The process of enforcement of licence fee evasion is gender blind. A TV Licensing Enquiry Officer will take a statement from the person who opens the door at an unlicensed property, provided they are a responsible adult who lives at that address. It is that person who becomes liable to face prosecution for evading the licence fee. Her Majesty’s Government have no plans to conduct research into this area.

Ministers have announced their intention to reform the way certain regulatory cases are dealt with as part of a wider reform of summary justice. The processing of TV licence cases forms part of that work. We will therefore publish the annual cost of proceedings in court against those charged with installing or using a television receiver without the appropriate licence, before we bring forward legislation.

We have no plans to revise the existing arrangements whereby licence fee money is used to enforce licence fee payment, in advance of the current licence fee settlement coming to an end in 2017.

The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts of installing or using a television receiver without the appropriate licence, in England, in 2012, can be viewed in the table, which also provides the proportion of which are female.

The Ministry of Justice does not collect data on the cost of proceedings for specific offences in magistrates' courts and therefore is not able to estimate the cost of proceedings for failure to pay a television licence fee in 2012 with sufficient reliability within the time and cost available.

(1) An offence under S363 of the Communications Act 2003

(2) The figures given in the table relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe

(3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used

Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice Ref. PQ HL 1726

No portion of the licence fee is retained by the Government for its spending or for contingency purposes—all licence fee money is allocated to the BBC.

Below are the amounts which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provided in grant-in-aid funding for the BBC World Service (BBCWS) for the last 5 years, and the forecast for financial year 2013-14.

2008-09 - £265,043,000

2009-10 - £268,043,000

2010-11 - £268,523,000

2011-12 - £255,200,000

2012-13 - £244,200,000

2013-14 - forecast £238,480,000

The last payment of grant-in-aid funding from the FCO will be paid to the BBCWS in March 2014. The BBCWS will then be funded from the licence fee from April 2014.

The Government's consultation, Sustaining services, ensuring fairness is coordinated with a second consultation, Controlling Immigration—Regulating Migrant Access to Health Services in the UK. The latter consultation seeks views on a proposal that all those who are coming to the United Kingdom for more than six months from outside of the European Economic Area be required either to pay a health levy or hold mandatory health insurance. The consultation also seeks views on whether there should be any exceptions to this requirement.

Both consultations have already been placed in the Library.

The consultation seeks views on proposals to develop a system whereby all patients, regardless of their nationality, who are newly registering with the National Health Service for first time, are assessed for eligibility to free NHS care, which will include providing relevant information that will allow the Government to reclaim money it is entitled to from other European Economic Area (EEA) Member States such as European Health Insurance Card details. In particular, as set out in the consultation, we propose to develop a more robust process for identifying newly arriving EEA state pensioners and capturing their details which facilitate funding to the United Kingdom from their member state. However, where this data is available for those EEA pensioners already residing here it will also be used in this way.

The consultation also proposes to charge those non-EEA nationals coming to the UK to live who do not yet have permission to do so permanently either by applying a health levy to their visa application or by requiring them to have health insurance. Currently such people are entitled to free NHS care. It may not be fair to begin to charge those temporary migrants already living here who came here on the understanding that their healthcare will be free, but a final decision on that point has not been taken.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has an ongoing investigation, under the Competition Act 1998 and Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, into the interchange fee arrangements for UK domestic point-of-sale transactions made using MasterCard/Maestro and Visa consumer payment cards. These are charges paid by the retailer's bank to the bank that issued the payment card. The investigations were opened in May 2004 (Visa) and December 2005 (MasterCard).

The OFT's investigations concern domestic (UK) interchange fee arrangements. Separately, the European Commission has investigated cross-border interchange fees.

The UK Government (with the OFT as lead department) has intervened in support of the European Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Union in the appeal proceedings brought by MasterCard

against the 2007 decision of the European Commission regarding MasterCard's, including Maestro's, intra-European cross-border interchange fee arrangements. On 24 May 2012, the General Court dismissed MasterCard’s appeal. MasterCard’s further appeal to the Court of Justice was heard on 4 July 2013. The OFT intends to consider whether to issue Statements of Objections in respect of its own investigations following the conclusion of these proceedings.

