THE BBC licence fee is here to stay because a review of the corporation’s funding was blocked by Rishi Sunak, according to former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.

She told GB News: “There was a review that was due to be launched about how the BBC is funded and the BBC licence fee, and that was delayed by Rishi Sunak over and over, it was blocked when he was Chancellor.

“He actually said to me, ‘no, you can’t do this, because it’s a taxation policy and taxation policy is the Treasury’.

“It isn’t taxation policy, but he blocked and blocked it…as a result of the Government holding up that review of the BBC licence fee, the licence fee is here to stay, because there is no way, what I was told when I was Culture Secretary, it would take at least three years to bring a change about.”

In a discussion with Martin Daubney, she said: “They have deliberately stalled until now and certainly it is therefore not possible to change the BBC funding model.

“The BBC licence fee is here to stay and it will continue to rise and people…will still be prosecuted, the most vulnerable people, for non-payment of the licence fee.

“That is the shocking piece of news about the BBC. That’s not what anyone is talking about. And that’s what’s been buried, if you like, by this window dressing today of the fact that Ofcom will be holding the BBC to account for its online content.”

She said: “The problem with the BBC is it’s a huge organisation and it’s grown beyond its own ability to control itself and to regulate itself.

“It’s got too big and when you have large organisations, whether it’s the BBC or the NHS, that a culture develops and a culture grows, and because the culture becomes so huge, that it doesn’t matter who you’ve got at the top, they just can no longer [control it]. It becomes a monster.

“And it’s a monster they can’t control and that is what has happened with the BBC.

“There are 3,500 prosecutions per month and 76% of those are women. And why is that? It’s because we quite often take responsibility for household bills, particularly those in single parent households. They’re the women who take responsibility and pay the bills and they’re the ones who have been prosecuted.”

Dorries added: “Now we’re stuck with the BBC licence fee. We’ve probably got an incoming Labour government, it will never change, the licence fee will continue and [we’ll] have to pay more for it. And the BBC with Ofcom’s best efforts will continue just as it is.”