House of Lords
Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill
Lord Laming
My Lords, the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill is a small Bill, but I hope the House will agree that its importance far outweighs its size. First, I congratulate Sir Paul Beresford MP, on introducing the Bill in the other place and for so skilfully piloting it to this House. I am most grateful to have this opportunity to take forward his hard work.
In short, the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill seeks to take a crucial step towards tackling an issue that is blighting prisons in England and Wales, Scotland and the Crown dependencies. I refer, of course, to mobile phones. I will not delay the House in repeating the detailed Explanatory Notes, which are easily available, but I hope it will help if I briefly touch on the operations of prisons and why mobile phones are now such a problem.
Prisoners have always needed, and will always need, to communicate with people in the outside world. They may do so for very good, honest and healthy reasons such as maintaining relationships with family and loved ones, and in preparation for their release. So they should, because such communication plays a vital role in their rehabilitation and in ensuring that they do not reoffend. It is to their credit that prisons facilitate that healthy communication. Prisoners can send and receive mail; they have access to landline telephones; they are entitled to visitors; and communication that is legally privileged is protected.
However prisons, quite rightly, impose controls on prisoner communications. For example, telephone calls can be made only to approved numbers and can be recorded and listened to; mail can be opened and read; and visits have to be supervised. These controls are needed because it is inevitable that some prisoners will seek to communicate with those outside prisons for nefarious purposes. These can include seeking to maintain involvement in, or even the running of, criminal enterprises in the community such as organised crime or extremist networks. It may also be to intimidate witnesses or to arrange the supply of drugs into prisons.
Clearly, prisoners communicating for nefarious purposes will seek to circumvent the controls imposed by prison staff. Where the activities are illegal, prisoners can be very inventive in their determination to secure a mobile phone. This is because mobile telephones offer an immediate form of communication to anywhere in the world, which prison staff cannot monitor. They can send text messages and modern day smartphones enable them to access the internet and social networking sites, and send and receive e-mails. Therefore, once a prisoner has an undetected mobile phone, the prison has effectively lost control of the nature, content, destination or frequency of the communication. That poses significant risks to the safety of our prisons and their ability to protect the public and the prisoners they are holding.
I feel sure that we are all concerned about how so many mobile phones get into prisons. Sadly, it is a common misconception that the high walls, razor wire, locks, bars, doors and keys must mean that a prison is impenetrable. While these factors are successful in preventing prisoners escaping, prisons are not the hermetically sealed institutions that their physical appearance may suggest. To give a sense of the scale of the operation, I am advised that in a single day a prison holding 1,000 prisoners might receive 50 new prisoners, 300 visitors, 3,000 items of post, more than 40 vehicles and that its prisoners can make 5,000 minutes of telephone calls. Each one of these movements and communications is an opportunity to engage in the smuggling of contraband, including mobile phones and, because they are so much smaller and easy to smuggle, an even larger number of SIM cards.
Given the scale of the operation, prison staff cannot fully search absolutely everything that enters or leaves a prison, nor can they listen to or read every communication, not least because this would divert them from their other important functions. Of course, prisons are doing their very best to prevent prisoners having access to mobile phones. It is important to emphasise that it is an offence under the Prison Act 1952 to possess and convey into use an unauthorised mobile phone in prison. Yet in 2011 there were 7,422 seizures of illicit phones and SIM cards in prisons in England and Wales, and 1,335 in Scotland. This is an indication of the scale of the problem and of the increasing number of prisoners who seek to get access to these items.
Therefore, the current activities are not a complete solution. In an age when mobile phones are becoming ever smaller and more versatile, which means they are easier to smuggle into prisons and more useful to the criminal, the number of phones which escape detection will inevitably increase. Further action is, therefore, needed, and that is what the Bill is about. It will authorise prisons to interfere with wireless telegraphy to render useless any mobile phones that cannot be found. The Bill will also authorise prisons to interfere with wireless telegraphy and to gather information about the use of mobile phones in prisons, such as details about where a particular phone is located in the prison, and the person who has attempted to use it, and where the message has been directed. However, it is important to note that this does not include the content of the communication but simply the direction of the communication.
In England trials of the technologies which prevent mobile phones working have been remarkably successful. The trials have proceeded with excellent, but—this is a key point—non-statutory co-operation between prisons, Ofcom and the mobile phone network operators. The Bill puts the current voluntary arrangement on to a clear and transparent legal footing and creates a framework for future co-operation with all the key stakeholders. The trials have shown that other wireless equipment within the prison is not disrupted. Officers can still use their radios and prisoners can still use the landline telephone service which is available to them. The equipment covered in the Bill has been configured so that it focuses only on mobile phones that are within the prison while ensuring that outside the prison members of the public can continue to enjoy their mobile phones, television, wi-fi and so on—technology that the vast majority of us rely on in our daily lives. The technology covered in the Bill is also safe for prisoners, prison staff and members of the public alike. The only difference is that mobile phones in prisons will be inoperable. Building on the success of the trials, the Bill reassuringly writes into the statute book explicit safeguards to ensure that prisons continue to operate the equipment in this way so that they can deal with the blight of mobile phones in a manner that is both effective and proportionate.
In summary, the presence of mobile phones in prisons today poses a serious and significant risk to the public, prisons, prisoners and their future rehabilitation. Fortunately, we now have at hand technology that can deal with this problem. However, it is right that the use of this technology should be conducted on a firm legal basis. The Bill achieves all of that. It is considered by the Prison Service and others to be a win-win situation because it protects the public and prisoners and ensures that mobile phones will not be used for nefarious reasons in our prisons. I beg to move.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I have every sympathy with what the noble Lord has proposed but what are the costs involved in introducing this arrangement in prison establishments in this country?
Lord Dholakia
I am asking whether the noble Lord has done any work in relation to the cost that will be involved in providing this facility in our prison establishments.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Laming, replies, this is a most unusual matter. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, introduced his Bill in a courteous manner and had sat down. A question has now been posed. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, may, of course, answer that when he sums up at the end of the Second Reading. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will wish to remain until the end of the debate to listen to that.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am not going to ask the question of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for him. I speak briefly to support very warmly my noble friend Lord Laming and congratulate him on the comprehensive way in which he has covered all the issues. I have just two points to add.
First, I admit that I support the Bill most particularly because of the impact that the removal of mobile phones can have on a very pernicious aspect of prison life: that is, the impact of drug dealers and the misery they can create not just for prisoners but for their families. Anything that can be done to stop this must improve the way in which our prisons are conducted.
Secondly, my noble friend mentioned how these things get into prisons in the first place. In introducing this equipment which will prevent the use and enable the detection of the location of these instruments, it is important that more is done to prevent them getting in in the first place by improving the search equipment which is used when people come in. Serious consideration must be given to announcing to all visitors to the prison that they risk being searched in order to find any mobile phones. This may seem a draconian measure but unless everything is done to back up this equipment there will still be loopholes which will cause problems.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for his excellent introduction to this small but important Bill. The Opposition warmly support the Bill, so I can keep my intervention to a minimum.
As technology advances so does criminal innovation, but so, too, should our ability to deal with crime. Mobile phones are of huge benefit to citizens throughout the world but we have been told this morning about the widespread use of mobile phones in prisons for a wide range of criminal purposes. Of course, prisoners must be able to communicate with friends and family but the Bill would not prevent them doing so legally, as the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said.
The purpose of the Bill is to enable the Prison Service to prevent, detect and investigate the use of electronic communication devices, including mobile phones, within prisons and similar institutions. This must be right. In the past there were concerns that actions to interfere with wireless telegraphy in order to achieve this purpose would interfere with the mobile phones of ordinary citizens. This would not be acceptable but, as we have been told this morning and as the Bill makes clear, new technology—which I would not pretend to understand—means that the interference will have no effect on mobile phones outside the prison boundaries. I would be grateful if the Minister, or the noble Lord, Lord Laming, could confirm that this is the case and, likewise, that the Bill does not cover the content of telephone conversations either inside or outside the prison boundaries. I would also be grateful for an assurance that vital and important phone calls within prisons will not be blocked because the new technology is selective so that certain numbers can be allowed through.
My honourable friend in another place spoke of concerns expressed by the Prison Officers’ Association in relation to the cost of implementing the Bill but these concerns were not addressed by the Minister, Mr Jeremy Wright. I noticed this morning that the Explanatory Notes say that the provisions of the Bill are not expected to have an impact on public sector manpower. However, as the Government support the Bill, I would be grateful if the Minister could give an assurance that money is being made available so that prisons and other relevant institutions are able to buy the necessary kit and implement what should be an effective means of restricting the current use of mobile phones and, perhaps, the future use of wireless communications that are yet to be invented or produced. I wonder whether further legislation will be needed as new technology advances or if this Bill will suffice.
I am very happy to support the Bill.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Laming, for introducing the Bill for your Lordships’ consideration and for his very important contribution. I notice that the Bill has been referred to as “short but important”. I can personally relate to that, but we will park that thought for a moment. I thank my honourable friend in another place, Sir Paul Beresford, for bringing forward this valuable Bill which has the wholehearted support of the Government. When we talk of the Prison Service we have to realise the challenges that are posed. Many prison officers put themselves in harm’s way in doing their jobs and, although this is not directly related to the Bill, I wish to relay that our thoughts are with the four prison officers who were injured in the incident in Birmingham prison only yesterday.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for his welcome contribution. He brings, through his own personal experience, great expertise to this House, not least on this particular subject.
The Bill will be crucial in putting on a clear, legal footing the ability of the National Offender Management Service and the Scottish Prison Service to interfere, where necessary, with wireless telegraphy in order to tackle illicit communications by prisoners and so address the very real and substantial threat posed by the presence of mobile phones in prison. Following an amendment in the other place, the Bill’s measures will also be extended to the Crown dependencies by way of an Order in Council.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the importance of searches prior to people entering prisons. The Government agree with that. Prevention is better than cure and I am sure that the Prison Service will take particular note of that very valid point. However, on the more substantive issue of illicit mobile phones which do reach prisons, these are used for a wide range of criminal purposes by prisoners, often for the very activities they were in prison for. As has been noted, phone technology has increased. The use of Twitter and Facebook, about which there have been recent instances of boasts by inmates, must be curbed. Mobile phones are used to commission serious violence, to harass victims and retain links with extremist networks. Organised crimes and gangs are also communicated with. They can facilitate drug supplies, violence and bullying from within the prison. The National Offender Management Service and the Scottish Prison Service are committed to addressing the risks which these phones pose to security and the safety of the public, and the Bill supports that work.
The Prison Act 1952, as amended, provides that it is already an offence in England and Wales to convey a mobile phone or a component part in or out of a prison or to transmit sounds or images from within a prison for simultaneous reception outside a prison. The Act also provides that it is an offence to possess a mobile telephone or component part in a prison in England and Wales. These offences carry a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment and/or unlimited fines. Section 34 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, which amended the Prisons (Scotland) Act 1989, also makes it an offence to introduce, or be in possession of, a mobile phone or any component part in a Scottish prison. As in England and Wales, the maximum penalty is two years’ imprisonment and a significant fine.
The Bill will support the enforcement of these statutory provisions by creating clear legal powers for prisons to use technology to suppress the use, by prisoners, of wireless telegraphy such as mobile phones. It will also enable the National Offender Management Service and the Scottish Prison Service to collect data about the communications that the prisoner is attempting to make and, importantly, will not allow for the interception of the actual content of the communication.
The powers created by the Bill will contribute to maintaining order and control in prisons, which we all welcome, by ensuring that mobile phones used by prisoners can be detected and, most importantly, investigated. The Bill contains safeguards to ensure that any traffic data collected are appropriately protected and that the regulator, Ofcom, is informed before the equipment is deployed. The Bill also provides for the Secretary of State and Scottish Ministers to issue directions to minimise interference with mobile phones outside the prison perimeter.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, I am hugely supportive of this—when I was a Minister I pushed very hard to achieve something. I hope that technology can stop interfering outside the prison walls. Three years ago it absolutely could not. It is definitely very new technology and we need to be very careful. When we ran a little trial it caused quite a lot of annoyance, so we need to be absolutely certain.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord makes a valid point which I will address shortly. Concerns about trials of equipment have been raised and I have expressed such concerns in my discussions with officials. Trials of equipment have proved the technology to be a valuable resource which does interfere with wireless telegraphy. During the trials, officials have worked closely with the mobile phone operators and Ofcom, under a memorandum of understanding. To address the question of the impact on legitimate mobiles outside prisons, trials have demonstrated that the equipment is capable of denying signals to illicit mobile phones just within the prison perimeter and without adversely affecting members of the public outside prisons. I know that this is of real concern to members of the public who live within the vicinity. I accept that this is not a simple or quick solution and the effective use of technology is highly technically challenging and expensive, due to the different fabric and layout of prisons. As we move forward with this I am sure that we shall, through pilot schemes, determine that we are able to conduct and operate such technology within the vicinity of prisons. We are not aware, so far, of any unsuccessful trials in this respect.
There are safeguards in the Bill to prevent any unintended interference with communications outside prisons. The important point here is that the use of illicit mobile phones has to be stopped. Their use within prisons must be addressed. It is a means used by criminals to increase crime within prisons. Money for training and technology is always a valid concern. I am assured through my own discussions that some technologies that will be deployed will be at minimal cost, and an appropriate cost-benefit analysis will be carried out at each prison.
The central issue behind the Bill is that we address the primary concern about illicit mobile phones. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition asked about further legislation. We do not envisage or expect that it will be required, because the Bill allows for interference with wireless telegraphy, subject to all appropriate safeguards, and addresses the purpose of preventing the use of, and detecting and investigating, mobile phones and other such devices. Technology moves on and the challenges increase but, importantly, the Bill addresses a vital need for the here and now. The Government are delighted to support it.
Lord Laming
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister and the Government for their great support for the Bill—as I am to the noble Baroness for the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham who has been a source of great encouragement throughout, as the House will understand.
The Minister referred to the issue of costs, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. Perhaps I may add one point, although I should say that the House will know that I am singularly unqualified to talk about technology. All those who know me understand that it is a great struggle for me to live in this modern world. However, what I have learnt through this process is that this technology is remarkably versatile. It can simply be placed in one wing of a prison, or even in front of one cell, or it can take in the whole building. Although the Minister dealt with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord West, let me reassure him that all the trials have indicated that it is possible to have this equipment facing into the prison, not outside it, and it therefore does not affect members of the public.
I hope that I have picked up correctly the feeling of the House when I say that I am grateful to it for its support.
Online Safety Bill [HL]
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, the internet has transformed our way of life. It is one of the big human success stories that have happened during my lifetime. Access to the internet has grown rapidly and continues to grow. However, the expansion of the internet also poses significant child protection concerns in terms of access to pornography and other adult material. Certainly, child safety challenges have moved on very significantly indeed since my time as chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, back in the 1990s, when the internet, as we know it today, barely existed.
In this context, I have tabled the Bill because I am concerned that the internet has made harmful material, previously inaccessible to children and young people, now readily accessible. As a recent report to the UK Council for Child Internet Safety Evidence Group said,
“the volume of harmful content is greater than before and the bar to access is much lower”.
I am also concerned about the consequential increased sexualisation of our young people, as demonstrated by a number of recent reports to government. In 2010, when Linda Papadopoulos investigated the sexualisation of young people, she reported:
“Pornography shapes young people’s sexual knowledge but does so by portraying sex in unrealistic ways … it is increasingly dominated by themes of aggression, power and control”.
When Tanya Byron produced an update on her 2008 review in 2010, she said:
“When talking to parents I have found that their top digital safety concern is easy access to pornography and inappropriate adult content”.
