Published: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:10:00
A private members bill calling for the abolition of the licence fee will finally reach the House of Commons today. The bill, introduced by Conservative backbencher Christopher Chope, would abolish the requirement for a television licence fee, by repealing the part of the Communications Act 2003 that relates to licensing of TV reception. The BBC has come under serious scrutiny in recent months, with governments plans to top-slice the licence fee seemingly gaining momentum.
The plan originally featured in Lord Carter's Digital Britain report, which suggested passing on some of the funding to ITV regional news outlets. But it failed to appear in prime minister Gordon Brown's Building Britain's Future document this week, leading to hopes among BBC staff the plans may not be appearing on the horizon for some time. Today's bill was on the order paper for a second reading debate on February 27th but there was not enough time for debate, leading to its appearance in the Commons today.
|
|
US senate passes Iran sanction bill
The US senate has passed a bill allowing president Barack Obama to extend sanctions against Iran. |
|
|
Pope rails against UK equality bill
The Pope has taken the unprecedented move of condemning an impending piece of UK legislation, dubbing the government's equality bill as a 'violation of natural law'. |
|
|
Obama to announce bailout bank fees
Barack Obama will today announce that he is imposing a fee on banks designed to help the US government recover the costs of its Wall Street bailout. |
| NEWS ARCHIVE |
| Archive | Headlines | |
| Tech | Features | |
| Motor | Entertainment | |
| Other | ||
| SEARCH ARCHIVE |
| FEATURED ADS |
| NEWSLETTER |
![]() |
Sign up to receive all our latest news and offers straight to your in-box |
| FREE EMAIL |
|
|||
![]() |
Get a free ‘BritPost’ email account today |
||
| TRAVEL BLOG |
![]() |
Join the Travel blog Community today and share your travelling stories |
| SPECIAL FEATURE |
![]() |
||
|
Great sheds for your garden. Hosting a selection of outdoor buildings online including solid wood, metal & steel sheds, chests & composters for all your garden needs. |
||
| Find out more | ||
| FUN STUFF |
| Bingo | ||
| Su doku | ||
| Blogs | ||
| Forums | ||
| Horoscopes | ||
| Lottery | ||
| USEFUL STUFF |
| Today’s TV | ||
| Currency converter | ||
| Mortgage calculator | ||
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||