What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

As a past Prime Minister I’ve just written to a present - and soon to be past - Prime Minister, asking her to prevent a scandal.

I am asking her, in the last few days of her premiership, to sign off a letter and honour the Conservative election promise to keep TV licences free for every pensioner over the age of 75.

I am asking her to think about pensioners who have had their licences free for 20 years being hounded by the authorities - and even fined or put into prison for failing to pay their license fee.

I am asking her to stop the BBC becoming an agency for means testing old people - and given the power that no one other than the Government should have - to decide who receives a benefit and who doesn’t.

Remember that speech on the steps of Downing Street exactly three years ago when Theresa May promised to address burning injustices?

Sadly, just like child poverty, the burning injustice of pensioner poverty is once again on the rise - with too many of our elderly population forced into a winter choice between eating and heating - and too few able to enjoy the summer by being able to take a holiday or get out and meet friends.

After two decades in which we had seen it fall from 35% to around 10%, pensioner poverty threatens to rise and bring to a shuddering halt what has been the biggest improvement in our society - 200 years of social policy supporting old people on the road to a complete end to pensioner hardship.

Tragically – the Conservative Government has already lit the fire and fanned the flames of the burning injustice of poverty and are now behaving more like arsonists than firefighters.

But there are some changes that Mrs May can make before she departs those steps of Downing Street.

She can honour the promise she made that every pensioner would continue to enjoy free licences for the whole duration of this parliament.

In her 2017 Conservative election manifesto Mrs May promised to maintain the universal benefit.

But despite the promise her government continued to implement the devious strategy masterminded by the previous Chancellor George Osborne.

Apparently, Department of Culture officials phoned the BBC just after the 2017 election and said the Conservative Party had made a mistake when they drafted their manifesto - and the promise of the free licence was to be ignored.

So, while promising free licences they continued to wash their hands of responsibility, asking the BBC to plug what is an £800million-a-year gap.

(Image: Getty)

Only a few weeks ago the BBC decided that 3.7 million pensioners will have to pay £154 a year for their licence fee from the summer of next year.

This is a clear breach of promise - a manifesto broken, a pledge discarded, by a sleight of hand where worst of all the government is denying responsibility for a decision that they promised would not be made.

Now the BBC are to charge pensioners.

They will means test them so the BBC is becoming a social security agency which invades our privacy to find out who is considered poor and who’s not to be considered poor - and then they can fine or even seek to imprison elderly people over 75 who don’t realise that they now have to pay for something that for 20 years has been free.

This new plan is breaking the delicate balance between universal and selective benefits that has been the mainstream of the recent welfare state - that while pensions rise in line with earnings (or inflation, whichever is higher), most support for relieving poverty goes through the pension tax credit, where we target help on those who, for whatever reasons, have either no or miniscule occupational pensions and little savings.

The policy has, until now, taken two million pensioners out of extreme poverty and given them dignity in retirement.

But you can only win consent for a welfare state that targets benefits to those most in need if you also have universal benefits at its very foundations.

So, we have free pensioner travel and free prescriptions and free dental and eye care as well as free TV licences and where people have disabilities or are housebound, we have special provisions to enable them to play a fuller part in the life of the community.

So, with their decision to make the BBC a means testing agency the government has upset the balance without any explanation of how they can rebuild it in years to come.

There is a simple answer: Mrs May should keep her promise.

She should admit a mistake was made when the BBC decided to means test pensioners by 2020.

The promise of free licences should remain intact.

And it is not just me who’s saying this.

Many others, including BBC TV celebrities, understand perfectly that if the BBC’s priorities are to pay their senior staff even more money, the BBC itself will be in the firing line for a decision imposed on them by government.

(Image: SWNS)

Already Jeremy Hunt has said that if he became Prime Minister, he would maintain the free licence. We await a statement from Boris Johnson.

But the one person who can solve the problem is Theresa May.

The burning injustice can be dealt with in the next few days, before she leaves office.

She will be thanked by not only 3.7 million pensioners but by the whole country.

And she will deserve credit for keeping a manifesto promise she and her team made in 2017.