Some of these concerns have been very much in the news this year with the Rochdale and Oxford grooming cases and, more recently, the shocking revelations about Jimmy Savile. In evidence on the Rochdale case to the Home Affairs Select Committee in June, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner said that,
“the evidence we have been gathering is that pornography is definitely having an impact. Young people are accessing very extreme pornography; there is no question about that … Parents may think that they can control what is going on because they can have a blockage on a computer, but the reality is children can get anything they like on their mobile phones, and they are”.
We have also witnessed increasing public concern manifest variously through the Safety Net campaign petition with more than 100,000 signatures, the Daily Mail’s “Block Online Porn” campaign and the seminal Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection.
In approaching this subject area, we have to ask ourselves a question. Why is there a whole series of protections that pertain to children offline that are spirited away when we move to the online world? Children do not mysteriously change and become more mature when online than offline. I believe that children need, and more importantly deserve, the same protections offline as apply online. However, it is not just about the children. It is also about the parents who say again and again that they want to be given the tools to get on and parent. It is with this in mind that I propose the Online Safety Bill today.
The objective of the Bill is to improve online safety for children by empowering parents. The Bill has four key provisions, which build on the recommendations of the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection, so expertly chaired by Claire Perry MP, and of which I was a member. Clause 1 would require internet service providers—ISPs—and mobile phone operators—MPOs—to provide an internet service free from pornography. Clause 2 requires electronic device manufacturers to provide a means of filtering inappropriate adult internet content at the time of purchase, where the device connects to the internet. Clause 3 requires ISPs and MPOs to provide information about online safety. Finally, Clause 4 requires Ofcom to report on the impact of the legislation every three years.
Right at the heart of the Bill are provisions requiring that ISPs and MPOs provide the option of a pornography-free internet. Those wanting to access pornography will be able to do so, subject to an age verification procedure, demonstrating that they are aged 18 years or over. That an opt-in system is necessary is eloquently demonstrated by Ofcom surveys of parental views demonstrating,
“the perception that parental controls were a fairly complex area, and that choosing and installing them would therefore require a considerable investment of time and effort”.
It is right that the responsibility for bringing up children should be with parents. But they need help and it is surely society's role to help them. We do not allow children to buy R18 films or allow them into cinemas for 18 films and we should not make it easy for them to access pornography online, on purpose or by accident. The industry and Government have a responsibility here and my Bill will, I hope, help them to rise to that challenge.
Of course, I am aware that there are those who will respond to my proposal with a number of criticisms. First, some say that this is censorship. It is patently not censorship. Adults will still be able to access what they are able to access now. This is simply about helping parents to protect their children. The provision may loosely be equated to putting pornography on the top shelf of a corner shop.
Secondly, some say that what is proposed is not technologically possible. I disagree. In terms of filtering, take TalkTalk’s very successful HomeSafe package, AVG's award-winning family safety software, or Olly, which filters out more than 630 million pornographic websites. There is also, most importantly, age verification. The technology behind age verification is key to the Bill’s success. Prior to 2005, there was significant concern about the number of children gambling online. Online gambling companies were especially vocal about that and concerned. Crucially, however, they did nothing really robust to address the problem until they were compelled to introduce age verification via the Gambling Act 2005 to ensure that children could not access remote gambling. Since the law came into force in 2007, children's charities have not been made aware of any significant incidents of children gambling online.
Thirdly, aside from what is technically possible, there are those who would say that this legislation is unlikely to be 100% successful. I want to be very clear that I do not bring this Bill to your Lordships' House naïvely expecting that, if implemented, it would, at all times and in all places, prevent children from accessing pornography. Its purpose is to make the internet safer, and this it can deliver. We do not say that, because a child might find an 18 DVD and, unbeknown to their parents, watch it, that the rating system is useless. We do not say that, because some children might manage to watch something inappropriate after the watershed, the watershed is pointless. Then there are those who ask, “What about the ISPs’ code?”. Of course, in October 2011 the UK’s four largest ISPs—BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Sky—clearly feeling the pressure, announced a new, yet to be properly implemented, voluntary code of practice. That introduced the policy of active choice which will require new customers with these ISPs to decide whether to apply filtering technology.
The ISPs’ voluntary code is certainly a step in the right direction. However, it has a number of significant drawbacks. First, the code will not apply to existing customers and, as customers rarely change their ISP, it will not protect the majority of households. Secondly, the code does not cover all ISPs in the UK. While those four ISPs currently dominate the market, we cannot be sure that that will always be the case. Thirdly, it does not apply to publicly available wi-fi spots. Fourthly, it makes no reference at all to age verification. Fifthly, it is not statutory and, as those of us who are familiar with what happened in relation to online gambling will recall, that is problematic. In fact, the ISPs are significantly behind the MPOs, which introduced their own code of practice as long ago as 2004. That code committed MPOs to place commercial content, classified as 18, behind access controls and make it available only to those customers that it has satisfied itself, through a process of age verification, are 18 or over. However, the latest Ofcom data reported that only three in 10 parents of 12 to 15 year-olds, who use their phones to access the internet, said that the phone blocks websites aimed at those 18 or over, so it seems to me that there is still much room for improvement.
Moreover, as the MPO code is also non-statutory, it permits quite a divergence in practice which means that MPOs apply various forms of parental control rather than the uniform golden standard. The absence of a gold standard can be confusing for customers as they move from provider to provider.
It seems to me that neither the censorship technology definition of success or existing self-regulatory arguments effectively counter the case for my Bill. Before drawing my comments to a close, I would like to make a brief point about the definition of pornography. The term “pornographic images” in the Bill is used in the same way as in Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, where possession of extreme pornographic images was made an offence. Under the 2008 Act an image is pornographic if,
“it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal”.
We have already defined pornography and we have debated the subject in previous debates so I hope that we will not need to take more time on that today. For the avoidance of doubt, it would mean that web pages that might contain nudity but are not meant for the purpose of arousal, such as medical websites or sex and relationship education websites, would not be blocked. I hope colleagues will agree that that is a wholly reasonable proposal.
Finally, I should say that I am encouraged that the Government have taken some steps this year in relation to the online safety challenge by holding their summer consultation on parental control mechanisms, and an opt-in arrangement was among the proposals recommended. However, the consultation, sadly, made no reference whatever to age verification, without which none of the proposals advanced would be of much use. I would suggest to the Minister that my Bill proposing a statutory opt-in arrangement with statutory age verification, as in the Gambling Act 2005, provides the kind of solution that we need and that would help the Government in their efforts to fulfil their coalition agreement commitment to combat the sexualisation of childhood. I very much hope that the Government and the House will support the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing this Bill forward. As the father of a 10 year-old girl, I am getting to that point in my life when I am having to pay close attention to this area of the internet and to what I should do to best look after the interests of my daughter. However, in a country where 1 million mothers have a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey, I think that we ought to keep things in proportion. The internet is not the only way that children get access to these things, and I well remember in my youth not being put off by the fact that images had been generated for medical purposes, shall we say.
This is not the easiest area to be effective in, but we should do something to make it easy for parents to install, and make use of, internet-blocking or filtering software, which gives them at least some level of security and control over what happens to their children.
I do not, however, feel comfortable with the particular technical solution proposed in the Bill. If you give ISPs the responsibility for deciding what is pornographic and what is not, you are recreating the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. You are making it terribly difficult for these organisations, which are not set up for this purpose, to decide whether a particular website should be accessible. You are placing on them the burden of ruling and of having appeal procedures on this. I do not think that that is practical. You leave them with a liability that will be difficult for them to insure against and control. I cannot see that as being the right way forward.
I should much prefer to see the ideas incorporated in the noble Baroness’s Bill in terms of compulsion on ISPs and on equipment manufacturers used to make sure that at the point of purchase of a device the option of turning on a variety of parental controls is offered. Parents could be offered the opportunity to turn on a form of controls on the point of signing up with an ISP. The noble Baroness made a point about dealing with contracts with continuing ISPs. Perhaps there could be a point after Royal Assent for the Bill by which all existing contracts had to comply.
This is important, too, because these controls are about much more than pornographic websites. They are about supplying parents with the information that they need to deal with sexting, which is the abuse of text messages for sexual bullying, and other forms of harassment that take place over the internet for ills other than pornography. They will allow parents to know what is going on and deal with it. That is not effectively dealt with by just blocking systems. Fundamentally, in a free country, these things should be dealt with by parental choice and not by imposition through an ISP.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde
My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote. It is necessary.
It is a short Bill. Clause 1 deals with opt-in and Clause 2 with filtering. I think it will be supported by parents in respect of the whole area of what, in many respects, is child ensnarement into sexually explicit services.
The article in Child Abuse Review of 2009 demonstrated clearly—and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has this morning talked about—the impact on children of some internet pornographic services. They not only affect the children being drawn into those services but they affect how they look at each other as young people—the respect that young boys have or do not have for girls in these services. That has come out in some of the cases that have been in the press recently.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked how you define these things and said that it goes back to the Lord Chamberlain deciding what is and is not acceptable. Normally, I agree very much with his views but I do not on this, because the definition of what is acceptable in any kind of statutory or non-statutory legislation will be there whether or not you have an opt-in.
What the noble Baroness proposes is not new. Some years ago, I was the chairman of the premium rate telephone industry regulator following the liberation of telephone services in the UK and we saw the emergence of adult services, which, in a growing industry, at one stage took up something like 70% of those services. The self-regulatory road was gone down and it involved opting out, but that did not work. In the end, the industry itself agreed with us as the regulator that it had to introduce an opt-in to take part in these services. The world did not fall apart, but it meant that children who would normally access the services, especially in school holidays—the call rate would go through the roof in school holidays—could not do so. One of the early measures that we took was to require that sex magazines should be put on the top shelf in newsagents, but that did not stop the proliferation of these services among young people either. They find a way and they pass the number around. In the end, the only way of dealing with these services was to say that if you wanted them from the service provider you had to opt in. Some people did, but it meant that children did not have access to them.
Really, the Bill is about child protection; it is not about censorship. I cannot find anyone who would support access to these services but they are not illegal. Therefore, if an adult chooses to use the service, that is okay and they can do that, but that does not mean that the services should be freely available to children. They are quite often in their bedrooms with no one else around. They may hear the parent coming up the stairs and bang a key, and the parent has no idea what they have been looking at.
The measure proposed in the Bill is welcome. It is a good step. It will not deal with all the problems but that is not a good enough reason not to try to deal with some of them. The Bill will not deal with texting, for example. Indeed, I gather that 02 does block adult services on its mobile phones but not on broadband. The iPad, which so many of us now have, has no provision for filtering out these services, even if people want to. Some companies have devised their own self-regulation. O2, Vodafone, Virgin and T-Mobile have all done it, but we do not have a level platform in the industry. The problem is not with the people who are trying to do the right thing in those companies but with those who do not, and they are the ones who are making children even more vulnerable at a very formative stage of their development.
I welcome the Bill and I look forward to the discussion in Committee. I am sure that there will be many interesting exchanges on the Bill. I hope that the Government will give the Bill time and that we see it on the statute book. It will not answer all the problems and there will be technical difficulties but, if the industry knows that it will have to sort those difficulties out, it will. I support the Bill.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, we have heard so much about child abuse recently. The Bill would protect children from abuse in another form. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Howe of Idlicote on bringing this much-needed Bill to Parliament and for her hard work on online danger to children.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to today's Second Reading debate on the Online Safety Bill. The Bill makes a number of informed provisions with respect to child safety online, which I very much support. I support the proposal in Clause 1 of an opt-in system. As my noble friend has already stated, under an opt-in system, internet service providers and mobile phone operators will be obliged to protect people from accessing pornography unless they deliberately opt in to access pornography, which would involve an age verification process to confirm that the person concerned was 18 or over.
I believe that the introduction of such a system would be a welcome step forward for children, young people and parents. As legislators, we have a duty to protect children and young people from the damaging effects that consumption of pornography can have on their minds while they are growing to maturity. An opt-in system is extremely effective at providing such protection without preventing adults from accessing online pornography should they wish to do so—although I must say that some adults get very upset when they unexpectedly find porn online.
Clause 3 states:
“Internet service providers and mobile telephone network operators must provide prominent, easily accessible and clear information about online safety to customers at the time the internet service is purchased and shall make such information available for the duration of the service”.
I believe that with Clause 1, which introduces an opt-in system in relation to pornography, Clause 2, which places an obligation on the manufacturers of internet-enabled devices to incorporate general filtering mechanisms, and Clause 3, which introduces an educational obligation, the Bill is extremely well balanced. The introduction of an age-verified opt-in system is, without doubt, the surest way of ensuring that children do not accidentally stumble on—or successfully deliberately seek out—pornography online. It is consequently very important that Clause 1 becomes law. Moreover, the provision of general filtering for internet-enabled devices would greatly assist in more general protection.
While Clause 1 is the single most effective thing we can do to protect children from accessing pornography online and Clause 2 is very helpful with respect to other material, they are not magic bullets. There are other things that must be done to ensure child safety online. Online safety is a complex area and in an environment where content is no longer passively received—as when watching TV or listening to the radio—there are more dangers than accessing age-inappropriate content. Social networking, internet chatrooms and YouTube websites, where content is self-created and commented upon by others, throw open the floodgates to all sorts of issues which parents need to address when bringing up their children. Bullying can now happen online, not just in the school playground. Privacy issues become more important as children need to understand what sort of information should not make it into a public forum. Clause 3 offers important support to parents, in addition to blocks and filters, by educating them about online safety and encouraging them to discuss these issues with their children.
One sexual threat posed to children and young people online is the infiltration of internet chatrooms by adults seeking out children to groom for sexual exploitation. Clause 1 would not have the effect of blocking internet chatrooms that are popular with children and so could not really help in this regard. Clause 3, however, does provide a means for addressing this issue, by encouraging and empowering parents with information about online security risks and how best to address them. Clauses 1, 2 and 3 are complementary and together provide a powerful framework within which to promote the best possible child safety online.
As my noble friend said, the Government have still not announced their response to this summer’s online safety consultation, a consultation which was conspicuous for not mentioning age verification once. I very much hope that the Government will recognise that placing age verification right at the centre of the Bill is vital and that they will adopt this Bill as the best vehicle for securing online safety for children in the United Kingdom. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and I wish the Bill a speedy passage through both Houses of Parliament.
Please excuse my voice: I have a terrible cold.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for introducing the Bill, which is both principled and practical and has an elegant simplicity that is not characteristic of all proposed legislation. The revelations concerning Jimmy Savile have shocked the nation and it is right that we are shocked. We are much less tolerant, as a society, of inappropriate sexual contact between adults and children than seems to have been the case a generation or more ago. We are very protective of the bodies of the young with, it seems, an exception for the eyes.
Why is it that we are not more outraged by the way in which internet pornography, often of an extreme and degrading kind, can assault the eyes, the minds and the imaginations of children and young people who may not even have reached the age of puberty? Is it because we are unconvinced that the visual has power to shape our thinking and our responses? That cannot be the case; otherwise we would not do so much to encourage our children and young people to see great art, to appreciate sculpture, to have their imaginations enlivened, to be thrilled by what they see as the creative expression of human beings in relationship with each other and with the world in which they live. So our carelessness in relation to online access to pornography by children and young people ought to be a major scandal in itself.
There is, after all, a growing body of academic research which suggests that pornographic images can remain in the minds of young children and disturb their psychological and sexual development. We should hardly be surprised at this, since for generations we have classified films so that those with the most disturbing images would not be seen by those under 12, 15 or 18. Somehow we have allowed online pornography and violence to be treated differently, as if we are entirely helpless to control it. Of course, as many of us have read, the issue is more pressing in the United Kingdom because of the independent access so many children and young people have to the internet, whether in the privacy of their bedroom or on a mobile phone. It is not always recognised that our children are more likely to be online independently than is the average elsewhere in Europe, or that half of all teenagers in the UK now have a smart phone and can access the internet at any time.
