‘As soon as possible’ BBC licence fee warning as Nadine Dorries wields AXE on hated levy

Nadine Dorries, UK culture secretary, departs Downing Street following a cabinet meeting in London (Image: Getty)

However, the Culture Secretary also raised eyebrows with her admission that she shared her Netflix password with four other households across the UK.

Ms Nadine Dorries told the DCMS Committee she anticipated the review of the BBC’s funding model to begin “considerably before the summer recess”.

She explained: “We’ve come to a point actually where discussion about the future funding of the BBC, I think, is imperative now.”

“I find it very difficult to understand why people feel 74 percent of all convictions of non-paying the licence fee being women is acceptable or even defendable.”

“So, rather than wait until 2027, I’m going to announce very shortly that we’re going to start the review of the BBC licence fee and how it’s going to be funded in the future.”

“I anticipate it will take about six months and I want to get it started as soon as possible and we will be announcing the terms of reference for the review very shortly.”

The BBC will not be expected to pay for the review, she stressed, with her department footing the bill to avoid a “conflict of interest”.

Ms Dorries, 64, added: “I know that there are people who are saying, ‘I know you are going to move to a subscription model’. I am completely hands off as to what that review will look like and what will happen in that review in the future.”

“The BBC will be part of that review and right now if anybody knows of an independent chair who would like to chair that review please let me know, because I am on the hunt for an independent chair to chair that review.

Government Announce Plans To Abolish The BBC Licence Fee In 2027 (Image: Getty)

Asked for her view on the £159 licence fee, which she has frozen at its current level for the next two years, Ms Dorries said: “Yes, the licence fee is an unfair method of funding for the BBC.”

“When we only had one, two and three channels, or four channels, I’m sure it was the right model at the right time.”

“But to sit here and say, all those years later in the broadcasting landscape that we are now, that a model for funding the BBC all of those years ago is still applicable and still appropriate… I think is almost antediluvian.”

In a pointed warning to BBC top brass, Ms Dorries said: ”We are at a point where we have to wake up and smell the coffee and realise that the times are changing rapidly in terms of the broadcasting landscape.”

“It’s time for a more effective, more modern and fair way of funding the BBC. What that is, I don’t have an opinion on.”

She was also questioned about the Government’s decision to sell off Channel 4, which has been publicly owned since its creation in 1982. Ms Dorries said she “can’t see a scenario” in which a privately owned Channel 4 would become partly or wholly subscription-based.

In a likely reference to eyewitness reports that former C4 anchor Jon Snow shouted “F*** the Tories” at Glastonbury Festival in 2017, she added: “I have been on Channel 4 News a number of times. It is edgy. I am not going to justify a news programme whose anchor went out shouting obscenities about the Conservative Party.”

“So they didn’t do themselves any favours sometimes on the news programme and I think that is probably as much as I want to say about that.”

Ms Dorries also described the current system for Netflix subscribers as “incredibly generous”.

She said: “My mum has access to my account, the kids do. I have Netflix but there are four other people who can use my Netflix account in different parts of the country. Am I not supposed to do that?”

Commenting, Rebecca Ryan, Campaign Director of Defund the BBC, said: “We welcome Nadine Dorries’s announcement that there is to be an independent review of the BBC funding model ‘as soon as possible’. Hardworking Britons are currently facing extremely stark financial choices thanks to the cost of living crisis, whilst the BBC wastes money left, right and centre.”

“It is deeply unfair that vulnerable Brits should be forced to pay for TV programmes that they don’t even watch under threat of imprisonment! If the BBC wants to survive into the next decade and beyond it must stop bullying reluctant Brits and find a willing, paying global audience, like Netflix and Amazon have.”

The BBC has been approached for comment.

A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC is the most used media brand in the UK and the world’s most trusted broadcaster, producing more original UK programming than any other broadcaster. Our investment in the creative economy supports over 50,000 jobs and 90 percent of the licence fee is spent in Britain.”

 “There are very good reasons for ensuring the continued success of the BBC and what it can do for the British public, the creative industries and the UK around the world.”