This is a great opinion piece. At the risk of being a little too inside baseball, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) previously included the TV licence fee in the Retail Prices Index (RPI), but excluded it from the CPI. Since the February 2012 update of the CPI, it has included the TV licence fee. This makes little sense as the CPI is a macroeconomic consumer price series, the target inflation indicator of the Bank of England. Until December 2003 it was the called the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) of the UK, and it still is, even though it doesn’t go by that name. Eurostat’s 2004 user guide notes: “The HICPs cover the prices paid for goods and services in monetary transactions. So for example some special fees and taxes paid to government for licenses will be excluded (when there is no equivalent good or service received in return).” As Mr. Nahwaz makes clear, the TV licence fee will hit someone “watching any live programme, on any device _ even if not the BBC”. It cannot be construed as a payment for a service received, any should be treated as a licence fee to be excluded from the CPI. By contrast, the inclusion of the TV licence fee, for as long as it continues in the experimental Household Cost Indices (HCIs), is appropriate. These are household-oriented consumer price series, like the RPI, and its scope should include licences and fees not included in a macroeconomic consumer price series.
Cheryl Jones
3 years ago
Yes, I don’t think English rather than British would have been the case in say the 90s when Tony Blair came to power. Cool Britannia was at least a mark of positive optimism about this country and its people, and devolution had not yet become as toxic.
This is a great opinion piece. At the risk of being a little too inside baseball, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) previously included the TV licence fee in the Retail Prices Index (RPI), but excluded it from the CPI. Since the February 2012 update of the CPI, it has included the TV licence fee. This makes little sense as the CPI is a macroeconomic consumer price series, the target inflation indicator of the Bank of England. Until December 2003 it was the called the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) of the UK, and it still is, even though it doesn’t go by that name. Eurostat’s 2004 user guide notes: “The HICPs cover the prices paid for goods and services in monetary transactions. So for example some special fees and taxes paid to government for licenses will be excluded (when there is no equivalent good or service received in return).” As Mr. Nahwaz makes clear, the TV licence fee will hit someone “watching any live programme, on any device _ even if not the BBC”. It cannot be construed as a payment for a service received, any should be treated as a licence fee to be excluded from the CPI. By contrast, the inclusion of the TV licence fee, for as long as it continues in the experimental Household Cost Indices (HCIs), is appropriate. These are household-oriented consumer price series, like the RPI, and its scope should include licences and fees not included in a macroeconomic consumer price series.
Yes, I don’t think English rather than British would have been the case in say the 90s when Tony Blair came to power. Cool Britannia was at least a mark of positive optimism about this country and its people, and devolution had not yet become as toxic.