Mike Amesbury MP has slammed the Government following the conclusion of the BBC’s TV licence consultation which would mean 4,290 households in Weaver Vale losing out on their free TV licence, costing households £645,645 across the constituency.

Mr Amesbury raised the issue last month in parliament, concerned the free licence could be scrapped entirely.

While the latest proposals offer some protection for those in receipt of pension credit, the MP told The World he is shocked the vast majority of those who were set to lose out when he first raised it with the Government will still do so.

He said: “It is an outrage that this Government is overseeing the scrapping of free TV licences for over 4,000 people in Weaver Vale - leaving a Tory manifesto promise in tatters.

“Whether they receive pension credit or not, many thousands of older people in Weaver Vale rely on their TV for information, company and entertainment.

"You cannot means test for social isolation. You cannot means test for loneliness.

"Across the UK millions of elderly and isolated people will lose out because of this announcement – I have raised it before in parliament and I will continue to do so until this Government see sense.

“Along with my Labour colleagues, we will continue to fight this damaging proposal with everything we’ve got.”

More than 230,000 people have signed a petition launched by Age UK calling for free television for the elderly to be protected, while tens of thousands more have added their names to petitions on the Labour and Parliament websites.

It comes as Tory peer Ros Altman – a former pensions minister – said the BBC should not have to “carry the can” for the £745m cost of the licences.

Funding the free licences, which have been available to all over-75s for nearly two decades, is due to be transferred from the Government to the BBC next year as part of an agreement hammered out in 2015.

The corporation has said free licences will be means-tested under a new scheme that intends to protect programming while dealing with the extra funding burden.

Age UK said television was the “main form of company” for more than a million of the country’s oldest people and called for the Government to continue picking up the bill.

“We believe this change will harm millions of older people who rely on their TV,” the charity’s petition states.