The government is to consider whether failure to pay the TV licence fee should cease to be a criminal offence, a Treasury minister has said.

Rishi Sunak confirmed Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered a review of the sanction for non-payment of the £154.50 charge, which funds the BBC.

Prosecution for non-payment of the fee can currently end in a court appearance and potential fine of up to £1,000.

But the BBC warned decriminalisation could cost it £200m a year.

The Sunday Telegraph reported the consultation had been ordered by the PM after the Conservatives won a majority of 80 at last week’s election.

Asked whether non-payment of the fee should be decriminalised, Mr Sunak told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “That is something the prime minister has said we will look at, and has instructed people to look at that”.

“I think it’s fair to say people find the criminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee to be something that has provoked questions in the past,” he said.

An ITV drama starring Rob Lowe as a rural police chief has been branded “criminally inaccurate” by a UK force.

In Wild Bill, the Brat Pack heart-throb plays a grizzled US lawman transferred from Miami to the fictional East Lincolnshire Police.

Episode one saw the one-time Tinseltown hellraiser throwing a cabbage and being booked for speeding on a bicycle.

In a tongue-in-cheek tweet, the real Lincolnshire Police said: “The inaccuracies are criminal”.

“It’s definitely not what we are really like.”

The force said it would pass “concerns about the officers portrayed” to AC-12 – the anti-corruption unit featured in the BBC’s Line of Duty.