licence

The cost of a standard TV Licence rose this year, with the Government increasing the price to £174.50 in April

The cost of the standard TV Licence has seen a hike for many this year, with the Government jacking up the price to £174.50 in April. This annual fee is typically mandatory for households or businesses that watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer.

However, it might come as a surprise that certain people could be eligible for a free or discounted licence under specific conditions. These reductions could also apply to those with black-and-white TVs, which usually incur a yearly cost of £58.50 under the licence scheme.

Government guidance suggests that it’s primarily people over 75 years old who receive Pension Credit who can bag a free TV Licence. The same applies if you live with a partner who receives Pension Credit, as the licence covers everyone at a particular address.

It’s crucial to make clear that Pension Credit is different from the State Pension. It refers to a means-tested benefit for people over State Pension age on a low income, topping up weekly income to £227.10 if you’re single or £346.60 with a partner.

Those claiming Pension Credit can apply for a free TV Licence when they turn 74, but will still need to cough up until the end of the month before their 75th birthday. After this point, they will be covered by the free licence, according to the Express.

Additionally, the Government states that anyone who is blind or in residential care can apply for a discounted TV Licence. To be eligible for the residential care home discount, a person must be either retired and over 60 or disabled.

For those who are eligible, the TV Licence cost plummets to just £7.50. Housing managers at residential care homes can also make applications on behalf of residents.

Furthermore, anyone who is registered blind or lives with someone who is can get a 50% reduction on their TV Licence. This slashes the price of a colour licence to £87.25.

Government guidance explains: “The licence must be in the blind person’s name – if it’s not, you can make a new application to transfer it into their name. You’ll need to provide your existing TV Licence number when you apply.”

People over 75 who receive Pension Credit can apply for a free licence online or by telephone. The Government’s official numbers for this are 0300 790 6071 (telephone) and 0300 709 6050 (minicom).

Others who are registered blind can apply for a licence on the TV Licensing website. For more information, head to GOV.UK or the official TV Licensing website.

Why did the licence fee change?

Last year, the Secretary of State announced a 2.9% price rise, coming into force from April 1 2025, in line with annual CPI inflation.

The official TV Licensing site confirms this represented an increase of slightly more than 1p daily and marks only the second licence fee rise since April 1 2021.

The change has seen the annual colour licence fee rise to £174.50, while the black and white licence fee now stands at £58.50 per annum. Future increases in the licence fee will be tied to CPI inflation for the next four years, ending in 2027.

Now, according to a fresh Mirror report, several newspapers have speculated that the annual cost could reach £182 next year. However, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport reportedly told Sky Money: “No final decision has yet been made on the exact level of next year’s licence fee. We will set this out in due course.”

The annual TV licence fee is set to rise in April 2026

Calls have been made to scrap the BBC TV licence fee and introduce either advertising or a paywall system before the annual price increase in April. A new online petition has urged the Government to make changes to the TV licence system.

The current fee stands at £174.50 and households must pay this if they watch or record live television, or face potential fines. This charge usually increases alongside September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate, which reached 3.8 per cent.

Such a rise would push the licence fee up by £6.65 to £181.15 for the 2026/27 financial year. The Daily Record reports that this isn’t guaranteed and awaits confirmation from the UK Government later this month, typically around the Autumn Budget on November 26.

From April 1, 2024, the UK Government determined the licence fee would increase annually with CPI inflation for the Charter period’s remaining four years. The BBC’s current Charter continues until the end of 2027.

Campaigner David Gilmore contends that “even if you don’t watch the BBC you still have to pay for it”. He continued: “You don’t have to pay for content put on by theatres or cinemas if you don’t watch it so why should you be required to pay the BBC if you don’t watch their content?”

The petition titled “Scrap the BBC TV licence and replace funding with adverts or paywall” appears on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website. At the time of reporting, it had over 1,300 signatures.

The petition needs 10,000 signatures to receive a written response and at 100,000 signatures, it would be considered for debate in Parliament. The petition can be viewed online here.

Other calls to change the TV licence

Over 15,200 people have signed a similar petition, urging the UK Government to cover the TV licence fee for all State Pensioners and those who reach the current official retirement age of 66. As per the current rules, only those over the age of 75 who are receiving Pension Credit are entitled to a free TV licence, saving them £174.50 on the annual fee.

Michael Thompson, the creator of the petition, argues that “many pensioners live on the breadline with only the TV for company”.