The interest rates charged to consumers by credit card issuers are not the focus of these investigations. The OFT does not set permissible interest rates payable to credit card issues.

The OFT does not have a remit to encourage new entrants to any particular market. However, it seeks to tackle barriers to entry and anti-competitive behaviour where there is evidence of a problem. In addition to the current investigation, the OFT has conducted reviews of the barriers to entry in retail banking and of payment systems, details of which can he found on its website.

When the British Coal Corporation was privatised in 1994 its two large occupational pension schemes were closed to further contributions and, since that time, Her Majesty’s Government has provided them with solvency guarantees which safeguard the accrued rights of members up to the point of privatisation.

Corporation employees who transferred to private sector employers including, what is now, UK Coal were given the right to join newly established “industry-wide” pension schemes. These schemes stand alone and Government has never had a direct locus in their respect.

The levy paid by an individual scheme for the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) is a matter between that scheme and the PPF. The scheme receives a levy invoice each year. As this information is confidential, it would not be appropriate for me to disclose it. However, the noble Lord may wish to contact the pension scheme directly.

The PPF’s annual report and accounts for 2011/12 show the Fund had total assets of £17,271 million and total liabilities of £16,206 million, providing a reserve of £1,065 million. This figure should be seen in the context of the PPF’s objective to be financially self-sufficient by 2030 and the more challenging environment for pension schemes as a whole.

The pension protection levy estimate for 2013/14 is £630 million. The Board of the PPF will be consulting on the levy for 2014/15 in the autumn.

UK Coal is being restructured and the relevant sections of the industry wide pension schemes are expected to enter the PPF. The PPF will not have any controlling equity in the new company that replaces UK Coal. Instead, the PPF’s interest in the new company will consist of a series of debt instruments. The PPF will not be involved in the day-to-day running of the company.

The number of schemes that have paid the Pension Protection Fund administration levy over the past 5 years (2008 to 2012) are:

The BBC is funded by the licence fee and a dividend from BBC Worldwide. The amount of licence fee funding which goes towards S4C (as of April this year) is detailed in the following table.

BBC World Service’s broadcasting costs are met by a separate Parliamentary grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Bank of Cyprus UK will start paying a levy on the 15,000 accounts that were transferred from Laiki Bank UK in the next annual levy cycle of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Information on how the FSCS levies financial institutions is publicly available on its website: http://wwwfscs.org. uldindustry/funding/levy-information/index.html.

Levies are charged by the FSCS on an annual basis at the beginning of each annual cycle, in order to meet its costs for the forthcoming financial year. The levies are calculated based on the accounts held on 31 December ahead of the FSCS financial year.

The Bank of England is the authority in the UK responsible for the resolution of UK authorised banks, including Bank of Cyprus UK. This responsibility has not been altered as a result of the transfer of accounts from Laiki Bank UK.

All eligible deposits in UK-authorised banks are covered up to £85,000 by the FSCS, including those in Bank of Cyprus UK. The FSCS does not have the authority to exclude deposits that are otherwise eligible.

There are no annual fees for sponsors under tiers 2 and 5 because the sponsor licence is paid for at application, and the licence is valid for four years. Sponsors are also required to pay separately for every certificate of sponsorship they issue under tiers 2 and 5.

We review fees annually and there are no current plans to change the payment structure or process for sponsor licensing under tiers 2 and 5.

Income from sponsor licences partially covers the cost of providing the sponsorship regime, with the remainder made up from fees for certificates of sponsorship and other fees income.

There were 26,179 employers on the tier 2 and tier 5 register on 2 January 2013.

There is no annual fee for a sponsor licence. The fee for a tier 2 sponsor licence only is £500 for a small sponsor or an organisation with charitable status and £1,500 for a medium or large sponsor. The fee for a tier 5 licence only is £500. Licences are granted for a four year period.

