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More than 900,000 veterans are set to be stripped of their free TV licences after the Tories’ election manifesto betrayal.

From next June, only over-75s receiving Pension Credit will be eligible for free licences - meaning 80% of over-75s, some 3.7 million people, will lose out.

There are 1,120,012 Armed Forces’ veterans aged 75 and over, according to Government figures analysed by Age UK.

Labour analysis suggests given 80% will lose the vital lifeline, 907,210 veterans face coughing up £154.50 to watch their favourite programmes.

It estimates 101,779 veterans clobbered will aged 90 and over.

Labour’s Deputy Leader, Shadow Culture Secretary Tom Watson, said: “It is a national disgrace that over 900,000 Armed Forces’ veterans may lose their free TV licences because of this Tory Government’s shameful refusal to fund the concession.

(Image: BBC)

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“Many of our veterans risked their safety and put their lives on the line for our country, and yet this Government doesn’t even have the decency to keep a manifesto promise made to our oldest citizens.

“In exchange for brave service, this Tory Government is treating hundreds of thousands of our Armed Forces veterans with nothing but disregard and disrespect.”

The Conservatives pledged in their 2017 snap general election manifesto to maintain free TV licences for the rest of this Parliament, due to run until 2022.

But the BBC was handed responsibility for funding the lifeline from June 2020, under a deal stitched up in 2015.

The Corporation announced this Spring that only over-75s receiving Pension Credit will be eligible for free licences.

Just 1.5 million OAPs are likely to continue receiving the benefit.

The Mirror is campaigning to save the lifeline, with more than 18,000 readers backing the fight by completing coupons in the paper.

(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Some 634,334 people signed Age UK’s Switched Off petition - handed into No10 - calling for free licences to be preserved and the Government to take back responsibility.

Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams said: “It is outrageous to think that there are so many older veterans who fought for our country and who now rely on their TV for company being faced with having their free TV licence taken away.

“Thousands of older people have told us just how much they rely on their TV for company particularly the lonely, sick and disabled.

(Image: Age UK)

“We know that some would have to start rationing heating or food if they were faced with having to pay for a licence in future.

“Stripping older people of their free TV licence risks leaving them without one of their few pleasures in life and this cannot be right.

“Older people have begged us to speak out on their behalf and fight their corner and so we are asking the Prime Minister again to listen and save the free TV licence for over-75s.”

Former Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright said last month: “The decision that has been made is a decision to transfer this responsibility to the BBC.

“How the BBC choose to exercise their responsibility is, as they and we say, their responsibility.”

But giving evidence to MPs a month ago, the corporation’s director-general Lord Hall blamed Tory austerity for the “nuclear” decision in 2015 to make the BBC responsible for funding free licences from 2020.