He further stated: “With the cost of food soaring and utility bills ever higher, we feel there is a desperate need to provide all pensioners with at least this concession.”

Mr Thompson added: “We feel it is a double outrage that those who have given their all to this country in taxes and raising children have to pay a TV licence fee and are only exempt if they receive means-tested Pension Credit. Meanwhile, some media figures draw huge salaries.”

The “Fund free TV licences for all pensioners” petition can also be seen on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website.

The BBC TV licence is an annual fee – but not everyone needs to pay for it

Brits who only use their TV to watch four types of entertainment could be eligible for a refund worth £174.50. If you no longer require a TV Licence from the BBC, you can ask your money back – providing there is at least one full month left on it.

The TV Licence fee has been a standard expense for many people in the UK since its inception in 1946. Back then, the BBC was the sole broadcaster in the country, and the licence cost £2 – equivalent to approximately £105 today.

Despite significant changes in how we consume television, including the advent of numerous channels, streaming and on-demand platforms, this annual bill remains. Following a price increase last year, it now costs £174.50.

Even if you don’t tune into any BBC channels, many households still require a licence. For example, it’s necessary to:

• Watch or record programmes as they’re being broadcast live on any TV channel
• Watch live programmes on any online TV service – such as Channel 4, YouTube, or Amazon Prime Video

It’s also required to download or watch any BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer. However, there are four lesser-known circumstances where you can use your TV without needing to pay for a licence.

According to the Government website, you do not need a TV Licence if you only watch:

• Streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus
• On-demand TV via services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video
• Videos on websites like YouTube
• Videos or DVDs

If these are the only things you use your television for, you do not need to pay for a licence. However, if this applies to you and you’ve already paid you could be able to get some money back.

The TV licensing website explains: “You can apply for a refund if you won’t need your licence again before it expires, and you have at least one complete month left on it.” You can apply for a TV Licence refund up to 14 days before the date you no longer need it.

Certain people are also exempt from paying for a TV licence or qualify for a discounted rate and can therefore apply for a refund.

“If you’re eligible for an over 75 or blind concession, you can apply for a refund at any time and for any length of time left on your licence,” the TV licensing website adds.

If you’re aged 75 or over

The Government website states that you can obtain a free TV Licence if you’re 75 or older and you either:

• Receive Pension Credit
• Live with a partner who receives Pension Credit

If you’re currently receiving Pension Credit, you can apply for a free TV licence when you reach the age of 74. However, you’ll need to continue paying for your licence until the end of the month before your 75th birthday.

From then on, your free licence will cover you. You can submit an application for a free licence online here.

Residential care or sheltered accommodation

If you live in residential care or sheltered accommodation t his entitles you to apply for a discount. If you live in a qualifying residential care home, supported housing or sheltered accommodation, you can obtain a TV Licence for £7.50.

To be eligible, you must also be either:

• Retired and over 60
• Or disabled

Your housing manager can verify your eligibility and apply on your behalf.

Registered as blind

If you’re registered as blind, or severely sight impaired, or live with someone who is, you can receive a 50 percent discount. The licence must be registered in the name of the blind person – if it’s not, a new application can be made to transfer it into their name.

When applying, you’ll need to provide your existing TV Licence number. You can apply online here

In their own distinct ways, Bellamy and Martin are flagbearers for the progressive trends of modern football; possession-based styles of play and building from the back.

Most young coaches want to follow that path, as you can see when watching this year’s crop of FAW Pro Licence candidates working on and off the field.

But there is still room for the old school on this course.

On the final day, former Stoke manager Tony Pulis is invited to host a masterclass on set-pieces. It is a wet and windy Tuesday. This is meant to be.

Before his practical session on the pitch at a rain-lashed Dragon Park, he gives the Pro Licence group a presentation on his career – and it is pure gold.

Pulis is in his element as he reels off stories about his humble beginnings as a player and coach, before getting on to his various managerial tenures, complementing each piece of advice with at least a couple of entertaining anecdotes that could earn him a second career on the after dinner speaking circuit.

The 67-year-old Welshman has the room howling with laughter, and on a couple of occasions a giggling Dante asks for a little translation help from those next to him as he tries to decipher Pulis’ broad Newport accent and industrial language.

Among the jokes are a number of useful lessons, as Pulis answers questions on various topics, from the help he got from his peers (Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti get a mention) to balancing family life with the exhaustive travelling that comes with management.

Then he steps out on to the field to take the practical session with a group of young players, freezing in the rain as Pulis barks orders at them as if he was preparing them for a long-throw from Rory Delap.

