New Approved Wording for the petition

BBC licence fee

To the House of Commons.

The petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the petitioners are dissatisfied with the BBC licence fee; further that up to 50 MPs recently demanded an urgent Government review of BBC funding; further that the Magistrates’ Association has been calling for the decriminalisation of TV licence evasion for nearly 20 years, concerned that evaders are punished disproportionately; further that 52.8 million letters were sent in 2014 to suspected evaders which were followed up by 3.8 million visits by TV licence officers, 204,018 prosecutions (or out of court disposals), of which 24,025 were unsuccessful, and 40 imprisonments, for an average of 20 days; further that the licence fee represents a much higher proportion of income for poor households; further that it gives an unfair advantage to one broadcaster; further that the UK is now perceived less favourably internationally by countries that have never enforced TV licence fees or have abolished their TV licence due to its public broadcaster funding model; further that the petitioners find the BBC’s content outdated and biased and therefore do not wish to fund it; and further that an online petition on the matter was signed by 170,000 individuals.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to end the BBC licence fee.

And the petitioners remain, etc.

Update

It has been brought to my attention that the wording of the petition had been changed after I submitted the second draft. Just to prove my point, here is a scanned copy of the text I proposed.