The fact that less than a third of all parents use the present parental controls on those phones, where they exist, to block unsuitable content is probably not an indicator that parents do not care, but that they are uncertain what to do and are given too little advice by internet service providers and mobile phone operators. After all, it is the parents who most often seek advice from their children about access to the internet and how to operate tablets, iPhones and all the rest. In your Lordships’ House, the Communications Select Committee, on which I sit, has recently gone paperless. We have been provided with iPads and access all our material online. It would be fair to say that most of the teenagers in the UK might have adapted rather more quickly than noble Lords have to this modest evolution in our process. All this suggests that there is a need to ensure that any parental controls are sufficiently robust so that attempts to change settings inappropriately are quickly identified.
I support the opting-in procedure, and the age verification system already in use for online gambling, and will not repeat what other noble Lords have said so well. I am very surprised that the recent government consultation made no mention of this and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that matter. I am also glad to see the Bill making provision for additional filtering of content so that parents can make informed judgments about what their children should see at different stages of their development. Overprotected children can sometimes be ill equipped for the world at the age of 18, and it is not the intention of this Bill to shield young people from that which is educative; only from that which is deeply harmful.
However, I have a question about the definition of pornography itself. I understand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, pointed out, that the reference to “pornographic images” is being used in the same way as in Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, where the possession of extreme pornographic images was made an offence. Is relying on the definition of pornography in that Act fully sufficient for the purposes of this one? If I have understood it correctly, it is the possession of extreme and degrading images that is made illegal, but perhaps not everything that might properly be regarded as highly sexualised images, such as those that objectify women or scenes of graphic violence, which may not be pornographic but which are deeply disturbing. We cannot catch everything in a definition but I still wonder how robust this definition is.
My other concern relates to the grooming of young people online, on which I share some of the convictions of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. I have been told that children and young people who have accessed pornography are more open to grooming in chat rooms, but I doubt whether the two are necessarily connected. Should something on the lines of this Bill become law, it would not remove all the dangers of the internet for children and young people, nor is it claimed that it would. The sexual grooming of young people can be very hard to identify and is not easily blocked, if at all. Even with the passage of this Bill, parents, teachers and carers would need to ensure their children were internet savvy, not just technically, but in interpreting the content they access and the contacts they make. Almost three years ago, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety produced the “Zip it, Block it, Flag it” strategy to help children and young people stay safe online. It would still need to be used.
Although teaching our children and young people to be vigilant online remains a priority, the provisions in this Bill would be very welcome indeed. It would achieve a healthier and safer internet culture, which is why I so warmly support it.
Lord Swinfen
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on introducing this Online Safety Bill. I believe that it is an extremely important piece of legislation that if made law—and I hope it is—would greatly enhance the provision of child safety online.
Some 30 years ago, I chaired an examination of video violence and its effect on children that had been set up my late noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford. The conclusion of the inquiry was that it did affect children adversely. The report of course was immediately panned by various academics working with the video industry. However, some two or three years later, a number of other reports came out that confirmed our findings. I suspect that similar things will happen with examinations of online pornography.
As has already been said, access to the internet is more readily available. At first it could only be accessed from bulky computers. Now, iPads, mobile phones and various portable devices mean that access can happen almost anywhere. This brings great benefits, some of which I use in relation to health service provision in the developing world. However, it also brings significant risks as children gain increasing media independence, such that their parents have little or no opportunity to monitor or control. To plagiarise the wonderful subtitle of Reg Bailey’s review of the sexualisation of children last year—Letting Children be Children—I welcome this Bill as it seeks a way of letting parents be parents, by giving them the means to protect their children.
In the time available, I wish particularly to address the concern, which some may have, that this Bill represents a form of censorship. I hope noble Lords will agree with me that this argument does not stand up to scrutiny. The bottom line is that the opt-in system proposed by this Bill does not prevent any adult from accessing pornography. Any adult can opt in to access pornography, subject to age verification confirming that they are indeed an adult over the age of 18. That being the case, it seems to me that there are only two possible bases for objection.
The first is that the online world should not be subject to any order, regulation or proscription. For these people, for some reason, keeping the web in a Hobbesian state of nature is more important than putting in place provision to ensure that children do not accidentally stumble on pornography; possibly quite extreme pornography. For them the state of nature ethic is more important than caring for children. I do not know whether the same people would feel the same way if there were no procedures to prevent online credit card fraud or prevent misuse of personal data.
Of course, the offline world makes no claims to constituting a state of nature, let alone of making this into some ethical good. Responsible supervision of what is available to children and young people is something that we accept as necessary and appropriate in respect of books, magazines, DVDs and television. It seems to me that if one were so minded this could be construed as censorship, but I doubt that many in this House would deem it as such; rather, it would be recognised for what it is—responsible care for those who are not equipped to protect themselves and discern what is harmful. Clearly, supervision in this regard is for the good of the child and society as a whole. It would be irresponsible and foolhardy to allow the development of internet media in a way that made it impossible for responsible supervision to be provided. However, that is what is now happening.
The second argument is that we should encourage awareness of filtering but not intervene in any other way to help parents: the ball should be left in their court and the state should not intervene, as anything else would be hopelessly patronising and paternalistic and take away parents’ responsibility for their children. That is an interesting point of view, but we do not expect this argument to be accepted when it comes to the classification of DVDs and films at the cinema. We are committed to signposting to all consumers, including parents, what type of material the person is considering viewing.
Parents are a child's first line of defence and, of course, must engage with the challenge of how to protect their children offline and online. Although some parents will be switched on to the dangers as well as the opportunities of the online world, sadly, this is often not the case. Less than half of parents of five to 15 year-olds have online controls installed on computers at home. However, home computers are arguably secondary, given that, as I have already mentioned, the ubiquitous nature of internet access today means that a child or young person has only to step out of their front door with their smartphone to access potentially unfiltered online content. We know that the use of mobile internet is growing rapidly. There were 6 million more users between 2010 and 2011, with the most significant growth being among younger age groups. I am told that 62% of 12 to 15 year-olds own a smartphone and just over half of these smartphone users say that, of all regularly used media, they would miss using their mobile phone the most.
Crucially, take-up of filtering or restricting access to content on mobile phones is very low. Only 31% of parents said that they had limited their child's access to the internet in this way, according to a 2011 Ofcom study. Do we really think that it is appropriate to refuse to provide parents the assistance of an opt-in system and instead let them sort out their own filtering? How much better and simpler for them to do so in the context of an empowering opt-in system, where the choice is still 100% theirs, rather than in an environment, the unhelpfulness of which is a result of the belief that not making things simpler for parents is more important than protecting children online.
I believe that, rather than the provision of an opt-in system constituting a patronising arrangement for parents and other adults, it is actually about empowering them and extending choice; about giving them the option of an easily accessible pornography-free internet alongside the option of a pornography-filled internet.
The empowerment at work here makes perfect sense for those of us who have not forgotten our political theory. The likes of Hobbes argued that people in a state of nature would give up their state of nature freedoms, as they did not have much positive consequence, trading them in instead for more limited but, crucially, more meaningful civic rights. In other words, it was in sacrificing extreme expressions of freedom that people found meaningful freedom in the law and order and civility of a civil society subject to law and regulation.
We accept limits to our freedom at all times in our society. This is a good thing. I fear that those pointing toward the Bill as an example of censorship seem to have either misremembered that this is the case, or have a rather strict interpretation of freedom which is simply incompatible with the society in which we live. In much the same way that fences are put up at the edge of cliff-side coastal paths, so must we accept that it is nothing less than good sense to take steps which seek to stop children stumbling across inappropriate content online.
Figures may vary about the degree to which there is unwanted exposure to pornographic content—a study from 2012 suggests that such exposure is as high as 50%—but it seems to me that to consign inappropriate content to an online top shelf is necessary, sensible and a mere replication of offline best practice. Unfettered definitions of freedom result in a system wherein some freedoms remain in place which cause harm to others—the very opposite of what we strive to do in this House and in a civilised society.
Far from constituting something that is patronising, it seems to me that providing an opt-in system is entirely consistent with respect for freedom in civil society in that it actually empowers people, giving them meaningful options. It is no surprise that parents themselves seem very keen on the opt-in, as witnessed by the Safetynet campaign petition which secured more than 100,000 signatures earlier this year.
There are few perfect laws, but we must not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. This Bill should be an Act of Parliament already. It is an eminently sensible set of measures which seek to bring online protection into line with protection provided offline and ensure that children are protected in a way which the developments of modern technology demand.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, the whole House is enormously grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for bringing forward this timely and important Bill today. The degree of support that it seems to be finding from all quarters of your Lordships’ House is encouraging. Indeed, it is encouraging to see the range of speakers that we have today. That fact alone should send a very clear message to the Government that they should no longer be dithering on these issues but moving to try to find some solutions. There is also a very clear message to the internet service providers that they, too, need to put their house in order and start to find the most appropriate technical solutions to these problems.
The only note of dissent so far has been from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. He seemed to make the point that the Bill would place too much of an onus on internet service providers, that this was not what they were good at, and that responsibility should essentially rest with parents. I hope that I have not misrepresented his argument too greatly. That is the standard defence that is heard in these arguments in all aspects: that the internet service providers are the mere conduit or the mere pipeline by which this stuff gets into people’s homes and that somehow, because they are merely the provider of the pipe, they are not responsible for anything that flows through it. To argue that they therefore have no responsibility is rather like saying that water companies have no responsibility for purifying the water that they deliver, because their main purpose—the thing that they are good at—is providing pipes. Actually, they are not that good at that either, given the level of leaks. We do not accept that argument. We say that there is a responsibility on the providers of the pipeline to ensure that the water is pure and safe. That is essentially what the Bill is about.
Let us be clear. In this country, access to pornography is controlled offline. Therefore, there are limitations but they are not total limitations. However, it is made more difficult to access pornography in printed form, on DVD or whatever else. This legislation, should it be passed, will enable us to adjust to the fact that society increasingly exists online. It levels the playing field. It brings what is happening on the internet to the level of everything else, whether it is the top shelf of the newsagent or the age clarification which exists for cinema or DVD material.
We also know that Parliament has already legislated on the principle of age verification. The Gambling Act requires robust age verification. We have already tested this and Parliament has been through these arguments. As my noble friend Lady Dean said, the world did not end because age verification was required in that area—actually, she was applying it to another area, but the principle is that the world did not end. Age verification can be done and it now needs to be applied more generally. The solutions are available and workable. A number of sites notionally have an age restriction but the reality is that those restrictions are laughably weak. However, mechanisms are available that can make those age restrictions work. We should be encouraging that and this Bill is a step towards enabling that to happen.
The other change that has happened in recent years, which we have to accept, is that most children now spend much of their lives online. Most of their social transactions are mediated through internet-enabled mobile phones. The days when I recall one of my sons spending about three hours on the phone to arrange where he and his mates would meet no longer apply. Now, it is all done through the internet—through social media networks and so on. Ofcom’s survey in 2011 found that the average time spent online by five to 15 year-olds was 90 minutes per day. However, I suspect that that statistic is already out of date. It is probable that most five year-olds do not spend that amount of time online but that therefore means that the figure for slightly older age groups is much higher. The same survey found that many—in this instance, I think it was 41%—had been disturbed by something that they had found online and that a quarter had received unsolicited explicit material online.
That was a survey of a year ago. This is an area where things move rapidly and I suspect that we need to have in place legislation that is able to respond to these changes. Those figures will already be out of date. Even I was surprised to learn that 37% of three to four year-olds use the internet, but we have all heard stories of, and perhaps even seen, toddlers whose reaction to a picture in a printed book is to try to expand it with their fingers to make the image get larger. Again, I suspect we are simply not keeping up with the trends.
The reality, which again was found by the Ofcom survey, is that parents know less about the internet than their children do. I recall that when I was part of the sub-committee of the Science and Technology Committee that looked at personal internet security, we were told repeatedly of parents who could not quite manage the parental control software and so got their children to install it for them. That is hardly going to induce this sort of control and maybe they were not quite the responsible parents whom we are looking for, but that is the reality. The children are ahead of their parents in all this, so you have to make it easier for the parent who wants to be responsible. In my view, this is what this Bill is about: opt-in control through ISPs will limit unsolicited and inappropriate material getting into the home.
There is also a sort of golden age view, rather like the image of the family sitting around the dining table in their front room listening to the Home Service, which we were all brought up with in the 1950s. If it ever really was a golden age, the day of the concept of the computer being somewhere in the main room of the home, so that access to the internet is mediated through that process, has long passed. There are now so many internet-enabled devices in most homes that such access is not confined to one room where there may be adequate supervision.
Most children, as has already been said, will have internet-enabled mobile phones but most of the game machines that they use in their bedrooms are also now internet-enabled. There are Xboxes and Game Boys, and all these things are internet-enabled. Not all of them can receive images or material but that is the direction of travel. Children play games on them with people all over the world whom they do not know. That raises all sorts of interesting and wider child protection questions but it demonstrates why we have to be able to control the pipeline that delivers what comes into the home. It is not just about the main computer; it is about all the internet material that comes into the home, which is mediated through the channel of the internet service providers. However responsible parents may be, they can simply no longer actively monitor all the material that their children are accessing, even if such total monitoring would be wholly desirable.
There is of course a collective responsibility in all this. In that inquiry into personal internet security, we used the road safety analogy. We said that responsibility for safety on the roads was accepted and that there was: a personal responsibility as to how you were a road user, whether you were a driver or a pedestrian; a responsibility on the manufacturers of cars to make their cars more safe; a responsibility on local authorities to ensure that roads were well lit; and a responsibility to have roads that were well maintained. All that was with a view to delivering safety. We need to take that same approach to these sorts of issues.
Frankly, children need to be educated about internet safety at the same time as they receive road safety advice. We should be looking at them doing it at that young an age. Parents need to be enabled to be responsible through the measures contained in this Bill by being able to decide, in terms of the material that can come into the home, not to opt in to pornographic material. ISPs and equipment manufacturers need to make it easier for parents, and site owners need to have robust age verification.
This Bill is not a total solution to the problems of online safety but it is a step in the right direction, making it easier for everyone to play their part in securing online safety. I sincerely hope that the Government are going to be supportive and, if not, I hope that they are going to tell us how they will move forward on these issues.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I agree with colleagues and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for raising this very important issue to consider through this Bill how children access pornography or programmes that might put them at risk of being groomed by predators and paedophiles. I say at the outset that the age verification element is very important. It is helpful, as others have said, that the general attitude today finds the idea of exposing our children to adult material, and especially to grooming, absolutely abhorrent. At last.
The Bailey review of last year provides a helpful exposition of the problem and its complexities and the difficulties of finding a workable solution. He also emphasised the importance of working with parents, guardians and carers, which includes anyone with responsibility for a child, including children in care. We often talk just about parents but it is actually those with any responsibility for a child. I also welcome the Government’s recent consultation on online protection and am sorry that the timing of this Second Reading is too early to hear the results of that consultation.
This brief Bill tries to provide a mechanism to protect our children and I absolutely applaud the sentiment. However, I want to propose that there may be more than one way of doing this because I fear that there are some unintended consequences from following the route of automatic filters for all on every electronic device, which the householder has to apply to have reduced. I shall come to this in a minute.
First, though, I want to raise the technical term of the definition in Clause 5 on interpretation, which says:
““image” and “pornographic” have the same meaning as in section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008”.