“It’s always nice to come back to Wales and Newport. It’s a special place, this is my town,” Pulis says.

“I loved playing football for my local club, or just on the streets. It’s always nice to come and to be involved in football, helping people starting out in their careers.

“Set-plays have always been an important part of football and I think they’ve been undervalued. Mikel [Arteta] doing it with Arsenal, such a big club not just in England but on the world stage, has brought it to the fore again.

“I’ve had such a tremendous career and the world’s changed, the game’s changed. My first training session at Gillingham, we had to take the goals off the main pitch and take them on a tractor to a park and train there with people and their dogs walking past. Then you look at this and the facilities we’ve got today… it’s the greatest sport in the world and it’s our sport.”

Listening as intently to Pulis as the fledgling coaches – and laughing just as hard at the jokes – at the back of the room is the man who oversees the course, Dave Adams.

As the FAW’s chief football officer, Adams is responsible for the men’s and women’s game at all levels in Wales.

He appointed both senior national team head coaches last year and, on top of his work in developing Welsh football, he leads the Pro Licence course.

“I’m standing on the work of other people in some respects. Osian Roberts [former FAW technical director] did a great job in creating a programme which was world-class,” says Adams.

“What I tried to do with it when I started in 2019 was to go into the market and speak to head coaches because, fundamentally, you want a course that reflects the needs of head coaches, which are really complex and multi-faceted. It’s very much reality-based learning. We don’t want things to be abstract because coaching is a vocational skill.

“We get close to 400 applicants for 20 [Pro Licence] places every two years. It’s highly competitive. We’ve got to try and support our Welsh coaches like Chris Gunter and people who are working for our national association. But equally, we recognise that by having people like Nuri Sahin and Mikel Arteta, Chris Wilder, Roberto Martinez, Steve Cooper before that – the names are extensive – they bring a different lens and, as much as we help them, they actually help us as well.

“They’ve coached and worked at the highest level. There’s a recognition on our side that when we bring people like that, it’s also about taking from them, and that helps us grows an association. We learn new things, which we can apply to our programmes or our national teams, and that helps us grow as well.”

At the heart of the FAW’s work is the concept of the Welsh Way, an ethos underpinning everything from the elite level to grassroots; a vision for football in Wales, how to develop the game and foster its sense of national pride.

“It’s our mantra, Together Stronger. In any department, being small, being agile, being dynamic and everyone feeling a part of something is really important,” Adams adds.

“In any high-performance coaching environment, that sense of togetherness is really important. Whether you’re the head coach or the masseur or the chef, you’ve all got a vital part to play and got to buy into the vision of the head coach.

“It’s important we have that mantra and it drives everything we do. Why should we dream small? Dream big. We’re a small country but we’ve got incredible talent. We’re interested in the small margins and that’s what gives us a competitive advantage at the highest level.”

If you find out a company you have booked all or part of your holiday has gone bust or is facing an uncertain future, follow this guide so you know what you should do

It’s been a turbulent year for a number of travel firms. On Monday, it was announced that Great Little Escapes, based in Sandhurst in Berkshire, has ceased as an ATOL holder. The Civil Aviation Authority predicted that 141 customers had bookings impacted as a result.

Jetline Travel, a London-based company established in 2000 and parent company of Jetline Cruise, ceased trading as an ATOL holder in March. Now it has been taken into administration.

While a few hundred customers were impacted by JetLine and Great Little Escapes’ troubles, far bigger firms have previously folded, which has had much more significant consequences.

In 2019, Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm, collapsed, stranding hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the globe and sparking the largest peacetime repatriation effort in British history. The firm ran hotels, resorts and airlines for 19 million people a year in 16 countries. It had 600,000 people abroad when it went under, forcing governments and insurance companies to coordinate a huge rescue operation.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email [email protected]

In 2010 British tour operator sun4u collapsed, leaving approximately 1,200 customers stuck abroad.

If you find out a company you have booked all or part of your holiday has gone bust or is facing an uncertain future, here is what you should do.

Get your phone out

As soon as you hear that your airline or holiday company has gone bust, you should sit down with your phone and start making calls.

If you booked with a travel agent, call them first. There’s a good chance that your trip will be protected if you did book through a travel agent, or that they can help you rearrange the impacted part of your trip.

If you can’t contact the travel company, go directly to your airline and accommodation provider to check they have your booking and that your payment has been made. If the booking is there, you should be fine to proceed with your holiday.

