BBC Licence Fee - Serious threat to the livelihoods of pensioners

February 21, 2020

The removal of the free tv licence for the over 75s is posing a serious threat to the livelihoods of pensioners who could find the loss of the benefit not only affecting their monetary funds but their health too.

The over 75s free licence fee removal will be “really, really cruel”, warned the National Pensioners Convention (NPC). Jan Shortt, the general secretary for the NPC, has said that removing the benefit would “condemn” pensioners to a “life of loneliness and depression”.

Ms Shortt said: “I can say no, without any shadow of a out, that someone who is not part of a family, because they don’t have a family or their family’s moved away, doesn’t have friends because all their friends might have passed away, doesn’t see anybody sometimes for weeks on end, isn’t very well and cannot get out of the house.

“That television or their radio, and now most televisions have radios included, that is their lifeline, that is how they find out what is going on in the world and how they keep contact.

“We have people who say that they get up in the morning not feeling very well and then will sit down in front of the television, watch a programme and feel themselves becoming much calmer.

“Not feeling well, but feeling a little better.”

She continued: “That little box in the corner of the room is more than a box, it is that window that people watch and take information. It helps them to relax and not feel so bad.

“You take that away and you are condemning people to a life of loneliness and depression and heaven knows what in terms of ill and health.

“£154 doesn’t seem a lot, but when you don’t have it and you’re having to pay other bills that keep on rising, your rent, your mortgage, your fuel bills keep rising, there’s a limit to what you can buy without fixed income.

“To take that away from someone who is 75+, into their 80s and 90s, is really really cruel.”

The pension campaigner added: “This is a generation that has done everything they were asked to and more, and they’re treated like they’re a drain on society.

“This is a generation that has provided this country with workers of the future, has paid their way, has worked hard, has made their commitment to the country.

“And when they did everything they were told to, saved for old age, pay this, pay that, they get to old age and see everything they’ve ever worked for taken away.”