Your Lordships will see in the Act that the definition of pornographic is held within Section 63, headed:
“Possession of extreme pornographic images”.
Section 63(1) says:
“It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image”.
Note here the word “extreme”, because it goes on to say:
“An “extreme pornographic image” is an image which is both—
(a) pornographic, and
(b) an extreme image”.
The third subsection then defines pornographic, as we have heard, such that:
“An image is “pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal”.
The remainder of the section continues with definitions. The formal definition of extreme pornography takes 13 lines, and rightly so. I will not read that now but the point I am trying to make is that the definition of pornography in that Act—that is, legal pornography which is not extreme and illegal—is briefly referred to in passing to subsequently define extreme pornography, which is what that Act is trying to define for the courts.
Such a simplistic definition of pornography will cause immense problems in our courts. How do you define arousal and to what level of arousal—partial, full? Is that arousal the view of the average person on the Clapham omnibus, or should the definition cover the various fetishes that people may have? The famous film director Quentin Tarantino is a foot fetishist. There are a number of people who have assessed his use of bare feet in all his films. Clearly they arouse people with the said fetish.
Secondly, this limited definition of pornography would exclude much of the world’s classic works of art. Thirty years ago I was working with Jonathan Miller on the BBC production of “Troilus and Cressida”, which we had set in the Hundred Years War. We used some of the delightful pictures of Cranach the Elder, showing nudes of young women with the barest film of gossamer material across their bodies. Groundbreaking in Cranach’s day, this nudity still arouses passion in many who view them, as have thousands of artists over the subsequent seven centuries. Are these images pornographic? Unfortunately under some of the automatic filter systems at the moment, they are.
This brings me to my second concern. The current filters on the market, which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred to, are pretty crude and inevitably filter out more than just pornography. I wish there were another word to describe them, but it is true. They are a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Let me give you some brief examples.
Some years ago, my late father-in-law, an academic, suddenly stopped receiving e-mails. After a while he went to see the IT experts at his university. “Ah,” they said, “it is our new filter to stop you accessing naughty sites. The problem is that there is a key banned word in every e-mail that you are getting. It is your first name, Dick”. He had to have his own name unfiltered. These filters have not improved since. One of my colleagues here in Parliament was working for an MP, on the Sexual Offences Bill. She suddenly discovered that she was not receiving briefings from outside organisations by e-mail, because they contained either the word “sexual” in the subject line or attachments, or references to rape or other forms of sexual abuse. Thankfully she picked this up. A friend was working for one of the charities at the time and she was able to get her e-mails unblocked, but it could have had an impact on how Parliament scrutinised that particular piece of legislation.
How, you might ask, do these examples affect children who might be trying to access information on the net? Stonewall has expressed real concern about automatic filter systems for young people worried about their sexuality, who want to seek safe information and advice. Over half of the gay young people in a University of Cambridge survey for Stonewall reported homophobic bullying at their schools, with many citing worrying levels of depression and anxiety. Many students reported that their schools used such filters, which meant that they were unable to seek help from organisations such as Stonewall if they put the words “homosexual” or “gay” into the online search engine, because they were blocked.
Over the last five years, the Liberal Democrat youth movement has run a very effective campaign in further and higher education, and it is therefore available to 16 to 18 year-olds, called “Homophobia is Gay”. It, too, would be banned under these filters. It has been groundbreaking in getting young people to think, first, about the language they use and, secondly, to review their behaviour which might be bullying.
Many of our newspapers would also be banned. The Daily Mail, which I understand is very keen on this Bill—and I applaud the sentiments behind its campaign—would hit a problem with the crude image-filtering mechanism for photos, which assesses the percentage of bare flesh. It is not clever enough to work out whether a girl has a bikini top on and such an image would therefore be classified in exactly the same way as page three of the Sun. There is a fundamental problem with the technology at present, which needs to be addressed urgently. The Bill as written will not encourage this sophistication. It needs to. Perhaps this can be addressed at Committee stage.
Finally, there is the key issue of which is more effective; opt-in or opt-out. This Bill proposes an automatic filter that individuals would have to opt in to subscribe to pornography by asking their ISP to change the levels. Given the problems outlined above, I suspect that many parents would get incredibly frustrated with the crude nature of the filter and I am concerned that some of them might opt in. I prefer an opt-in system, which asks you as a parent—defined in the wider sense right at the start—when you have a new device, be it phone, TV, or computer, what levels you want to set. My cable TV company already does this and most telephone companies are following suit, given that most phones now act as mini-computers. We set the levels ourselves when our children were teenagers. Interestingly, on the communal computers and TV at home, even though the children are well over 18, we have never bothered to reset them. I suspect that most households are the same.
Much of the progress in this area is down to the work of the Internet Watch Foundation. This is not known to many lay people, because it works specifically with the ISPs, telcos and cable companies. It has been doing so quietly behind the scenes over the last decade, encouraging them to have peer regulation. I would hope that it would be a key part of the solution, blocking illegal sites daily as it does, using peer pressure among the companies to bring the providers into line and making sure that they give parents access to sensible filters. That is the important reason to have more sophisticated opt-in arrangements, rather than a pure opt-out system. Parents must be involved.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre website emphasises to children and parents—especially parents—how important it is to talk to each other. Its top tips start with the advice to talk to your child about what they are up to online and to be a part of their online life. This is vital. Children who are being groomed, for example, feel themselves in a cycle of fear and shame where they think no one will believe them. Childline reports that children feel themselves to blame for what is happening to them. Any chance of parents having relaxed conversations with their children about what they are doing on line, as they, the parents, set the filter levels, often with the children doing the technology, is much more likely to encourage children to talk to their parents if they are worried.
I applaud this Bill. It has the best intentions, but I worry that there are three or four areas which will need to be explored more at Committee stage to provide reassurance that it will not be a crude tool that will defeat its admirable aims of protecting our children.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for initiating this Bill, which I welcome. I want to attempt to put her Bill in the overall context of how we as legislators have incrementally abdicated responsibility as our society has changed and continues to change for the worse. I am not able to speak with any authority on a technological basis, as many others have done today.
What has changed in society over the past 70 years or so since I was a youngster, or even over the past 30-plus years since I left the classroom as a village schoolmaster? The negative aspect of modern, anything-goes society, where it seems almost self-righteous to mention moral values, is alarming. I know that we cannot reverse the technological advances of the computer, or indeed of television, and nor should we want to, but surely we have been too tardy in addressing the issues of what is made available, especially to children.
I am fully conscious of the political correctness that lauds freedom of choice, freedom of the press, freedom of expression and every other freedom that you can think of. Rather than protecting our individual rights, such unqualified freedom is but a mandate for the unscrupulous to exploit our weaknesses, whether that be a tendency to greed, to violence, or to sexual excesses. There is little purpose in our pointing the finger at the BBC over the Savile issue if we treat moral standards as though they are solely the responsibility of others. Why do we seem to believe that there is some social obligation on us to accept that every modern comedian who uses the f-word has the right to do so? We forget that Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and “Dad’s Army” could make us laugh without resorting to lewd and base language. Be that as it may, it is time we took some control of our lives and the future of our children’s and grandchildren’s lives by supporting the Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, throughout its various stages.
I have alluded in terms of general social behaviour to our modern society. Now, in that context, why should anyone accept that pornography would not and does not so negatively influence our children and grandchildren, those impressionable youths who learn by example? Children and teenagers do learn by example. I experienced that in my quite a few years in the classroom. We will, in general terms, condemn societies where women are treated as second-class citizens, yet we tolerate those who spew out pornography that is bound to create the impression that our women are no more than sexual chattels. Is it any wonder that over recent years there has been a noticeable recorded increase in domestic violence if we leave the peddlers of porn unchallenged?
Given the identified risks posed by online pornography, I strongly believe that the Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, defines the best way ahead for promoting child safety. Of course, there may be areas of the Bill which we will strengthen in Committee. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and other noble Lords would like to see that happen, but if that is going to happen, I bluntly suggest that we have to target—I use the word advisably—porn providers, and there has to be some answerability, if necessary through the courts.
The Bill puts in place measures that will help protect children and young people from the damaging effects of accessing pornography online. I particularly welcome the fact that an opt-in system will be introduced by the Bill. This system, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and others have already outlined, will require internet service providers and mobile phone operators to provide filtering software which would allow only those who are aged 18 or over and feel a need to access pornographic material to do so. The fact that this system would ensure that children and young people could not accidentally encounter such material online is of particular importance.
Given that other noble Lords have dwelt on the opt-in provisions of Clause 1, and many have touched on Clauses 2 and 3, I shall conclude with a word about Clause 4. It states:
“OFCOM must prepare a report for the Secretary of State about the operation of this Act—
(a) every three years from the date of Royal Assent; and”—
very importantly—
“(b) at the direction of the Secretary of State”.
It is essential that this clause be enacted alongside the other measures in the Bill. At the moment, no organisation is charged with statutory responsibility for assessing how ISPs and MPOs perform when it comes to ensuring that they adequately help parents protect their children online. I am cynical enough to believe that they do not really care, so it is important that we should seek to remedy this situation through this legislation.
In addition to its responsibility with respect to programming that goes online, Ofcom has other relevant responsibilities, including the production of reports that look at areas which touch on online content and behaviour, such as the recently released media literacy statistics which include qualitative and quantitative research on parental views and uptake of internet control software. The House will be interested to know that Ofcom found that only 46% of parents have installed parental control mechanisms and, moreover, that uptake is much lower for hand-held devices. I do not believe that that is a conscious opt-out by parents. Most parents are like me—they do not know how the internet works, other than to send their e-mails and so on. They simply do not understand, and there needs to be properly designed help for them.
Given Ofcom’s current role, it certainly makes sense to give it the duty systematically to review how well the law is functioning in ensuring that parents are helped to protect their children while they are on the internet. Clause 4 is an excellent mechanism by which this could be achieved. I very much welcome the Bill and look forward to Committee.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for introducing this excellent short Bill and for her tireless campaigning on child safety and the media. Thanks are also due to others who have produced reports that highlighted this issue, including Reg Bailey and Claire Perry MP. I am also grateful to the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety and John Carr for their persistence in gathering evidence on the problem that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has presented to us today. My noble friend Lady Dean said that this issue is about child protection, not censorship, and that is true. This is an issue of child welfare and of the importance of child welfare coming first, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I share other noble Lords’ concerns about the definition of pornography and its impact, which needs to be reconsidered in Committee. I think that the right reverend Prelate would agree that some of the images available on electronic devices involve extreme violence, which is also unacceptable, especially to young people. We only have to look at some of the games available, even to young children, which involve cruelty, killings, beheadings and torture. I would have liked that to be clearer in the Bill.
That having been said, the Bill is important and timely. I reflect on the Private Member’s Bill that I introduced to your Lordships’ House in June 2009. Some of the points made then by me and by other noble Lords are still relevant. As we know, the use of the internet is growing at an amazing rate. New devices are coming on the market regularly, and children are remarkably good at using such devices. A book called Consumer Kids by Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn makes us aware that,
“a visit to the bedroom of a British child of 11 … might yield a music system, TV, phone, text messaging, mobile phone, computer, instant messaging, voice over internet protocol, email, games console, DVD or VCR, MP 3 player”.
We live in two worlds: the real world where the identity of a consumer and their age can be checked, and the virtual world where that is difficult in relation to gambling, alcohol, drugs, knives, guns and pornography. Age verification remains a real problem.
Some good, responsible action has been taken. There have been agreed codes of conduct and practice by companies. Wi-fi providers have moved to bar access to adult content to minors on services they supply to the public, for example in high street shops.
However, let me give an anecdote which reflects some of the disturbing aspects of online safety and why we need to tackle confusion and bad practice. The Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety reports that, some time ago, McDonald’s—I speak here as a vegetarian, so I am not particularly supportive—told its wi-fi supplier that it did not want customers coming in to bring up pornographic images that people sitting on nearby tables may be able to see. How many other high street brands take a similar responsible view? The coalition reports less happy stories. Here is a shocker to demonstrate the point further. One reported test case involves someone who lives near a pub and a Starbucks. Both establishments provide free wi-fi access to their customers. In the pub, where children are not admitted, the wi-fi is provided by O2. In Starbucks, where children are allowed and encouraged to come in, the wi-fi is provided by BT Openzone. O2’s wi-fi services do not allow any access to pornographic websites. In Starbucks anyone can have full access to anything the internet has to offer including the most obscene pornographic websites.
Surely it is disgraceful that BT and Starbucks continue this practice, even though the matter was raised with them more than a year ago. Three of BT’s competitors have in the mean time put blocks on access to this material. It does not speak well of the UK’s capacity for self regulation when such huge, prominent companies are unprepared to be very firm and to set an example with regard to access to pornography. Until recently I was not aware that Starbucks is so lax about this or that apparently it pays no tax in this country. I, for one, will never set foot in Starbucks again unless these issues are sorted out and put right promptly. It clearly needs to wake up and smell the coffee. I wonder if there is anything the Government can do—perhaps a letter reminding high street companies of their duties to protect our children.
Age verification, as has been said before, can be a problem at home, and we know why. Parents may do their best, or not, to ensure that children do not have access to unsuitable material online. Parents can be fooled and may not be as adept at using online services as their children. Not surprisingly, research shows that children with rules about personal supervision in the home are less likely to access the internet in their bedroom or via mobile telephone than those who do not have rules. The organisation CARE points out that a recent government consultation on parental controls suggests that only the proposed opt-in choice provides a comprehensive solution for online pornography. The result of that consultation, as has been mentioned before, has not, so far as I know, yet been published. I understand that BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Sky issued a code of practice in October 2011 so new customers have to choose whether they are going to use the free parental controls provided. Existing customers will be made aware of the parental controls once a year but will not be obliged to make any choices about them. Ofcom estimates that only 31% of parents have limited their child’s access to the internet on their mobile phone. This Bill would tighten up these situations and sets out statutory duties on internet providers to protect children from pornography.
It is possible to tackle this problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, suggested some of the ways and we need to consider others. It means that an external agency will need to be involved in examining the implementation of policy and in monitoring it, possibly Ofcom or the BBFC or the Independent Mobile Classification Body, which has a clear statement on the classification of material and an appeals mechanism.
The recent Ofcom report, Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes, which I referred to earlier, is useful and thorough. It emphasises that children, even those as young as three or four, are confident users of the media. Children of 12 and over are “prolific social networkers”—eight to 11 year-olds have an average of 92 friends, while 12 to 15 year-olds have an amazing 286 friends. I do not know how they keep up. The point of this is the extraordinary number of people they can share things with, and we know what implications that has for child protection.
Multitasking is also popular—for example, texting or browsing the internet while watching TV. This may all sound very daunting for us. I remember once trying to watch a European football cup match, sound turned down, while listening to a dramatisation of Ulysses. That was only two things and I was totally confused. This Bill is important in supporting child protection. I look forward to its progress.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, I support the Bill and I declare an interest as I speak on behalf of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety. I have worked closely with many of its members. The charities include Barnardo’s, the NSPCC, Action for Children, Beat Bullying, the Children’s Society and Kidscape. They all strongly support the Bill. They want to make it clear and to emphasise that opt-in is needed mostly to protect the most vulnerable children, especially those in care.
However, many parents have informed the charities that when they are working on the internet with their children they have only to google a quite innocent word to go straight to a porn site. This can also happen when their children are doing homework on their own or doing research for a project. Even while playing a kids’ online game inappropriate material may pop up on the screen. This is why the NSPCC and Barnardo’s both particularly support this Online Safety Bill in order to ensure that children have the greatest possible protection from the harm they can inadvertently encounter online. The charities believe that the Bill contains a quite simple proposition, which is that all internet access providers should restrict the availability of adult content on the internet to persons who have been verified as being 18 or above.
