Culture, Media and Sport Committee
23 June 2026
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Committee House of Commons
00:05 - 01:11
Speaker 1
Order. Welcome to this meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and today is the fifth oral evidence session for our BBC Royal Charter Review inquiry. And we are joined by our first panel, who are Patrick Holland, Executive Chair and CEO of Banijay UK, by Dino Sofos, founder and CEO of Persephonica, and Nigel Warner, CEO of Pact, the trade body for independent production in the UK. Gentlemen, you're all very welcome. Members, can I just remind you at the point you ask your questions to declare any relevant interests.
And I am going to kick off the questions with Nigel, and then I'm also going to come to you on the same question, Patrick, just to give you a little bit of advance warning. You've actually both advocated for the BBC to be funded by a household levy. We hear, we've heard a lot of evidence as a Select Committee about different funding methods and about whether the current license fee model actually works. Why have you both suggested the household levy as being the solution to this, Nigel?
01:11 - 02:42
Speaker 4
I think the, you know, the same question's been asked in a number of countries over the past decade or more, and places like Germany have made the, have come to the conclusion that, you know, funding their public broadcasting system largely through kind of a universal household levy is the, is the best approach. I mean, I think that's an important principle, and you know, that the BBC should be funded universally. I think the evidence is very much still there that, you know, it's used in the vast majority of more than, you know, 95% plus of households, and the problem with the license fee is that now, you know, only 80% of households are paying it, and that number is declining. So I think the advantages of putting, of turning it into a universal household levy is that, for one, the cost per household could potentially reduce. If you remove evasion in the system, it could actually be cheaper for individual households.
You could also make it potentially more progressive by, you know, making it a lower levy for less well-off households. So there are quite a lot of advantages to moving that way, whilst preserving the principle that the BBC is for us all and is paid for by us all.
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