Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital Media Culture and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her policy on commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 of the 26 September 2019 research by the BBFC in its role as designated age-verification regulator; and when she plans to lay the BBFC guidance on age-verification arrangements.

Protecting children is at the heart of our online harms agenda, and is key to wider government priorities. The government published the Online Harms White Paper in April this year. It proposed the establishment of a duty of care on companies to improve online safety, overseen by an independent regulator with strong enforcement powers to deal with non-compliance. Since the White Paper's publication, the government's proposals have continued to develop at pace.

The government has concluded that the objectives of the Digital Economy Act will be best achieved through our wider online harms proposals and, as a consequence, will not be commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 concerning age verification for online pornography. The Digital Economy Act objectives will be delivered through our proposed online harms regulatory regime which will result in a more coherent approach protecting children. We expect age verification to continue to be a tool used by companies to keep children safe online.