The laws of physics relating to the electro-magnetic spectrum haven't been changed by the 'new' coalition government have they ???? 
Indeed not, but the laws of physics have got nothing to do with this- it's convenience and economics.
The performance of a dish aerial is determined purely by the ratio of its diameter to the wavelength in use, from memory I think that ratio is about 20 for TV satellites and standard dishes.
So to pick up terrestrial Freeview with the same aerial performance you'd need a dish about 12 metres across... but a smaller one would still work at lower performance and be perfectly adequate because of the higher signal strength available.
Terrestrial TV frequencies are in a sort of transition zone for convenient use, at the high end for ordinary aerials and the low end for dishes. But you could build a dish to pick up the BBC radio transmissions on 198kHz (~1500 metres) if you really wanted to, the laws of physics don't have anything to say on the matter...