David Le Quesne, chief executive of the pub group Randalls, has called on the States to drop the tax following the release of the Medium Term Financial Plan which includes recommendations for a swathe of cuts and new charges for public services.
One of the recommended cost-cutting measures includes scrapping free TV licences for the over-75s – something that was paid for through a tax increase introduced in 2006 on pints of beer and lager. At the time duty on beers increased between 2.4p and 3.6p per pint.
The proposition was first brought to the States in 2005 by the late Deputy Mike Vibert, who died of a heart-attack in 2011. Mr Vibert recommended imposing ‘a modest increase’ – between two and four pence – on ‘Impôts Duty on a pint of beer so that over-75s who are not well-off can be provided with a free television licence’.
Mr Le Quesne, wants the tax to be axed but said he is not holding out much hope.
And Treasury Minister Alan Maclean has said that money will be impossible to ‘ring-fence’ to just one aspect of the public purse. He also stressed that licences would not be taken from Islanders who currently have them – the plan is just to stop issuing new ones.
Asked if the duty used to pay for TV licences would be cut, Senator Maclean said: ‘That money is still going to be needed as we still subsidise the cost for the TV licences of people who are currently over 75.’ He added that any changes on duty would be decided at the next budget.
Mr Le Quesne added that he did not think the increase at the time was justified.
‘We made the point of how are they going to ring-fence the money for all we know the money raised could be going anywhere and I am sure it did,’ he said.
If passed, the changes to TV licences will come in to place in 2016.
