BBC 'must pay £600m cost of TV licences for elderly': Conservative plans will see corporation told to pick up spiralling costs BBC may have to foot the £600million bill for free TV licenses for over-75s Ageing population means one in six households no longer pay for licence Spiralling: Director General Tony Hall will be told BBC must pick up cost of free TV licences for the elderly The BBC will be told to pick up the spiralling cost to taxpayers of providing free TV licences to the elderly under plans being drawn up by the Conservatives. The bill for keeping licences free for the over-75s has risen to £600million, and an ageing population means that one in six households now gets the benefit regardless of income. There is growing controversy over the cost of pensioner benefits, which have been left untouched by the Government despite deep cuts to working-age welfare. The Daily Mail has learned that senior ministers are planning to tell the BBC it must absorb the annual cost of maintaining one of the main pensioner perks. Currently, the annual cost is met by the Department for Work and Pensions. It is thought that the plans will enrage the BBC, which has previously warned the Government that any attempts to cut its budget could result in the loss of channels such as BBC3 or BBC4. Free TV licences for the over-75s were introduced to win over the "grey vote" by Gordon Brown in the 2001 election. David Cameron pledged to maintain universal pensioner benefits - including the TV licence, the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes - until 2015. But there are tensions in the Coalition over whether to maintain the commitment beyond the next election. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has been pushing for a review, and the Lib Dems have insisted they will not agree to further cuts to working-age welfare proposed by the Tories - such as limits on housing benefit for under-25s and an end to child benefits for jobless families with more than two children - unless the costs of universal pensioner benefits are also slashed. Three Tory ministers have privately told the Mail that forcing the BBC to pick up the cost for over-75 licences would allow the Government to say that while the benefit is to be maintained, taxpayers will save big sums. "The bill for this should be met by the BBC and it will be top of the list in the negotiations over charter renewal," said one. The number of homes claiming a free over-75 licence has soared by more than a million since 2001 to 4.25million, while the cost to the taxpayer has more than doubled from £308million to over £600million. Increases in longevity suggest that the cost will double again by 2030, when the average person is forecast to live long enough to be able to claim a free licence for more than a decade. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has pushed for a review universal pensioner benefits - including the TV licence, the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes The move to land the BBC with the cost of maintaining free TV licences will pitch the Government into a row with the corporation, which will claim the cost could be absorbed only if it saves money by closing some services. The £600million-a-year cost roughly matches the entire £575million budget of BBC2. BBC insiders have already claimed that an extension of a six-year licence fee freeze imposed by the Government until 2016 would be impossible to manage. But ministers point to inflated salaries for executives and presenters, and vast pay-offs to departing staff, as evidence that the corporation can afford to make savings. Ministers are unlikely to agree to any significant increase in the licence fee, which raises £3.6billion a year to fund the BBC's activities. The BBC Trust fought "tooth and nail" against a move to force it to meet the cost of free licences for over-75s when it was previously considered in 2010. BBC executives will argue that the broadcaster should not be asked to pay for a perk that it did not introduce or ask to be introduced. The current BBC charter expires in 2016, and talks on the future of its funding will begin soon. Tory MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, suggested that asking the taxpayer to pay for the provision of free TV licences for wealthy pensioners cannot be justified. He says the issue should be considered as part of a wider review of how the BBC is funded. "It's very difficult to justify why my mother doesn't have to pay a licence fee," he said. Means testing it would be administratively more complicated but in the present climate I can see no real reason why it remains a universal benefit.