[anth-volk]

Fixes #2150

What and why

PolicyEngine UK currently tests the over-75 age condition and Pension Credit receipt independently across the entire household. It therefore grants a free licence when one person is aged 75 or over and an unrelated person in a separate benefit unit receives Pension Credit.

Official GB and Northern Ireland guidance limits the concession to a person aged 75 or over who receives Pension Credit or lives with a partner who receives it. The 2022 disclosure Order describes the same person, spouse, or partner relationship. PolicyEngine UK’s benefit unit represents a single adult or couple, so this PR projects benefit-unit Pension Credit receipt to its members, combines it with each member’s age, and only then reduces the result to the household.

This PR also:

• adds the relationship-specific government and legislative sources to tv_licence_free_licence_share, where Correct TV licence liability and free licence value #2147 now calculates the age-based exemption;
• tests both separate benefit units and partners in one benefit unit;
• preserves Correct TV licence liability and free licence value #2147's blind discount on the remaining paid share and keeps that discount out of the free-licence HBAI value; and
• preserves the fiscal-year calculation from merged Correct the 2020 over-75 TV licence transition #2152, including the Boolean Pension Credit condition's 1 August 2020 transition.

The model still abstracts from the named licence holder and application evidence. For the blind concession, it assumes a household can transfer the licence to a blind member, as the official guidance permits.

Official sources

• The Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Act 2000 (Prescription of Information) Order 2022, Explanatory Note, page 3, first paragraph
• GOV.UK: Get a free or discounted TV licence, “If you’re 75 or over” and “If you’re registered blind”
• DWP: A detailed guide to Pension Credit, “Free TV licence for over 75s”
• Northern Ireland Executive: Free TV licences, “If you are 75 or over” and “If you’re registered blind”
• The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004, regulation 5(1) and (2)

No later change to the recipient-or-partner relationship or blind-concession ordering was found through 5 October 2026.

Merge order and overlaps

This PR is now based on the updated #2147 branch, fix-tv-licence-liability-2145, at a99deaa5f787a16175296db0814a7b35e4068c76. Merge #2147 first, then retarget/rebase this PR onto main. #2152 has already merged and its superseded implementation is not replayed here.

The diff against #2147 contains only three files: the benefit-unit condition and citations in tv_licence_free_licence_share.py, discount regressions, and changelog.d/2150.fixed.md. #2147's liability, free-value and blind-discount implementation is inherited unchanged.

Test plan

Validated on 12 October 2026:

• 31 YAML cases passed: 13 discount cases, 9 free-value cases and 9 licence-liability cases.
• 5 Python tests passed across the metadata and date-transition files, including the year-keyed minimum-age reform.
• Two appended 2020 cases confirm that Pension Credit in a separate benefit unit does not extend the older person's free-licence share, with and without blindness.
• Formatting, lint, Towncrier draft, fix-evidence validation and whitespace checks passed.

Reproducer: policyengine_uk/tests/policy/baseline/gov/dcms/bbc/tv_licence_discount.yaml::Separate benefit units do not combine age and Pension Credit.

Only focused tests ran, sequentially, using the frozen-lockfile environment. No full suite or CI polling. The PR remains draft.

axiom: needed

[anth-volk]

Rebased onto updated #2147 (a99deaa5f) and changed this PR's base to fix-tv-licence-liability-2145. Merge #2147 first, then retarget/rebase this PR to main. #2152 is already merged; its obsolete implementation was not replayed.

The existing age-and-Pension-Credit condition now lives in #2147's tv_licence_free_licence_share helper, with the relevant sources. It still requires the qualifying older person and Pension Credit recipient to belong to the same benefit unit. Fiscal-year date handling, blind discounts on the paid remainder, and free-licence HBAI values are retained.

The diff against #2147 is three files: the helper, discount tests and changelog. Validation: 31 YAML cases and 5 Python tests passed, sequentially, including two added mixed-benefit-unit 2020 cases. Formatting, lint, Towncrier draft, fix-evidence validation and whitespace checks passed. No full suite or CI polling; this PR remains draft.

[MaxGhenis]

UK hub (Claude session, for Max): this draft passes CI and is mergeable, and Max asked on 22 Oct to clear the UK PR backlog before the Budget. I've queued an independent review of this PR with seven of your other Housing Benefit drafts, and will mark it ready and land it through the merge queue if the review approves at this head. @anth-volk, reply here if you'd like it held or you're still changing it.

[MaxGhenis]

Merged by the UK hub (Claude session 8e19f9d5) at head f4dfa30c0, through the merge queue with the head pinned.

• Independent review: GPT-6.1 Sol, APPROVE at this exact head, in a combined review of eight Housing Benefit and TV licence PRs. It checked free TV licence share requires the over-75 and the Pension Credit recipient to be the same person or partners (the 2022 disclosure Order; GOV.UK recipient-or-partner rule). Local test runs were blocked by host disk; the approval rests on a source review against the law and on passing CI.
• CI: every check passes at this head. The merge queue re-runs the full suite against current main.
• Why now: Max asked on 22 Oct to clear the UK PR backlog before the Budget, and @anth-volk was told on this PR on 22 Oct.