Check your paperwork

If you can’t find out if your booking is still in place, and you can’t contact your travel firm because they have ceases operator, then check your paperwork.

If the company you were travelling with was ABTA or ATOL-protected, then you should be okay. ABTA protection offers tavellers financial protection if a holiday company goes bust. The Association of British Travel Agents represents travel agents and tour operators that sell over £37 billion worth of holidays, so there’s a good chance that yours is among them.

The Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL) has been protecting people booking package holidays since 1973, and by law every UK travel company that sells holidays and flights is required to hold such a licence. You can apply to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for a full refund if your firm goes bust before you travel, and the CAA will arrange to get you home if you’re on holiday when it does.

Good travel insurance may be able to help you out and offer additional assistance on top of what ATOL and ABTA can, but make sure to read the small print.

If you haven’t got travel insurance in place at the point when your holiday company goes bust, your credit card company may be able to step in. If you paid more than £100 for your holiday or flights and booked directly with the holiday company or airline, and paid by credit card, you may be able to claim through the Mastercard and Visa Chargeback scheme.

Card providers may reverse a transaction on your debit card, giving you your money back, if you ask them nicely.

Ian Dury’s son admitted in an interview that he had lost his driving licence after being reported to the authorities by BBC presenter Jeremy Vine

Cycling champion and BBC star Jeremy Vine caused the son of a British punk rock legend to lose his driving licence after snapping him engaging in a bad habit while behind the wheel, it has emerged.

The son of Ian Dury, Baxter, revealed the embarrassing information while being interviewed on BBC 6 Music by Huw Stephens. He explained that he had been looking at his phone in a traffic jam when Jeremy Vine cycled past and caught him red-handed.

Ian Dury was an innovator in the late 70s and early 80s’ burgeoning punk rock and new wave genres, frequently troubling government censors with countercultural and suggestive imagery, such as in his UK Number One chart topper ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick.’

Baxter Dury has followed in his father’s footsteps. He was driving to his home in West London from producer Paul Epworth’s studio, where they had been working on his latest album, Albarone, when the BBC star recorded him.

READ MORE: Liam Gallagher reveals truth behind Oasis’ ‘final plans’ with brutal three-word statementREAD MORE: Bruce Springsteen brutally slams Trump on UK tour as ‘corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous’

Dury, 53, told Huw Stephens: “Do you know what? This is a tragic story, but I drove there for the first half (of making the record) and then lost my license.”

However, Baxter did not blame Jeremy Vine for reporting him, telling the BBC that he probably deserved it.

Baxter went on to explain: “I got caught in a traffic jam, and Jeremy Vine took a film of me looking at Instagram, which he deserves to, I’m not arguing about (it). “

Realising that Vine could catch him once again, he added: “Shouldn’t probably say that publicly, he’s probably in the other room, isn’t he?”

When the BBC Radio 2 presenter heard that he’d caught Ian Dury’s son red-handed, he shared his love of his father’s work, but did not apologise. He told the Mail: ‘This is very unfortunate. I would like Baxter to know that I love his dad’s music.

‘I’m afraid mobile phone use in cars in London, particularly the posher parts, is an absolute curse. So I am quite tunnel-visioned about it.

‘We have 1700 road deaths a year. Sorry to be serious about it. Best wishes to Baxter.’

Jeremy Vine has recorded countless numbers of drivers flouting road rules over the years, often posting examples on social media to raise awareness of what cyclists face every day. However, last month, he made the surprising decision to stop posting videos after receiving abuse.

The TV presenter has racked up hundreds of millions of views, without making a penny, across various social media platforms, which has also brought with it huge waves of online hate.

He said on X: “I’m stopping my cycling videos. The trolling just got too bad. They have had well over 100 million views but in the end the anger they generate has genuinely upset me.”

Vine also shared the serious death threats made against him for sharing videos of drivers breaking the rules, with online trolls branding him “England’s biggest ***hole” and calling for the Channel 5 debate host to be crushed by a lorry.

After making the decision to quit, the TV star said he would miss the conversations sparked by the videos, which could be about relatively small infractions.

“Some of the biggest videos were actually about the smallest incidents, like someone turning left in front of me,” he said.

“People are happy to discuss it and I actually think that we’d all be safer if we all understood each other. People are going to drive 4x4s in Kensington and whatnot but they need to have a bit of care for me on a bicycle.

“You might be in total control when you pass close by but the person on a bicycle doesn’t know that. I just hope I was part of a dialogue about it.”