TELEVISION is part of everyone's life, but for millions of elderly people -- particularly the housebound and those living alone -- it is as much a close companion as a source of entertainment. Is it not unfair then, that, when it comes to the cost of viewing, a great many old folk find themselves discriminated against?

Now standing at £97.50, the TV licence fee may still be a bargain in terms of the hours of entertainment and information it buys each day for roughly the daily price of a first-class postage stamp.

But for pensioners on low incomes, even with so-called easy payments systems, it still amounts to a considerable outlay.

Yet what understandably rankles with a great many of them is that while this and the social advantages of old people having low-cost access to TV is officially recognised to an extent, the system governing it works unfairly, confusingly and iniquitously so that only some old people benefit from the concession.

For while pensioners living in residential and sheltered accommodation with full-time warden cover pay only £5 a year for a TV licence, those who live in their own homes have to pay the full amount.

This often means that groups of old people with the same incomes who live side by side find themselves treated differently. And, frequently, those who are at a marked financial disadvantage are the elderly who value the independence of living in their own home -- a condition which, incidentally, modern-day social policy strives to encourage.

This is just not fair. All should be treated alike.

And now, as elderly people across East Lancashire join in calls for the same low-cost TV licence for all pensioners, the demands land on the desk of Rossendale and Darwen MP Janet Anderson in her role as Broadcasting Minister.

She should listen and get Tony Blair to work the trick.

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