TV Licences

Rosie Cooper
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many people (a) received free television licences and (b) evaded payment of a television licence in West Lancashire in each year since 1997.

Mr. Woodward
TV Licensing, which administers free television licences for people aged 75 or over as agents for the BBC, does not record the number of free licences issued, or the estimated evasion rate, by parliamentary constituency. However, the number of households with at least one person aged 75 or over claiming the winter fuel payment in 2004-05 in the West Lancashire constituency was 4,975, according to Department for Work and Pensions records.