage by a government that cared little about the impact” on the service.
She said: “It is time for a radically different approach to running and preserving our public service broadcaster. The only answer is for the government to take back this benefit.”
The Labour Party slammed the Tories for going back on their 2017 manifesto promise to maintain all pensioner benefits, leaving millions of elderly and isolated people at a loss.
Age UK director Caroline Abrahams warned that the scheme will see sick and disabled elderly people who are completely dependent on their TV for companionship and news “forced to give it up.”
