Lee Anderson leads calls to scrap licence fee as Gary Lineker tops BBC salary list again
EXCLUSIVE: The Reform UK MP branded the football pundit "grossly overpaid" after the BBC published the salaries of its highest-paid stars.
Lee Anderson led calls for the licence fee to be scrapped after Gary Lineker topped the list of the BBC's highest-paid stars for a seventh year running.
The Match of the Day presenter was the corporation's top earner with a salary between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999 last year.
Reacting to the list, Reform UK MP Mr Anderson told the Express: "For far too long the BBC has been robbing from the poor to give to the rich.
"The grossly overpaid Lineker is living proof of this and l look for forward to the day when the licence fee is scrapped and the great British public are no longer forced to pay for a service that many do not use."
Fellow Reform MP Rupert Lowe also lashed out at the "current mafia-esque funding system".
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The Great Yarmouth MP said: "If we scrapped the licence fee, and made the BBC a subscription service, they could pay their so-called ‘stars’ whatever they liked.
"However, under the current mafia-esque funding system, millions of Brits are forced with the threat of the law to prop up this circus.
"I am a passionate advocate of defunding the BBC, and believe doing so would restore free and open debate which the corporation has done so much to stifle. It’s an argument I look forward to making in Westminster at every possible opportunity.
"How on earth is it fair that we are forced to pay the licence fee, even if we don’t consume a second of BBC content? It’s entirely unjust, and it’s a wrong that needs righting. How? Defund the BBC.
"Make it a subscription service and let the people decide. If they choose to fund the extortionate salaries of Lineker and co, that’s their choice. Personally, I won’t bother. I suspect millions of others will come to the same conclusion."
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, added that licence fee payers would be "livid at the excess and extravagance of the top-level pay packets at the Beeb".
He said: “BBC bosses love to bang the drum for the quality and quantity of the broadcaster’s output, yet are clearly terrified to put it to the test of the free market, instead relying on a punitive and pernicious TV tax to raise revenue.
“The next licence fee review should recognise that this model of funding is decades out of date and needs to be replaced with a subscription service.”
Lineker - who sparked an impartiality row last year after taking to social media to slam the Tory government's illegal immigration crackdown and compare language used to that of Nazi Germany - was the only star paid more than £1 million for the year 2023/24, according to the BBC's annual report.
Radio 2 breakfast host Zoe Ball came second on the list with £950,000, while veteran Huw Edwards was third despite only being on air for three months following the explicit photos scandal.
However, the details for many of the BBC's most famous faces are not disclosed on the list because the corporation does not have to reveal the salaries of those who are paid through production companies, including the BBC's commercial arm BBC Studios.
The BBC was contacted for comment.