As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned earlier, the average child spends 90 minutes a day online. While 91% of five to 15 year-olds have access to the internet at home, new findings show that 37% of three to four year-olds also use the internet at home. The number of calls to ChildLine from children who were upset after having seen adult images online has increased by 34% in the past year. This is one reason why the charities support Clause 1 of the Online Safety Bill which introduces an opt-in content filtering system where internet service providers should provide broadband connections into homes with filters already in place as the default setting to block access to adult content. This should include all age inappropriate material such as self-harm and suicide sites as well as pornography and violent online gaming.
They consider that such a measure would best support parents in offering the greatest possible protection for their children. However, educating parents and children about staying safe online is vital. For this reason, the charities recognise and emphasise that technical tools have to form part of a broader package of measures to address online safety issues. This should take place at every available opportunity, be it at the point of sale of a new piece of hardware, the point of installation of new software, or the renewal of a subscription package. For this reason, the education of retail and customer service staff involved in the sale of online services and devices for accessing the internet is also necessary.
The ideal scenario is for all parents and carers actively to monitor their children’s safety online. However, in practice, a number of barriers prevent them from doing so. The current system of parent-activated controls is not working. Only a minority of parents choose to operate them, and this number is falling. Perhaps it is because it is too complicated. An opt-in system could ensure that the responsibility for protecting children online is shared between parents and ISPs, because both have a role to play and neither one can protect children acting alone.
The best protection for children is their own knowledge and awareness, developed in the context of a supportive and engaged family environment. However, that is not always the case. There is a pressing need in the industry for more education and awareness-raising of online risk for young people, with the industry bearing a major responsibility for funding and running such campaigns.
Of course, if a parent decides to opt-in and allow adult content, and their children use the same computers as they do, children could end up seeing inappropriate material. This is why, by educating and making parents aware of the need to act responsibly, we can all ensure that kids are not getting access to stuff they were never meant to have. At the moment, if parents do nothing, the porn arrives whether they want it or not. It is just too easy. Children will always be inquisitive and try and find ways around the system, but we must not make it too easy for them to do so.
There is also great support for age verification, as outlined in Clause 1 of the Bill, because it is believed that providers of age-sensitive services and products such as social networking sites should utilise robust age-verification systems to protect children and young people from illegal activity. What is needed is a framework for classifying content as adult or universal, as well as a widely used method of age verification so that users can prove that they are old enough to access adult content. Mobile phone companies have already developed such a framework as well as an age verification process, and so we know that this is achievable.
There are a number of different ways in which people could be age verified. First, the account holder could have a password allowing access to adult content. Secondly, a system could be established involving each user having their own age-verified login. The online gambling companies have been doing something like this since 2007. A third way might be to establish portable online IDs which would be age-verified. Systems to do this already exist and could be extended. The charities accept that verifying the age of children under the age of 18 is more difficult, but this should not be used as a reason to delay the widespread rollout of age verification for content which is clearly aimed at adults.
I urge the Government to support the principle of establishing age verification as the basis for allowing access to adult content on the internet, in any and all environments, and to establish a task force to work out the mechanics and the options. Such a policy would not mean that every internet user in the UK would have to have an age-verified account. A person needs to be age verified only if they want to access adult content. The technical arrangements that would facilitate such a policy could be placed either on the ISPs’ or wi-fi providers’ network, or on the routers. Such an approach would remove the need for action to be taken by device manufacturers. The policy can work, because huge databases are available online in fast real-time with a high level of accuracy which allow access providers to confirm that someone is 18 or over. The mobile phone companies and all the online gambling companies use them already.
The focus of the Bill has been overwhelmingly around pornography. But the children’s charities are not saying ban porn from the internet altogether. What they want is for us to try to ensure that kids are not getting access to stuff they were never meant to have. Interestingly, a company is doing just that. It recently brought out a new app that blocks any pornography sites which can be accessed via an iPad. It found that there were more than 640 million pages on the web containing porn. But we also need to be concerned with other sites which can be harmful to children and young people and which parents are equally concerned about.
The charities strongly believe that sites which discuss sexual health, safe sex, sexuality and similar issues are not, and should never be classed as, adult sites or as “porn sites” and so should not be blocked or obstructed in any way within any filtering programme’s default settings. The same applies to sites which allow children to report abuse or to get information about their rights and so on. The children’s charities agree that the internet can be a positive tool for children and young people, who can use the internet to claim or assert their rights in ways which have never been possible previously. The internet can also be an important source of support and help to some young people and children, perhaps often in situations where no other sources are readily available to them.
The Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety recognises that technology is here to stay. But we as a society must ensure safe and equal access to the internet and associated digital technologies for all children and young people everywhere. We are all aware that this Bill cannot be seen as a silver bullet to solve this complex problem, but is part of a bigger package of measures that are desperately needed to protect our children and their pathway into adulthood. I wholeheartedly support the Bill and thank the noble Baroness for bringing it to the House.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Howe on bringing forward the Bill and, at the same time, salute her for the persistence with which she has pursued not just this issue but many others to do with the well-being of children in this country. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude for that.
I want to make one point which links this Bill to many other aspects of the development of our children, one of which was discussed in a debate in this House only yesterday, concerning the early years. One of the scourges of the 20th and 21st centuries is the inability of children to communicate either with each other or with anyone else. Part of this is due to the lifestyle in which they are brought up, much of which seems to consist of dumping them either in front of a television set or arming them with a computer game or some other electronic means of alleged entertainment which does not involve any adult intervention. This is not helped by parents who simply do not understand the damage that is being done to their children’s development by this encouragement and what it will do in terms of preventing them being ready for education when that time comes.
Therefore my appeal to the Government in supporting the Bill—as I hope they will—is that it should be seen not just in isolation but in relation to the long-term development and welfare of children. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, about introducing the word “welfare” in addition to “protection and safety”. If it is possible to prevent this sort of material reaching children, that must be accompanied by the education of parents so that they understand not only the damage that is being done but how to carry out these proposals on prevention. If that happens, I believe that this will be a very important addition to the armoury of those seeking the long-term well-being of the children of this nation.
Lord Morrow
My Lords, I welcome the fact that I have the opportunity to speak today in this Second Reading debate on the Online Safety Bill introduced by my noble friend Lady Howe. I am very supportive of the Bill and I commend the noble Baroness for bringing the Bill before the House.
The statistics in this area, to my mind, are a matter of real concern. In 2008, a YouGov survey found that 27% of boys under the age of 18 access pornography each week, with 5% accessing pornography every day. According to Livingstone et al, in a 2005 London School of Economics publication, almost one in eight children have visited a pornographic website showing violent images. These statistics show that a significant proportion of children and young people in the UK today have been exposed to pornographic material at a young age.
We need to ask ourselves what the impact of consuming pornography is on children and young people who are growing to maturity. It seems to me that currently in the UK we are, as Jackie Kemp recently noted in the Scotsman,
“in the midst of a massive, not very well-organised social experiment”,
where we are effectively allowing children and young people easily to access pornography without thought of what the possible consequences might be of letting this happen.
Studies conducted in recent years have illustrated that accessing pornographic material can have a damaging impact on the well-being of children and young people. Michael Flood, in an article published in 2009 in the Child Abuse Review, found that for children and young people exposure to pornography can,
“lead to emotional disturbance, sexual knowledge and liberalised attitudes, shifts in sexual behaviour, and sexist and objectifying understandings. Particularly for boys and young men, the use of pornography may exacerbate violence-supportive social norms and encourage their participation in sexual abuse”.
The Witherspoon Institute, a US charity, published a report in 2010 entitled The Social Costs of Pornography. The report notes that pornography has now “infected modern childhood” and that this is having deeply detrimental effects. The report outlines that consumption of pornography gives children a “very bad model” of how to engage in healthy relationships and that in the US more and more teenagers are having to seek treatment for pornography addictions. I have been informed that this is also the case in the UK.
In 2010, Dr Linda Papadopoulos, in a Home Office report considering the sexualisation of children, stated:
“The evidence gathered in the review suggests a clear link between consumption of sexualized images, a tendency to view women as objects and the acceptance of aggressive attitudes and behaviour as the norm”.
The evidence is clear. It seems apparent to me that exposure to pornographic material can have serious consequences for children and young people. Consequently, I believe that we must take action to protect children and young people online, which is why I am here today speaking in support of this Bill.
I believe that the Online Safety Bill before us puts forward measures which could make a real difference to children and young people right across the UK. I believe that it would put in place a sensible and achievable regulatory framework which would protect children and young people from accessing pornography. I strongly reject the argument that this represents any form of private sector censorship.
I am especially supportive of the “opt-in” system which is outlined in the Bill. This system, as has already been outlined by a number of the previous speakers, would require internet service providers and mobile phone operators to provide a filtering service to ensure that pornographic material cannot be accessed on the internet unless the user has opted-in to view it. This system would ensure that children and young people could not stumble across such material online by accident and would protect them from the consequences of consuming such images.
In closing, I should like to reflect on comments made by the Portman Clinic psychotherapist John Woods in an article in Psychologies magazine in 2010. Dr Woods, like many experts working with children and young people affected by the consequences of exposure to pornography, believes that we need to regulate access to pornographic material online. He outlined the following:
“We still have this ideal of free speech and expression. We think there’s nothing wrong with sex, and we shouldn’t go back to moral hypocrisy. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Regulation is the only answer. And it can’t be difficult”.
As Dr Woods says, the pendulum has swung too far the other way. This Bill will redress the balance and provide the effective regulation that we need to protect our children and young people. I commend the Bill to the House.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, I am pleased and honoured to be speaking on behalf of my party at the end of this important debate, held after a week or so during which the safety of our children, both online and off, has been in the headlines and in all our thoughts. I should begin by declaring an interest as a proud and newly recruited champion of the Internet Watch Foundation, an example of successful UK self-regulation on criminal child sexual abuse content. Happily, that is not our concern here today.
I also need to put on the record that my husband, John Carr, who has already been referred to in this debate, is, among other things, an adviser to the United Nations on exactly these issues. He sits on the UK Government’s principal advisory body, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. On behalf of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, for which the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, was speaking, he is pro bono secretary. He spoke at the seminar held by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and gave evidence to Claire Perry MP’s excellent all-party inquiry concerning online protections. It is not often that one has a declaration of interests concerning one’s partner that is larger than one’s own but in this case I felt that it was important to put those things on the record.
Noble Lords have a right to assume that my contribution today should be technically competent but the views I express are on behalf of the Labour Party. We need to see this Bill in the context of a fast-moving world. The first time I spoke in your Lordships’ House about the internet and child safety was over 10 years ago and my speech concerned the then unfamiliar crime of grooming children on the internet, the dangers that that posed and the problems associated with chatrooms. That was long before the days of Facebook. As technology moves on, as well as providing everyone with new and wonderful opportunities in the online world, including our young people, it poses new challenges, particularly regarding their safety. There are many ways that technology is present in our lives.
Like the right reverend Prelate, I am not a techno wizard but, for example, I watched the American presidential election results by taking the BBC coverage on my iPod to bed and having my BlackBerry at hand for those essential texts with a daughter in Cambodia, a son in Brussels and a husband in Azerbaijan at the Internet Governance Forum this week, to keep them in the picture. I was the political information hub for my family for the night. I shared tweets with friends in America who were on the spot and I saw the newly elected President’s tweet announcing his victory.
This was all possible because of one wi-fi connection in my home. As my noble friend Lord Harris said, in a home with children of different ages there will be many devices. There could be a digital TV that is internet-enabled, several laptops, iPads, iTouches, a desktop computer, games consoles, BlackBerrys, smart phones and other mobile devices. I recently saw an article which suggested that in many family homes today it is not at all unusual to find 18 or more appliances connected to the internet.
So while we hope and want every parent to pay attention to what their child or young person is doing online, the reality is that this may not happen for any number of reasons many of which have already been mentioned. Indeed, online safety is not a one-off event. It is not something that a parent does and then forgets about. Whatever the technical solutions, we still need parents to engage on an ongoing basis. But what about the families where no amount of outreach to parents and no amount of media literacy work is ever going to have any impact? What if the parents in question do not even read or understand the English language?
What the noble Baroness’s Bill proposes is to make that process easier, better, surer, because it automatically removes from the equation material that, by common consent, should not be there in the first place for younger users. It demands that a technical solution be found to help with this problem, as well as the important issues mentioned in Clause 3. As many noble Lords have said, this is a huge and growing problem. A company that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has already referred to called MetaCert recently produced a free application that blocks only pornography sites that can be accessed via an iPad. The fact that startled me was that they found over 640 million pages to block containing porn, some of which would be hard core.
The Wolak Mitchell and Finekhor research shows that that 42% of 10 to 17 year-olds were exposed to online pornography and 37% of 16 to 17 year-old boys are visiting adult sites. Some of them will become addicted to pornography. I know some will say, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, that this is the natural curiosity of a pubescent young man. In the past, we would all have recognised this as being a top-shelf matter. Indeed, noble Lords smiled as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned his own curiosity.
It is a very different matter today. It is a very different thing if the top shelf and publications that would not be on the top shelf—that would have to be accessed in brown paper envelopes from places in Soho that would not be easily available— are in your son’s and your daughter’s bedrooms on a screen available to them at any time. They are on the iPad that they may take and share with their friends. If one puts that together with the fact that Ofcom recently reported that a third of 3 and 4 year-olds now have access to internet-enabled devices, what price the media literacy of that age group? We all have a responsibility here. That is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, all the children’s organisations strongly support this Bill. I understand that CEOP and many experts support the thrust of this Bill.
I do not intend to explore the different technical ways of achieving the Bill’s objective as outlined in Clause 1, but ask the Minister two questions. Are the Government in favour of the principle of establishing age verification as the basis for allowing access to adult content on the internet in any and all environments? Should such a policy be seen as migrating to the virtual world the practices almost universally accepted and understood in the real world, for example, in relation to sex shops and cinemas?
This Bill contains a simple proposition: all internet access providers should restrict the availability of adult content on the internet to persons who have been verified as being 18 or above. It is now the case, with only one exception, that all the mobile phone companies have been blocking adult content on a voluntary basis since 2004 for all their pay-as-you-go phones because, as noble Lords will be aware, they are the ones most commonly used by children and young people.
If all the UK’s major wi-fi providers intend not to allow any adult content on any of the services they provide to the public—for example, in railway stations, hotels or, as my noble friend Lady Massey explained, in Starbucks coffee houses and other places, many of which will not even allow an age verification option—the adult bar will be fixed. Therefore, it will soon be impossible for anyone out and about to access adult content online on a mobile, either at all or without going through an age verification process. The only place where this will not apply will be the home. The only place where pornography and other adult content will be easily accessible to children and young people will be in their home. I cannot see that that is right. Does the Minister agree with our analysis on this matter?
I invite the Government to join us in welcoming this Bill and the principle it contains. I call on the Minister to declare his support for the principle behind the Bill—that adult content on the internet should be restricted to adults and a way must be found to make that happen. I am surprised by some of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I respectfully suggest that she may be out of date in the technology that is available and the anecdotes that she told the House. As other noble Lords have said, this is such a problem that I would be surprised if she were saying on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches that they think the status quo is adequate, because I do not think that anybody else in the House would agree with them on that matter.
Baroness Brinton
I intervene to clarify things. I did not say that my party thinks the status quo is satisfactory and I made that very clear during my speech. I hope that the noble Baroness will see that when she looks at Hansard tomorrow. I also make clear that some of the anecdotes that I have raised are contemporary, particularly the ones about Stonewall and schools.