There are currently no plans to publish data relating to individual sponsoring employers, however the quarterly statistics are kept under review, taking into account the needs of users, burdens on suppliers and producers, in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The Home Office publishes information about the sponsorship register and on numbers of sponsored applications for visas and for extensions, within the quarterly Immigration Statistics (tables cs.01 to cs.05). A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics October-December 2012 is available from the Home Office Science, research and statistics webpages at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/research-statistics/migration/migration-statisticsl/ and is available from the Library of the House.

The application of the legislation on TV licensing is the responsibility of the BBC, which operates independently of Government.

Collection costs as a percentage of total licence fee income

The average cost of collection per licence fee is not recorded by the BBC. However, when using the figures provided, average costs can be estimated.

Department for Culture, Media and Sport funding to the BBC

DCMS funding to the BBC differs from the level of BBC licence fee income. This is due to the department having to make the last grant instalment payment before the final tranche of licence fees are received. Therefore, they may not be exactly as forecast.

Data do not include funding the BBC may receive from other government departments.

The level of licence fee is set until 2017. The Government have no plans to review the level of the licence fee before then. The Government have made no assessment of the valuation of the BBC’s pension scheme deficit, or an assessment about any consequences for programme-making. The BBC’s pension arrangements and how it spends the licence fee are matters for the BBC, which is editorially and operationally independent of Government.

Since the foundation of the National Health Service, accessing NHS primary medical care has been open to any patient in the United Kingdom. Provision exists within primary legislation to allow the introduction of a system of NHS charges covering treatment for general practitioner services. As part of the department’s review of charging for overseas visitors for NHS care, consideration is being given on whether to extend charging for NHS treatment to primary care. No decision has yet been taken on any option and this will also be subject to consultation across a number of related matters.

Since the foundation of the National Health Service, accessing NHS primary medical care has been open to any patient in the United Kingdom. Provision exists within primary legislation to allow the introduction of a system of NHS charges covering treatment for general practitioner services. As part of the department’s review of charging for overseas visitors for NHS care, consideration is being given on whether to extend charging for NHS treatment to primary care. No decision has yet been taken on any option and this will also be subject to consultation across a number of related matters.

Entitlement to free National Health Service hospital treatment is based on ordinary residence in the United Kingdom or exemption from charges under the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2011, as amended, not the payment of UK taxes or national insurance contributions.

People who are working here for a UK based employer are exempt from charges for NHS hospital treatment by virtue of Regulation 8(2)(a) of these regulations. It is not sufficient to be in receipt of a particular visa to be considered exempt from charges. Similar regulations are enacted across the devolved Administrations. Those working here under the ICT route are generally not entitled to child benefit whilst they remain subject to immigration control. Not all of those who come to the UK under this route are exempt from requirements to pay national insurance contributions. The exemptions only apply where the person is exempt under a bi-lateral social security agreement, or meets the various statutory conditions in Regulation 145(2) Social Security Contributions Regulations 2001. Amongst the conditions for the 52 week national insurance contributions exemption are requirements for the employment to be with a foreign employer and the person to be not ordinarily resident.

The Department of Health is reviewing its policy on charges to overseas visitors for NHS care, including the qualifying residency criteria for free treatment and the full range of current criteria that exempt particular services or visitors from charges. No decisions have yet been made. Furthermore, the Government are reviewing migrant access to publicly funded services and benefits through a cross-departmental Ministerial Cabinet Committee chaired by the Minister for Immigration.

The Government have no intention of limiting the amount of licence fee money used to limit BBC pension liabilities. We have made no assessment of what percentage of the licence fee will be spent on the BBC pension scheme, nor made any representations about any consequences for programme-making capacity. These are matters for the BBC and there is no provision for Government to intervene.

Higher Education is a matter devolved to the Scottish Government. The allocation of funding from within the block grant is a matter for the Scottish Government.