The government recently announced a consultation on decriminalising TV licence evasion and the TaxPayers' Alliance is leading the charge to make this happen. We are mobilising grassroots support to take on the BBC establishment.
If we are going to win this battle, it’s critical that the consultation gets as many clear responses supporting decriminalisation as possible. The consultation asks very specific questions and, in order to be counted, responses must be specific as well. That’s why we’ve designed a handy tool to help you to make it easy for you to submit a response.
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In a similar vein we want to know if you or family members and friends have been subject to pernicious enforcement letters or home visits from TV Licensing. We are looking to build a comprehensive case study of such examples that we can take straight to the corridors of power.
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Event reminder: The future of the BBC licence fee
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Sticking with the Beeb, you are invited to join us on Tuesday for a discussion between Mark Wallace and Sir Robbie Gibb about the future of the licence fee.
With Tony Hall, the Director General of the BBC, stepping down, we are at an interesting crossroads - the BBC is under pressure from more modern broadcasters that utilise technology to stream content on demand. How can the BBC model change and adapt to the 21st century?
Sir Robbie Gibb: Former Director of Comms at No10 Downing Street and former Head of BBC Westminster.
Mark Wallace: Chief Executive of ConservativeHome (learn more and sign up for their daily email here), and a former Campaign Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
- When: Tuesday 3 March at 5.30pm for drinks, 6pm prompt start, finish 7pm latest
- Where: Mothers' Union, Mary Sumner House, 24 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3RB
Mark will explore all of this - and more - with Sir Robbie, who will have a unique insight of working in the BBC and dealing with it in government. I do hope you can join us. Click here to RSVP.
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Incredible news from Warwick as the council has announced it will hold a referendum in an attempt to raise council tax beyond the permitted limit. The council wants to increase tax bills by 34 per cent in order to raise £3 million to tackle climate change.
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Worst of all, the council will apply the charge to residents' bills before the referendum takes place; promising to rebill ratepayers if the rise is voted down.
Our campaigns team was first out of the blocks to issue a stinging rebuke to the council and our comments were picked up in local as well as national press. The TPA will do everything we possibly can to stop this blatant tax hike.
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TaxPayers' Alliance in the news
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Taxpayer funded lobbying
Following the release of our very popular report on campaign groups in receipt of public cash, our political director James Roberts penned an opinion piece for The Sunday Telegraph exploring the topic in more detail. He notes how such funding can unfairly skew public debate and policy decision making:
"Endless interventions by state-funded and subsidised sock puppets are dragging the public discourse to the Left, when the country is moving the other way. This may be one reason for the one-sided media environment becoming steadily more detached from public opinion."
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Taxes and the Budget
On Wednesday our research director Duncan Simpson spoke to BBC London's Eddie Nestor about how chancellor Rishi Sunak should respond to calls for higher taxes. In a wide-ranging discussion Duncan argued that the chancellor must "keep as much fiscal discipline as he can in the treasury" ahead of the upcoming Budget.
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Before moving into 11 Downing Street, Mr Sunak has repeatedly advocated the need for lower and simpler taxes. With government spending set to hit £881 billion and the tax burden at a 50-year high, now is not the time to be raising taxes. Click here to listen to a clip.
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Rewarding incompetence
The 2020-21 Local Government Finance Settlement has proposed an increase in central government funding for councils across England. The government package includes a new £1.41 billion Social Care Grant for adult and children’s services.The announcement by the government has been welcomed across the benches in the House of Commons.
But as TPA grassroots assistant Kieran Neild explains in this week's blog the government's decision to dispense more money from the public purse into council coffers is built on a fallacy.
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Many MPs claim their council's coffers have been emptied but as our research shows they still find plenty of cash for wasteful spending. Be it £130,000 for a 'pothole expert' in Shropshire or millions of pounds moving a bus depot a few hundred metres in Birmingham there is plenty more fat left to trim.
Ultimately, a long term solution is needed to address social care and local authority funding. This means increasing reliance on local tax revenue rather than government handouts. As it stands, the government should not give more money to councils who cannot manage their budgets effectively.
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Civil servants spent almost £1 million on newspapers
As part of our War on Waste campaign, our latest research paper reveals how five government departments spent £898,063 on newspapers from 2016-17 to 2018-19.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office spent the most on subscriptions, spending £725,286 on 292 national newspapers and online newspaper subscriptions since 2016.
The department with the largest number of subscriptions to a single newspaper was the Department for Exiting the European Union, which had 100 online subscriptions to the Financial Times. They had only 1 subscription to the Daily Telegraph and the Times.
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Although we acknowledge that civil servants must be kept well informed with news from a wide variety of news sources, every effort must be made to ensure value for money spending.
Physical paper subscriptions are significantly more expensive than online subscriptions. Where possible, departments should procure digital corporate subscriptions only, providing civil servants the same service at an often discounted rate.
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Harry Fone
Grassroots Campaign Manager
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