Baroness Thornton
I obviously accept that the noble Baroness is not speaking on behalf of her party and I find that a great relief.
Baroness Brinton
I am sorry to intervene again but that is not what I said. I said that the point of my speech was to make it clear that there are problems with the Bill, not that we think that the status quo needs to remain the same.
Baroness Thornton
That underlines my relief. I am very relieved to hear that that is indeed the case. We all know that there are legitimate questions about how it will be implemented or how it might work, but today I am seeking a commitment about the desirability of the principle, which seems to me crystal clear and correct.
Like others, I am aware that this Government have been concerned about this issue and have not been inactive. I know that the Prime Minister himself has often expressed very firm views about this matter. However, we know that solving this is not straightforward. There are possibly, on my count, at least five or six government departments involved in the policy development. Obviously, the Department for Education is involved as it has responsibility for children and education, possibly the Department of Health, which has an interest in safeguarding nought to five year-olds under the new arrangements in the Health Act; the Home Office, the Justice Department, the DCMS—hence the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, is replying to the debate on behalf of that department—and BIS because of the business interests concerned. If I have left anyone out I apologise, but that, indeed, is why government has to act and why I am going to conclude with the following suggestions and requests.
Like my noble friend Lady Massey, I want specifically to say that I am aware that in Summer 2011 the “big four” ISPs—that is BT, Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk—gave the Prime Minister a specific undertaking to implement active choice before October 2012: that is, before the end of last month. I think that they reiterated their pledge at a special summit which the Prime Minister called in Downing Street. I would like to know whether they have done what they have promised. In particular, I would like to know what each company is doing in relation to active choice for new and existing customers. The House needs to know what each company is doing to assist in relation to wi-fi routers in the homes where their customers live. In other words, will there be any way that their solutions will help to ensure that the controls parents might set on the PC or main device also automatically work in relation to all other devices using the same connection, or do the poor parents have to go through the same routine on every single device in their home? These are important matters germane to the progress of this Bill. If the Minister does not have this information to hand, I would be very happy for him to write to me and copy his answer to all noble Lords who have spoken today. My noble friend Lord Harris is absolutely correct, the Government appear to be dithering on this matter and they need to stop doing so.
We on these Benches call on the Government to get on with making online protection of children happen. If not in this Bill, can I have a cast iron assurance from the Government that they will establish a working party or a task force, as called for by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, to report back within six months on the practicalities and technicalities of how adult content on the internet can be restricted to adults and how that might be implemented?
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and look forward to working with them on the Bill.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I begin by also thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, for introducing this Bill. No one could question what it is seeking to achieve, and the debate has been very worth while. I declare an interest. As a father of three, I understand the concerns of parents when their children disappear upstairs and sit in front of a computer for hours. I wonder what they are doing and with whom they are communicating. I ask myself: “Should I be doing more? Should I go up to their rooms every half hour to check on them?”, because keeping your child safe, online or offline, is one of the most important responsibilities that we have as parents. I echo the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that these are not straightforward issues.
Ofcom’s recent report into children’s media use found that 82% of all children aged five to 15 access the internet in the home. That figure rises to 95% for children aged 12 to 15. Children are digital natives, growing up in a world where they cannot imagine life before the internet. The internet is hugely beneficial, giving children opportunities to learn, enhancing their social and cultural development and providing them with the life skills that they need in the digital age. Some children are expected to do their homework online. However, as we have heard today, we must also be alive to the risks that children face online.
As has already been mentioned, in 2008 the Government commissioned Professor Tanya Byron to conduct a review into child safety online. Her report set an important basis for work on child internet safety and led to the establishment of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, UKCCIS, bringing government, industry and children’s charities to work together to advance online safety. In 2011, Reg Bailey’s report, Letting Children be Children, endorsed and amplified the work of UKCCIS. Both these reports highlighted the multiple factors at play when considering child safety online: the individual child’s level of development, experience and understanding, the role of parents and guardians and, finally, the role of industry and government. Both reports found that the best way to keep children safe online is to engage parents in their children’s online activity. It is parents who are best placed to assess the risks to their child and parents who can help their children to learn and become resilient online, as they do in the offline world. However, industry and government also have a role to play, giving parents the tools and support that they need to put them in control—a point well made by my noble friend Lord Lucas—and ensuring that vulnerable children are protected. In her report, Professor Byron talked about how:
“At a public swimming pool we have gates, put up signs, have lifeguards and shallow ends, but we also teach children how to swim”.
Importantly, both reports argued against a default position where internet content is automatically filtered, as called for by the Bill. I note the impassioned defence of this approach by some of your Lordships, including the noble Baroness, Lady Dean. What at first appears to be an effective solution may in fact be detrimental to the objective that we are all seeking to achieve, which is to keep children safe online. I shall explain why. First, filters give parents a false sense of security. Many of the harms encountered by children online would not be stopped by blocking pornography. Cyberbullying, pro-suicide material and sexual grooming are serious risks that parents need to be aware of and need to be engaged in tackling. Secondly, filters, while useful for some, may over-block—a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich—resulting in children not being able to access helpful material about their own education, welfare, well-being and personal development. Thirdly, filters can be got around by those determined to do so. Peter Davies, the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, CEOP, recently said that bringing in automatic filters is no substitute for,
“sitting down and having proper conversations with our kids”.
Although the noble Baroness’s Bill is admirably simple, what may appear to be a simple solution is actually rather more complicated because what constitutes pornography is not black and white.
Baroness Thornton
The Minister is assuming that this is only about pornography. It is important that we establish that this is not just about pornography; it is about adult content, which is a wider concept than pornography. Will the Minister acknowledge that, when he uses the word “pornography”, he really needs to use the words “adult content”?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My understanding from the Bill is that the definition focuses on pornography, but I note that today’s debate has focused on wider issues. I hope that that answers the question.
As I was saying, what constitutes pornography is not black and white. To coin a phrase, it is fifty shades of grey. I note the definition that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, gave, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich questioned the robustness of the definition of pornography.
There would not be sufficient detail in the existing legislation to enable filtering products to be designed as required by the Bill. ICT industries would need much greater detail in order to comply, and that would need some regulatory footing. With the very broad definition in the Bill, it would be incumbent on government to develop very specific guidelines about what should be blocked. No system would be foolproof and I fear that enforcement would be, at worst, impossible and, at best, exorbitantly costly. Seventy-two hours of YouTube content are uploaded every minute. Who would police this user-generated content?
As I said at the outset, I entirely agree with the outcome that the noble Baroness is seeking: keeping children safe online. Where we disagree is the means by which to achieve that end. I firmly believe that we will achieve better results by working together with industry and children’s organisations than by regulating. By focusing on a wider range of harms than pornography, we can ensure that children are better protected.
The Government are not shirking their responsibility here. Two government Ministers chair the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, and another sits on the executive board with industry, charities and parents’ groups. Together, we believe that we are making a real difference more quickly and more effectively than could be done by regulation—a point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas. For example, in the space of a year, the four main fixed-line internet service providers, notwithstanding Starbucks, which was mentioned—BT, TalkTalk, Sky and Virgin Media, representing 96% of the market—have delivered on their commitment to prompt users to activate parental controls on start-up. This has happened without the need for legislation and is already delivering the kinds of controls that parents want to protect their children.
I should like to pick up on a couple of points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, concerning the code of practice—in fact, there were more than a couple of points. She stated that the code does not address existing customers and covers only the four main ISPs. She raised the question of wi-fi and public access, the age verification issue, which I wish to focus on later, and the fact that the code of practice is not statutory. The ISPs have been proactively writing to existing customers, making them aware of free parental controls. UKCCIS Ministers have said that they want all ISPs signed up to the code of practice and they will be working to do this very soon. We expect all public wi-fi providers to announce measures to block adult content by default very soon. Self-regulation measures are making a difference.
I should also like to pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, concerning the Ofcom survey. She said that the perception was that parental controls were difficult to use. UKCISS has been working to increase the availability of all types of parental controls at all points of access to the internet, with ease of use a prominent feature. Parents can then choose the solution that best suits their level of knowledge and circumstances.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
If I were a non-car owner and a non-driver, would the noble Viscount think that I was the best person to prepare my children or grandchildren to take a motor vehicle on to the M1?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
It depends on why the person referred to is a non-driver. I do not think I can answer that question.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
I apologise. I am making a comparison. It appears that the Minister is retreating and placing all responsibility on parents. Many parents do not understand the complexities of the technology involved.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I think that I can answer the noble Lord’s questions later in my speech when I come on to the responsibilities of the industry and others.
Lord Harris of Haringey
The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, raised an important point. The Minister is saying that so much of the responsibility for this must rest with parents, but all the data that we have tell us that parents are ill equipped to provide this leadership. They are behind their children in terms of understanding these technologies. Parents are simply not in a position to give that guidance, much as we all might like that to be the case.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I fully understand the point that the noble Lord is making, but we take the line that ultimately parents are at the forefront of making the decisions as to what is right or wrong for their children.
Baroness Thornton
I am sorry but the Minister needs to address the issue—and I hope he will do so—of parents who do not know how to take action, who cannot do so or do not speak English, and the issue of children in care. Millions of children are accessing the internet in many different ways, often not with their parents present. The Government have to take this on board. How serious does this have to get before they realise that parents need some assistance?
Lord Swinfen
My Lords, all people in cars, including children, have to be strapped in with a seat belt. The Government have made it illegal not to do so. We are asking the Government to provide a safety belt to protect children on the internet.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I understand the points that have been made. I have also made it clear that I understand the importance of keeping children safe online. However, I think we differ in terms of the way in which we go forward. Perhaps noble Lords will allow me to continue because I have some issues to point out concerning the controls.
Industry partners in UKCCIS are committed to putting in place filters which will see adult content blocked on more than 96% of public wi-fi. All UK mobile operators block adult content. Leading laptop and PC manufacturers, including Toshiba, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, and Tesco, and also high street retailers Argos, John Lewis and Dixons Group are delivering solutions, which prompt the set up of parental controls on start-up or at point of sale, with Argos offering free filtering software. Industry-led solutions, designed with customers in mind, will, I believe, achieve a better outcome for parents and children than legislation could. However, we are not complacent. There is more that can be done and is being done.
I now want to focus on education, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others. In education, 96% of primary schools and 73% of secondary schools teach e-safety, either as separate lessons or embedded in others. It is part of the statutory ICT curriculum and it also forms part of tutor sessions and personal social and health education—PSHE—lessons. Ofcom’s research shows that 87% of parents agree that their children have been taught to use the internet safely. In upskilling children and parents in partnership with Childnet and the Safer Internet Centre, all ISPs have developed video tutorials, demonstrating how to install and set up parental controls, available on the Safer Internet Centre website from December 2012. Many initiatives are in place. For example, TalkTalk has developed an internet safety badge for the Girl Guides; BT operates internet safety workshops for parents; Sky has built a social networking and cyber-bullying module for school children where they can create their own Sky News reports; and Facebook works with CEOP, the Samaritans, the UK Safer Internet Centre and the Internet Watch Foundation to deliver training and provide support for users, teachers and parents. I was also interested to hear from my noble friend Lady Benjamin her considered views on the importance of education of children and parents in managing online sites, which is the approach that we are taking.
I should also like to focus on the issue of vulnerable children, to which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, alluded in one, if not two, of her questions to me. There is always more to be done. Several noble Lords have raised the issue of vulnerable children and this is an area of concern. Regardless of the options available to them, there are some chaotic homes where parents may be absent, uncaring or simply incapable of taking steps to protect their children online. In those circumstances, children may also be at risk of other forms of neglect or abuse and we must ensure that such children are first protected from these more serious threats through the existing safeguarding mechanisms that schools, health workers and social services so crucially provide.
The specific online risk to children in vulnerable circumstances is an area that UKCCIS is exploring, which the board will need to consider how to take forward. I do not think a blanket regulatory approach to protect a minority of children is the way forward. Ofcom’s research shows that almost 80% of parents of children aged five to 15 have rules in place about their children’s internet usage and almost half—that is 46%—have parental controls installed in the home. Clearly, we need targeted solutions for vulnerable children.
I now turn to some of the issues raised in the debate. In terms of an overarching comment, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the Bill was not 100% perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. I have noted that. The work that UKCCIS has been doing goes much further than the Bill. It takes a holistic approach to protecting children, working to implement parental controls at device level as well as at ISP level. It is working to educate children and parents and working with service providers, manufacturers and high street retailers such as Tesco, Argos and John Lewis.
I should like to address some of the issues from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who has done so much work on the subject of online violence, focusing on pornography and the importance of protecting the young. I was alarmed to hear her comments about BT and Starbucks, which we will certainly be following up to find out what can be done to resolve that.
The UKCCIS work on increasing the awareness and availability of parental controls has been focused on preventing access to all types of harmful content, not just pornography. It includes violence, drug misuse, cyber bullying, extremism and the promotion of criminal skills, suicide and eating disorders.
I realise that many questions have come out of this interesting debate. If I have not been able to answer any, particularly on age verification, I will certainly make it a point to reply to noble Lords.
Baroness Thornton
The Minister mentioned age verification, and he prayed in aid the totally inadequate self-regulatory proposals that have been proven not to work. They are not working and we have an increasing problem. Will the Minister confirm that both the Byron report and the Bailey report recommended the use of age verification to block adult content on the internet?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I can give the briefest of answers in the time available on age verification. It is an important issue. However, I would make a distinction between age verification in terms of the gambling sites, which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, mentioned. My understanding is that with gambling sites there is a clear distinction at the age of 18. Material for the over-18s is pin-protected. Taking our view that parents would in effect be in control, parents would want to set a range of controls appropriate for their children, which may be different for a five year-old and a 15 year-old.
I started by thanking the noble Baroness for giving us the opportunity to debate these issues today and I close by doing the same.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I am sorry because I realise the Minister is trying to close his remarks. But I am trying to understand the answer that he has just given my noble friend. Is he in essence saying that the Government are disregarding the recommendations from those two reports because the age verification used for gambling sites kicks in only at 18? The point is that they are saying that age verification is an important mechanism. We have the evidence from the gambling sites that age verification is possible and can work. Why is it not possible to put the two things together and introduce age verification structures that may kick in at younger ages?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I note the noble Lord’s comment but the issue of age verification is more complicated than at first it appears. We need more time to discuss this. The best thing for me to do is to get back to the noble Lord and other noble Lords who have raised this particular issue with some answers.
Technology changes rapidly and legislation does not. Industry is better placed than legislators to design the simple and effective tools that parents want, keeping pace with technology and the way that their children access the internet. But there is a role for government in setting an expectation, bringing the right people together and always pushing for more and better—
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
I am sorry to intervene again, but it is necessary. Everything that the Minister appears to be telling us is unsatisfactory. If it is not possible for legislators to set standards, how will a mishmash of providers across the entire community come up with anything that is consistent and reliable? Will he at least tell us that?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I can reassure the noble Lord that it is in their interests to bring themselves up to scratch in order to be able to produce online safety for children. I know that this will not be a satisfactory answer for him, but our view is that it is the responsibility of parents, ultimately, to take this forward.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, why does the Minister say that it is in the interests of online suppliers to do this? It costs them money, they are in a highly competitive market and I suspect that a large number of them make money on the basis that they know perfectly well what some of their users want to access online and they simply want to increase the number of users. Why is it in their interests to introduce this without some form of regulation in the background?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
We are getting into quite a detailed discussion. My best response is that I look forward to discussing these issues in more depth in Committee.
In conclusion, the Government will continue to ensure that everyone is playing their part in keeping our children safe online.
