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DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Local Government Finance (England)
- That the Special Grant Report (No. 127) (HC 1049) on special grant for 2003–04 for reducing fire deaths in those areas of England suffering the highest fatality rate, dated 12th August 2003, a copy of which was laid before this House on 8th September, be approved.—[Margaret Moran.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
- That, at the sitting on Thursday 30th October, the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Mr Peter Hain relating to pay for chairmen of select committees not later than Six o'clock; such Questions shall include the Questions on any Amendments selected by the Speaker which may then be moved; the Questions may be put after the moment of interruption; and the Orders of the House of 28th June 2001 and 29th October 2002 relating to deferred Divisions shall not apply.—[Margaret Moran.]
ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
- That Mr David Borrow be discharged from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and Joan Ruddock be added.—[Mr. John McWilliam, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]
Concessionary Television Licences
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Margaret Moran.]
10.28 pm
Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale): I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise this important subject in the House this evening. The timing is opportune, as we will soon have a pre-Budget statement and I want to put down a marker not just to my right hon. Friend the Minister but to the Chancellor about considering ending the crazy anomalies that have existed with television licence concessions since the 1950s.
I want to refer to an anomaly in my constituency in the village of Stonehouse, where those in 30 houses that were built as sheltered accommodation, along with some mainstream housing in the South Lanarkshire council area, are being denied what I argue is their right to concessionary licences. That injustice should be redressed. Before I come to the McLean gardens complex, I want to broaden my appeal to seeking the Minister's views on lobbying the Treasury to end the many injustices suffered by the elderly in the autumn of their lives.
TV licence concessions originated at the beginning of the 1950s, when BBC postal services gave concessions. The scheme grew and local authorities also gave concessions. The first concessionary scheme for the elderly was put on a statutory basis in 1969 and grew out of those gestures by Post Office officials in the 1950s. Local authorities throughout the country gave pensioners and disabled people concessions to help them to pay their television licences. Indeed, when I served on a hung council in Newark and Sherwood district council, I remember that the Labour group negotiated a budget to give £25 to pensioners and disabled people. I think that £25 in 1980 would be commensurate with the cost of a TV licence today, which is £116.
I have pressed this Government and the previous one for years to end the anomalies in the system by introducing free TV licences for all pensioners. Since 1997, I have supported the Government's drive to prioritise pensioner poverty through measures such as the minimum income guarantee, the winter fuel allowance and the pension tax credit. The introduction of free television licences for the over-75s was most welcome but it is now time to go the extra mile and agree to free TV licences for all our elderly people.
We have come a long way since the Annan report in 1977, which argued the case for ending the concession altogether. It suggested that the best way to get rid of anomalies would be to make pensioners and disabled people pay, so we have come down a long road since then. During the 16 years for which I have been a Member, I and many other hon. Members have lobbied against the many anomalies associated with TV licence concessions. Every time we solve one anomaly, we seem to engage in further debate on other anomalies that are exposed. We should end the injustice now, and I invite the Minister to support me on that this evening.
I want to talk about McLean gardens in the village of Stonehouse in my constituency. The problems there have been ongoing since 1997 when the television
licensing authority refused to grant concessionary licences to its residents. I gave my right hon. Friend the Minister a copy of a plan of McLean gardens because I was going to refer to it in my speech, but I compliment her and her staff on their research because I understand that she had already seen the plan—I am delighted about that. I am sorry, however, that other hon. Members and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, do not have a copy.The McLean gardens complex was purpose-built to accommodate people who needed sheltered accommodation and warden care. The forward-thinking South Lanarkshire council purposely intermingled 15 units of normal mainstream housing with 30 units of purpose-built sheltered accommodation. That was the council's positive step toward being socially inclusive, rather than excluding the elderly from the community, and I am sure that that will be much applauded. However, although the measure represented progress and a way forward that we could all take, the result of the council's forward thinking was that the licensing authority has withdrawn the concession to my constituents.