Baroness Thornton
I am sorry, but before the noble Viscount sits down, I asked very specifically at least twice during my remarks whether the Government support the Bill in principle. The Minister has not answered that question. It is very important. It does not necessarily mean that the Minister wants the Bill, as it stands, to go forward, but the principle behind the Bill, that of protecting children from adult content online, seems obvious and I would really like to hear from the Government that that is the case. I do not wish to be rude to the Minister, but I wonder whether his speech was drafted in California or Whitehall.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I do not have to say whether I agree with the Bill or not. I am simply summing up and giving my considered views on the issues that have been raised today.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I have to admit that I am slightly bewildered. I very warmly thank everyone who has taken part in the debate and all noble Lords who have joined in the questioning to try to make clearer exactly what the Government’s position is. I was enormously pleased to receive a huge number of letters in support of this approach, including from colleagues who, sadly, could not be with us today. I am thinking particularly of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, but there were many others. The contributions from all around the House, from not only those who support the Bill but also those who had some queries about it, represented an amazing range of views and perspectives, all focusing on the vital need to keep children safe online. That is the Minister’s stated aim and the idea of an agreed line of 18—that certain areas should not be available to children under the age of 18—is a very important beginning.
We are seeking the best way of going forward, which includes, of course, an emphasis on parental education. It is important to remember that Clause 1 deals with pornography, Clause 2 with all adult content—that is important—and Clause 3 with education. The education side is vital too. I still find it rather peculiar—the Minister may be able to answer this at some stage, maybe, as he rightly says, in Committee—that the Government consulted on opting in if they are against that form of process.
I will return to details from the contributions that have been made. My noble friend Lord Swinfen made an excellent speech on why the opt-in system does not constitute censorship, while the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, highlighted the centrality of better education, a theme that very much came out in speeches by other noble Lords. The personal experience of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, of an opt-in system in a different way illustrated what a useful method this could be. I thank her and other noble Lords, including my colleagues on this Bench, for their contributions. I still hope that the Government will be able to explain their position, perhaps before Committee stage. It is such an important point.
Going back for a moment to the point about pornography, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich asked a very important question. The definition of a pornographic image was set out in the Act that I referred to. I gave the quote in order to follow through and define what “violent and degrading pornography” actually is. There is a better definition further on that can be referred to.
I am enormously grateful to the Children’s Society, which the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, mentioned in her excellent speech, and which has been a great help. It is so involved in this issue and knows more about it than any noble Lord or even the Government. Its experience is very much to the fore. I also pay tribute to CARE, which has been an enormous help in providing me and colleagues with all sorts of valuable information to move this whole issue on.
I hope we may come to a better understanding. I thank again all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, whatever their views, and end by asking the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Airports (Amendment) Bill [HL]
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Empey
My Lords, as noble Lords will recall, I raised this issue last March, in the previous Session, and we then discussed the issues surrounding regional access to hub airports. Since then, we have had the introduction of the Civil Aviation Bill, and there were further discussions when that Bill was before the House. Indeed, this week, the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, proposed an amendment to that Bill which sought to do something similar to what I am trying to do with my Bill.
The purpose is basically to ensure that the Government have power to intervene if necessary in the event that there was a failure to connect the regions of the United Kingdom to our principal hub airport at Heathrow. I do not believe in over-involvement of government in regulation or intervention if it is at all possible to steer away from it, but the reality is that there is an economic imperative for regions to have connectivity to the centre. It is a basic principle of regionalism which has operated in this country for many decades. It is a principle that is widely recognised in the European Union—we often talk of a Europe of the regions—and European regional development policy and UK regional development policy have all directed funds specifically to regions. That is to ensure meaningful economic activity in those areas.
People may say, “At present, most regions of the United Kingdom are fairly well connected”. That may or may not be true. For people in the south-west or other areas—we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, this week, that some air services from the north-east of Scotland had been cut back—it is constantly in our minds. The airline sector is one of the most volatile sectors before us today. Changes are taking place almost as we speak. In my region of Northern Ireland, we currently have good connections not only to Heathrow but the wider world. Generally speaking, we are currently content.
However, the connections are only as good as the airlines that provide them. It is perfectly obvious that there can be substantial swings from profits to loss, and then there can be takeovers. One of the providers of air services to Heathrow from Belfast is Aer Lingus. A few months ago, Etihad Airways bought 3% of it. It is now trying to buy the Irish Government’s 25% stake in that airline, and Mr O’Leary, of Ryanair fame, is trying to buy the airline as well. Does that send the message that there is a meaningful commitment to maintaining regional links to the hub airport at Heathrow, or do the airlines see greater profit in having access to the landing slots at Heathrow, which are where the money is? Frequently, the money is not in regional air traffic. The amount of regional air traffic, the number of passengers involved, is diminishing in the United Kingdom—largely because there is a move to rail. Rail is becoming ever more competitive and, in some areas, even Birmingham, the railways have effectively eliminated the airlines from the race.
Of course, in Northern Ireland, those options are not open to us. You cannot drive or take a train; the only meaningful connection is air. My principal objective is to protect our access to Heathrow.
The Government have frequently pointed out to me that this is not a matter for the UK alone; I fully understand that. They have pointed out that there is a significant European dimension; and I fully understand that. By coincidence, the European Union currently has a substantial document before the European Parliament. It is a regulation by the European Parliament and the Council on common rules for the allocation of slots at European Union airports and related matters. It is pure coincidence that this Bill and the activity in Europe are taking place at the same time.
However, that provides an opportunity. I have been to Brussels on a number of occasions this year and through a colleague in the European Parliament—Jim Nicholson MEP, formerly of the other place—a number of amendments were put down in the European Parliament’s transport committee. Those amendments were voted on earlier this week and the committee accepted a number of them. Those amendments will now go before the European Parliament next month. Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example of what those amendments included. One states:
“In addition it is important that access to hub airports from regional airports should be maintained where such routes are essential to the economy of that region”.
That is precisely the point that I want to make with this Bill. As the European Parliament’s transport committee has accepted the point, a legislative report will, in response, go before the European Parliament in December. If that report is accepted it will form the co-decision position of the European Parliament—as both the Commission and the Parliament will have to agree. It will then go to negotiation at the Council of Ministers. However, if the European Parliament as a whole accepts this amendment then the core point that I have been trying to make will be adopted.
On Tuesday a second amendment was also accepted which referred to the co-ordinator of airports, who we may be familiar with. This amendment added:
“This procedure shall be without prejudice to regional airports connectivity to hub airports. If such connectivity is undermined Member States shall be permitted to intervene”.
It is precisely because the UK Government have no power to intervene, as they would be in contradiction of European Union regulations, that we have been pursuing this matter in the European Parliament.
A second report—an own opinion report—came before the European Parliament earlier this year. The difference between a legislative report and an own opinion report is that the latter is a bit like a take-note debate in Parliament—it has no legislative edge to it, whereas the legislative report that will be going to the Parliament next month does. Nevertheless, it gives some flavour of the opinion that is there. The report was prepared by Philip Bradbourn MEP, who represents the Birmingham area. It was drawn up in April this year and, I believe, was passed by the European Parliament in May. The report,
“considers it essential for regional airports to have access to hubs”.
Again, that is exactly the point that I have been trying to make.
The Minister has correctly pointed out to me on a number of occasions that the only way to overcome the conflict between European law and what I am trying to do in this Bill is to bring the two sets of legislation together. By coincidence, the European Parliament and the European Commission are doing precisely that at the moment. I have been there a number of times and talked to members of the committee and to the cabinet of the relevant commissioner. They all understand the regional issues because many of them represent remote regions of the European Union and know what it is like to be isolated.
I also understand that there is a risk of conflict because if you intervene in the marketplace you can distort competition. At the end of the day, however, there are certain essential facts. One fact is that the state cannot be isolated or left powerless when an emergency arises. I hope that that will never happen but it is of fundamental importance for the state to ensure that its regions have adequate connectivity to the hub. It is a relatively simple point. I understand, of course, that the Minister cannot say that he supports this proposal, because the law has not changed. The question, however, is whether the Government will be prepared to support and argue for appropriate changes in Brussels when the proposals come to negotiation at the Council of Ministers, and whether they will accept that they currently do not have the powers but would like changes to take place. I would be interested to know if the Minister is able to say that to us.
The Irish Government will be holding the presidency of the European Council from January of next year and I expect that that is the point at which the negotiations will take place. I have made it my business to be in touch with them. I have spoken to a number of their MEPs and, I have to say, I have met with universal acceptance of the ideas that we are putting forward. They know what it is like to be in a remote region as they have remote regions in their own state. All that I am asking the Government to do at this stage is to indicate that they would support proposals for change in Brussels, provided that these would not lead to over-upsetting the normal commercial processes. It cannot be that you cannot upset them. Quite rightly, states and Governments throughout Europe reserve powers to interfere in the normal marketplace.
Regional policy is itself a distortion of the market. If you say that each region can be left to swing by its own tail and we will not intervene, businesses and industries might move from one region to another—and they do. But this country has maintained a regional policy since the Second World War. It has put a lot of resources into this policy, as has the European Union. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will at least indicate that, in the forthcoming negotiations in Brussels, they will undertake to encourage the European Union to make the changes that would allow them to have powers to intervene should the necessity arise. I beg to move.
The Earl of Caithness
My Lords, I declare my interests again. First, I live in a more remote area than the noble Lord, Lord Empey. Secondly, I was formerly Minister of Aviation.
I regret and welcome this Bill. I regret it, because I think that it is wrong for this House to debate exactly the same Bill as it debated in March, a mere seven months ago, when it did not receive the support of either Front Bench. It would have been preferable if the noble Lord, Lord Empey, had put down a Starred Question or a Question for Short Debate rather than a Bill. I welcome it, because it gives us another opportunity to discuss what we discussed in March and the House will be pleased to know that I am not going to repeat what I said then.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, said that the raison d’être for this Bill is for the Government to have power to intervene. They have power to intervene now. They have the Public Service Obligations. My noble friend Lord Attlee spelt it out clearly in March this year. It is clear that the Government can operate, but they have to operate within the European law. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, then changed the emphasis and said that it was not really a regional hub that he wanted, but that he wanted to go to Heathrow. He wants to keep that link. If my noble friend Lord Attlee and the Government say that Northern Ireland can have a link to Heathrow, is my noble friend Lord Attlee going to reinstate the Inverness-Heathrow link, and the other 11 domestic links that have been lost to Heathrow over the last 22 years? That would be a huge interference in the market place. You cannot isolate Heathrow. You cannot isolate one airport. You have got to talk about a region. There is Heathrow. There is Gatwick. There is Stansted. There is Luton. All those airports have international flights.
That very conveniently takes me on to the hub. In Clause 1(2) the noble Lord, Lord Empey, wants to get access to hub airports. He and I are both lucky. He flies out of Belfast, and I fly out of Inverness. We can both fly to Amsterdam, and we can get just as good connections in Amsterdam, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said in March, as we can from the London airports. Indeed, in some instances it is cheaper to go to Amsterdam, so we cannot argue that we do not have access to hub airports.
Going further into the Bill, in subsection (3) the noble Lord wants to ensure “adequate services”. That is purely subjective, not the precise wording that one should be using in legislation. In the summer months, we have three services to Inverness from Gatwick; in the winter months, we have two. I do not call that an adequate service. If my noble friend Lord Attlee has to make the decision about what is an adequate service, is it three services—one in the morning, one at lunchtime and one in the evening—or one in the morning and one in the evening, as now? If I take the morning flight, I cannot come to your Lordships’ House. If I take the evening flight, I do not get home until after midnight. I do not think that is an adequate service, but if you were to ask Flybe to retain the lunchtime flight, it would put that company in jeopardy because there are not enough people taking that flight.
The real issue behind this Bill is the number of passengers who are flying. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, touched on this. Since 2007, there has been a 20% decline in UK domestic travel, not just to London airports. Does my noble friend have any comments on that when international passengers are down by 2% over the same period? Has there been an impact assessment on the effects of airport passenger duty? It has risen 160% from £5 per passenger per flight to £13 per passenger per flight. What impact has that had on tourism and on the regions? Is that a contributory factor to the decline in domestic air travel? Does my noble friend anticipate that domestic air travel will continue to decline? Does he think that airports and providers regulated by the CAA are making the right sort of return and that the CAA is therefore regulating them properly? London Gatwick, which is price-regulated, saw a 17% rise in profits in 2001-12. Is that acceptable to my noble friend? BAA saw a 15% rise in quarterly profits in the first quarter of 2012. NATS, which is a monopoly and CAA price-regulated, saw pre-tax profits rise by 119% in 2011-12. Those are costs that the airlines have to meet, and if the airlines had to meet lower costs, the price of tickets would go down, which might encourage more people to fly.
Does my noble friend Lord Attlee agree with the statement by the new owners of Gatwick that they have structured their increased charges to discriminate against smaller aircraft? Airport charges per passenger have risen from £9.72 in 2007 to £20.13 in 2012. That is a fairly crude estimate because it is a highly complicated mechanism, but there is an over 100% increase in passenger charges. Is it right that it should be on the passenger, or would my noble friend agree that it should be on the weight and size of the aircraft, which therefore does not discriminate against smaller aircraft?
These are the sort of issues that would resolve the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised. If we are going to keep open the domestic links to London—it does not have to be to London but if that is what the noble Lord wants—we need to get more people flying and to do that we need to be able to reduce the cost. Can my noble friend therefore comment on the questions I have raised?
Lord Lexden
My Lords, I was among those who declared their full support for this Bill when my noble friend Lord Empey brought it before us towards the end of the last Session. The Bill continues to deserve the fullest support.
My noble friend has shown tenacity and great skill in seeking to secure acceptance of the proposals embodied in his Bill. He has made the case for them in effective and convincing terms, both here and in the institutions of the European Union. It is, as he has explained again today, the EU which holds the principal key to progress. Without the revision of existing EU law it will be impossible for our Government, well disposed though they are to my noble friend’s proposals, to acquire the power they would need to give effect to them and so protect fully vital air services between Heathrow, our one major national hub, and all the regions if at any point the Government’s intervention should be required to prevent regional air services losing crucial landing slots at Heathrow.
Our discussions on this Bill have brought out its particular importance to Northern Ireland where satisfactory alternatives to air services simply do not exist in today’s fast-moving world. Ulster’s economic future depends on very substantial private sector growth and the concomitant reduction in the size of the very large public sector. If enterprising businessmen and women are to bring about that growth and the new jobs that will accompany it, they must be able to travel swiftly between the Province and our national hub at Heathrow as need arises. Those of us to whom the affairs of Ulster are especially important are bound to feel that point acutely. However, as my noble friend has emphasised, this is not a Bill for one particular region: it is a Bill for all regions and all parts of our country because it would confer on the Government, and through them the Civil Aviation Authority, the power to safeguard their slots at Heathrow if threats to them should arise.
Nothing is more important in our economic life today than preventing the emergence of impediments to the progress of the Government’s growth strategy. One such impediment would be the diminution or disruption of air services between the regions and Heathrow. This Bill would provide the means to deal with any such threat to our overall economic well-being and ensure that the regions retain adequate connections to Heathrow.
Incidentally, “connection” is clear, long established and well known, so why has the new, unnecessary and unattractive “connectivity” been inflicted on us in recent years? Can we not abandon it? I am sure the grandfather of my noble friend the Minister who loved short, sharp words would have disliked it profoundly. More seriously, as my noble friend has made clear, there is increasing recognition within the European Union that its existing law which constrains our Government so severely ought to be reconsidered. As he has said, this Bill coincides most fortunately with the review of EU slot regulations. It is extremely encouraging that the European Parliament has recently adopted a report on the future of regional airports and services, to which my noble friend Lord Empey alluded, produced by the Conservative MEP, Phil Bradbourn, with whom I worked some 20 years ago in a truly august body, the Conservative Political Centre where new policy ideas are brought forward for the benefit of the Tory party. He has backed an admirable policy idea in his report. It strikes exactly the right note in stating that it is,
“essential for regional airports to have access to hubs”.