I received a letter dated 8 October from the director of housing and technical resources that supports my case. He said:
- "As you are aware this matter has been ongoing since 1998 when the TV Licensing Authority refused to grant a concessionary licence to the residents in McLean Gardens, Stonehouse. The Licensing Authority's primary reasons appear to relate to the fact that the warden does not provide a service to all of the units and that the properties must be seen to be contained within the common inclusive boundary."
- "I would advise you that Housing Services contacted the Licensing Centre in March 2001 appealing the decision to exclude the residents of McLean Gardens from the scheme. In our submission we advised that McLean Gardens was purposely built as a Sheltered Housing Complex"
- "Additionally we advised that the complex was constructed in such a way as to intersperse sheltered homes with mainstream accommodation. The belief being that this would ensure that the elderly would have every chance to maintain their position as an integral part of the community and not face the very real possibility of social exclusion."
- "It is also true to say that I have been very disappointed in the stance of the BBC Licensing Authority to date in this matter."
Some 80 per cent. of residents in sheltered accommodation throughout the country are over 75. We are not talking about a king's ransom to end the injustice—far from it. I hope for a sympathetic response and should like the Minister to make representations to the licensing authority to address the injustice at McLean gardens.
10.38 pm
The Minister for the Arts (Estelle Morris): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood) on securing the debate. All hon. Members, irrespective of their party, will find his words familiar. We all have constituency examples of how the awarding of concessionary television licences does not make sense. Many people feel aggrieved when they think that they have a right to a concessionary TV licence and do not get one. As Members of Parliament, we have all fought cases to win concessionary licences for our constituents, and more often than not we have lost rather than won.
My hon. Friend asked me to sympathise with the position of his constituents in McLean gardens in Stonehouse, and I do. I cannot offer an explanation that would make coherent sense to his residents. I have looked at the map. The people who live in those units of accommodation know that they are elderly and that it is sheltered housing. They understand why they are there and will not see themselves as different from people who live in sheltered accommodation in other parts of my hon. Friend's constituency.
I can also see that, in its policy, the local authority was brave and, perhaps, right not to make ghettoes for elderly people but ensure that they were integrated into mainstream community life. On that level, I sympathise with my hon. Friend's constituents but, and this is the case that I want to make today, I can sympathise also with the licensing authority, which is trying to make sense of a situation that we would probably not get into if we started from scratch.
I do not want to go through the entire history of the concessionary licence, but it was originally available to people in residential accommodation. We all knew what residential accommodation was; everybody knew that it made sense. It was what, in the old days, we called old people's homes, and nobody could walk past one without knowing what it was. Time moved on and society changed, and we thought that it was right to give people their independence as far as we could. That is when sheltered accommodation came of age, and it was right that it should do so.
I thank my hon. Friend for making me learn about this because I had not understood the origin of the anomalies. When the legislation was originally drafted, local authorities sought to put into the concessionary licence scheme units of accommodation that no one in the House, not even the authority's own MP, would justify being there. For example, a rent collector was deemed to be providing a communal service. I do not think that any of us believes that a rent collector collects rent only from people over 60 or 65. If accommodation had a common room, that was deemed by some local authorities to make it a communal provision.
Twenty or 30 years ago, local authorities were, quite simply, exploiting the system. They were acting in what they thought were the best interests of their constituents, but they were exploiting the system. As my hon. Friend will know, there was a need to draw up criteria that would include those people whom we wanted to include but exclude those who ought not to be included. That proved nigh on impossible. Decade after decade, as he said, attempts have been made to define sheltered accommodation so that its characteristics are as similar
as possible to those of residential accommodation, which was the source of the concession. That is the challenge.I shall briefly list those criteria because they need to be put on the record. Sheltered accommodation has to meet all the following tests. It must form part of a group of at least four dwellings within a common and exclusive boundary. It must be provided for occupation by disabled persons, mentally disordered persons—that is an old-fashioned phrase now—or retired persons aged 60 years or more. It must be provided or managed by a local authority, a housing association or a development, and it must have a person, such as a warden, whose function it is to care for the needs of the residents and who either lives on site or works there for at least 30 hours a week.
My hon. Friend's constituents seem to be falling foul of two of those criteria. First, as he said, they do not all have a warden. Secondly, they do not have common and exclusive boundaries.
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