Within the past few days, the issue has again come into prominence, as my noble friend Lord Empey has pointed out, with the adoption of two amendments to a Commission document moved by Jim Nicholson, a dedicated and long-standing Conservative and Unionist MEP from Northern Ireland. It is worth repeating the second, which declares that,
“it is important that access to hub airports from regional airports should be maintained where such routes are essential to the economy of that region”.
These welcome developments indicate that serious interest in change is growing within the European Union. In replying to this debate, my noble friend will no doubt tell the House what the Government are doing to encourage and foster the re-examination of existing European law by the Commission as the European Parliament continues to consider the issues. Every effort should be made to secure the revision of European law in order to create the circumstances in which the provisions of this important Bill, on which my noble friend Lord Empey has worked so hard, could be put successfully into effect. The Airports (Amendment) Bill should be given all possible support.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap. I apologise for not putting my name down. I did not think that I could be here. I find this a very interesting Bill, not least because it focuses on the issues of hub and spoke. As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, suggested, there is more than one hub in the UK. He listed Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Heathrow, but I suggest that Birmingham is an equally important hub of the future. It certainly seems to have intentions to become one. Once the sale of Stansted by BAA is complete, we will have five different airports in five different ownerships.
It seems to me that the objective of this—if there is an objective from the Government—is for the Government to do nothing about it and let the market decide, which is a good idea. Certainly, we have seen press comments that several of these airports are looking to be a so-called hub in their own right. I believe that there is a problem of suggesting that the only hub in this country is Heathrow. I think that the Government might get into trouble if they start designating slots in Heathrow but not in some other airports.
That moves me on to the designation of slots. I wonder whether that is right to do unless there is market failure. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, recently gave me a Written Answer in connection with transport to the Isle of Scilly, which is the other end of the spectrum from Northern Ireland. It has rather less population but is a similar distance from the mainland and I would suggest that it has an even worse transport system. For me, surely a market failure means no or too few services, high prices, probably a monopoly supplier and not servicing the population as they would expect—although perhaps they expect too much. If there is a market failure, there needs to be an argument for saying that the subsidy is necessary to keep a service going, which certainly in Scotland is called a lifeline service.
I am aware that there are quite a few offshore islands and regions in the European Union where lifeline services are provided, which I think are all subsidised. Certainly, some of them are subsidised in Scotland. Mostly they are ferries but a few air services are subsidised. They are allowed under EU law on the basis that the subsidising authority goes out to tender in the usual way.
However, I question whether Northern Ireland is an offshore island in the same definition as some of the Scottish islands or the Isles of Scilly. If there was a subsidised service to Northern Ireland to a hub, which hub would it go to? If I was running an airport in one of the five airports around the south-east and the subsidised service went to another one, I would probably reach for the Competition Commission and ask whether it was fair. It is a case that would have to be made. There are quite serious problems about allocating slots at a particular airport for these services without it being a subsidised service and going through the whole process of justification for it, and whether there is any other way. I shall be very interested to hear what the Minister says when he responds.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on his persistence with regard to this issue, the skill with which he has mobilised degrees of support for it and the work that he has done in Europe. He is absolutely right that one of the crucial constraining forces regarding the development of aviation is clearly the European powers. We all recognise that aviation has to have a European dimension as well as the issue of world-wide connections.
The debate has focused to an extent on slots. Let us be clear about slots. Whatever happens to slots in terms of their role in the market and developments in aviation—the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, emphasised how rapidly aviation develops and other noble Lords also made that point—we are dealing with a rapidly changing environment. That is why we should be greatly concerned that critical decisions about aviation are being postponed until the report of Sir Howard Davies after the next general election. We have already built in a three-year delay to the report. Certainly, after the report has been considered and then debated and then action is taken, in crucial areas of aviation policy we will have had a built-in delay of several years. That is bound to cost us dear.
It is a fact that slots do not increase airport capacity. We can re-jig the usage of slots. I was going to say re-jig the ownership of slots. The interesting thing about slots is the concept of ownership. It is clear that one aspect of ownership revolves around national governments, who can intervene on the issue of the public service obligation—an interventional power already existing with the Secretary of State. It is also the case that airports own the runways and the landing stages that accommodate passengers getting onto and off aircraft. Therefore, that airlines own the slots is an interesting concept. They certainly go in for a limited amount of trading and it is their actions, through mergers and so on, that give rise to very great anxieties when it is thought that the slots that they obtain through mergers may be allocated to other traffic.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, rightly identified a concern with regard to Northern Ireland but, as we heard earlier this week during proceedings on the Bill, other parts of the United Kingdom are also concerned. The concern is that services will be reduced and not increased by competition—it is difficult to see what other forms of transport are going to increase competition in Northern Ireland—as the slots controlled by the airlines may be used for more financially remunerative packages. A slot that is transferred from the region to international traffic may significantly improve the financial advantage to the airline. That is why these issues are so significant.
The Minister has had a demanding week so I will not pile too much on him on a Friday afternoon but this debate has raised acute issues with regard to aviation serving the regions. However, it is difficult to talk about Northern Ireland and its aviation needs without adding that other regions have comparable anxieties about slots. Other regions also have very real concerns about economic development. I emphasise the fact that the regions were considerably distressed by the loss of the regional development agencies which gave them some hope of attracting employers and developing employment. We all realise that in a recession the regions of the United Kingdom need help.
Northern Ireland is a very specific case as regards aviation although I accept the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, that in terms of distance and the availability of alternative forms of transport the north of Scotland also comes within this frame. What, therefore, do the Government need to do? They must address this issue urgently, not least because the amount of activity that is going on in Europe at present requires the Government to take a stance on it. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, identified, if the European Parliament and the Commission reach a position on this issue, what happens at the Council of Ministers becomes critical. The United Kingdom is an important member of the Council of Ministers so we would expect the Minister responding today to give an indication of commitment as regards the policy to be adopted.
We all recognise that aspects of the free market with regard to air travel have produced considerable benefits. We all recognise the expansion of air travel that has occurred, as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. However, we are also aware of market failure and the necessity for the Government on occasion to act intelligently and perceptively for the good of the people. That is exactly the case which the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has identified in his Bill. I hope the Minister will appreciate that in this critical area we are getting past the stage of easily postponing decisions. Time marches on and the threat to the regions from the loss of effective links with Heathrow is mounting. Therefore, the Government need to be clear about how they are going to address this issue. If they do not accept the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Empey—I guess that he is not totally optimistic of full endorsement from the government Front Bench at this stage—they ought at least to give some clear answers to the very real issues that have been raised in this debate. The Minister will have winced at those issues at times because he recognises that even on his own Benches there are conflicting views on what needs to be done. Therefore, let us have some clarity in his response.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, first, I offer sincere congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on securing a Second Reading for his Airports (Amendment) Bill, even though I am experiencing a little sense of déjà vu.
The Bill’s aims are commendable in seeking to introduce powers that would allow the Secretary of State for Transport to ring-fence take-off and landing slots at congested London airports to ensure the future protection of regional air services—in particular, to Northern Ireland and Scotland. I fully understand the noble Lord’s point about the special case of Northern Ireland, where there are not alternative means of businesses easily getting to a hub airport. In the case of Scotland we will, in future, look forward to better rail connectivity, which will make a huge difference.
We recognise that airports in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the English regions make a vital contribution to local economies and that regional connectivity is very important. I also acknowledge the noble Lord’s concern, expressed so well at Second Reading, that the provision of commercial air services is subject to market forces. Ultimately, airlines operate in a competitive, commercial environment and it is for them to determine the routes that they operate. I will say a little more on that later.
It remains possible, therefore, that airlines currently operating services from Northern Ireland and Scotland to Heathrow could, in future, decide to reduce or withdraw them and use the relevant Heathrow slots for alternative services. It has been suggested that some form of intervention is necessary to protect these essential services from commercial market pressures. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, was careful to use the words “in the event of” problems. He did not say that we necessarily have problems now but he is, as I understand it, worried about the future and future-proofing our processes.
At the moment, Northern Ireland and Scotland remain well connected to London by air. In 2011, there were more than 18,000 flights between the two Belfast airports and the five main London airports, around a third of these being between Belfast and Heathrow. I fully understand the importance of hub connectivity. These routes are well used, with nearly 2 million passenger journeys in 2011 between Belfast and London, of which more than 700,000 were between Belfast and Heathrow. Scotland is also well connected with more than 65,000 flights in 2011 between Scottish airports and the five main London airports, carrying over 6 million passengers. Of these, 26,000, which is 39%, were to or from Heathrow, carrying 2.7 million passengers. Many noble Lords will recall our debate on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, to the Civil Aviation Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Empey, contributed.
In the light of these high traffic levels, we do not believe that connectivity between London and airports in Northern Ireland and Scotland is under threat. The existing air services to Northern Ireland and Scotland act as important hub feeder services, which are necessary to support long-haul services from Heathrow. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, correctly states, world slot guidelines are determined by the International Air Transport Association and are reflected in the European regulations which govern the allocation, transfer and exchange of slots at Heathrow and other slot-co-ordinated airports in the UK. In the UK these are managed by Airport Coordination Ltd. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, touched on the issue of ownership of slots. As I understand it, the allocation of slots is based largely on historical and continuing usage.
My noble friend Lord Caithness touched on PSOs. If air services to Northern Ireland and Scotland were to become economically unviable, EU law already provides some scope to protect regional air services by allowing member states to establish a public service obligation—a PSO—to protect their services to airports serving a peripheral or development region or on low traffic routes considered vital for a region’s economic and social development. It would be open to the devolved Administrations in Northern Ireland and Scotland to apply to the Secretary of State for Transport to establish a PSO on an air route should they feel that a business and legal case could be made that satisfied the EU regulation. If approved, this would permit ring-fencing of slots at a relevant London airport. There is no other mechanism for the Government to intervene in the allocation of slots at UK airports.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, touched on the Isles of Scilly and Scotland. The same principle of public service obligations, and the restrictions on them, applies to maritime services as for air services.
Noble Lords will therefore appreciate that under European law the potential for ring-fencing slots at Heathrow to protect regional services is to be dealt with by reference to the PSO rules alone, and creating a parallel, more wide-ranging set of rules would be incompatible with EU law. The principal effect of the Bill is therefore contrary to EU regulation because it would override the strict criteria and process by which European Governments could intervene in route operations.
As indicated in the Explanatory Memorandum submitted to Parliament on the European Commission’s Better Airports package, in the context of the proposed recast of the EU slot regulations, the UK Government have highlighted the issue of regional connectivity with the European Commission and the ongoing provision of air services between congested London airports and Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, it has proved challenging to devise a mechanism to protect well trafficked, commercially viable air routes without distorting the aviation market and competition across Europe.
I am aware that the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee has been considering amendments to the recast EU slot regulation that are aimed at protecting the access of regional air services to congested EU hub airports. However, we would be concerned about any amendments that were too general in nature and which had the potential to seriously impair and distort the slot allocation system, and the secondary trading of slots, to the detriment of consumers. In particular, in the UK, the secondary trading of slots helps to ensure that they are generally put to the use which is most effective from the consumer perspective—in other words, the problem of interfering with normal commercial processes, as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Empey. We will give careful consideration to the conclusions reached and the amendments proposed by the Transport and Tourism Committee following the publication of its formal report on the slot-regulation process. I repeat my praise for the effective efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, not just in this House but in the way that he conducts his operations in Brussels. He certainly shows the way ahead.
I am pleased to say that there has been some progress on this issue. Noble Lords will recall that the sale of BMI to International Airlines Group earlier this year prompted concerns about the future of the air services operated by BMI from London to Northern Ireland, and about competition issues on routes to Scotland, where BMI operated in competition with BA. Competition issues arising from the sale were subject to investigation by the European Commission competition authority, which has jurisdiction to consider whether airline acquisitions and mergers may lead to a substantial impediment to effective competition in a substantial part of the EU. That authority concluded its investigations and granted regulatory approval on 30 March for International Airlines Group’s purchase of BMI from Lufthansa. The authority’s approval was conditional upon IAG releasing 14 daily slot pairs at London Heathrow, of which at least seven pairs must be used by other airlines for services to Edinburgh and/or Aberdeen. The European Commission is in the process of considering the bids that it has received for these slots. IAG completed the acquisition of BMI in April 2012, since which time BA has begun the process of integrating BMI schedules into its own.
In terms of BMI’s regional air services to Northern Ireland and Scotland, BA has continued to operate BMI’s existing services to Belfast, and the slots released for use on services to Aberdeen and Edinburgh will serve to maintain competition with BA on those routes. This provides reassurance that the air services to Northern Ireland and Scotland are both commercially viable and commercially attractive to airlines, and it reinforces our view that connectivity between Northern Ireland and Scotland and London airports is not under threat.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about wider aviation policy issues—I would have done exactly the same thing. More generally, perhaps I may remind the House that a key part of the Government’s approach to aviation is to seek to create the right conditions for UK airports to flourish, including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We have committed to producing a sustainable framework for UK aviation which supports economic growth and addresses aviation’s environmental impacts. We consulted over the summer on a new aviation policy framework which will set out our overall aviation strategy. The consultation closed at the end of October and around 500 responses were received. We intend to publish our policy framework next March.
We believe that maintaining the UK’s status as a leading global aviation hub is fundamental to our long-term international competitiveness. However, we are also mindful of the need to take full account of the social, environmental and other impacts of any expansions in airport capacity. We have therefore decided to establish an independent airports commission to gather evidence and provide analysis of the options. We are delighted that Sir Howard Davies has agreed to chair the commission. He brings a wealth of business and financial expertise that will be of great value to the commission’s work. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked me about the timing. The commission needs to be able to take time to give appropriate consideration to all the options for maintaining UK connectivity; a rushed decision which cuts corners and does not consider all the relevant factors will not achieve the desired end state. The airports commission will provide an interim report to the Government no later than the end of 2013 and will then publish a final report by the summer of 2015 for consideration by the Government and opposition parties. Details of the commission’s membership and its terms of reference were announced on 2 November.
My noble friend Lord Caithness slightly chided the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for running this debate yet again. I am at the disposal of your Lordships and I am happy to debate whatever noble Lords would like. My noble friend talked about the possibility of access from regional airports to continental hubs. That is a very important point and I shall come to it in a minute.
My noble friend also touched on the definition of an “adequate service”. He talked about the dangers of interfering in what are properly commercial matters for airlines. I agree with my noble friend. He also pointed out that there has been a decline in domestic air travel since 2007. As a result of the economic downturn there has indeed been a reduction in air traffic and services across the board. Ultimately, it is a matter for airlines to determine the services that they operate and from which airport, based on their own assessment of air routes viability.
My noble friend asked about airport charges. He will know that the CAA does not have legal powers to ensure that an airport’s charging structure supports wider goals such as regional policy. The CAA currently sets price caps at regulated airports and sets the maximum price per passenger that an airport operator can charge. Moreover, the structure of an airport’s charges within the regulated cap is a matter for the airport operator and its stakeholders.
My noble friend suggested the possibility of excess profits. The danger for an airport such as Gatwick is in airlines flying from a regional airport direct to a continental hub, as my noble friend pointed out earlier. However, since Gatwick was taken over, I have been very impressed with the way that that airport has operated, and I suspect that many other noble Lords share the same experience.
My noble friend touched on APD and the impact assessment, and it is probably better if I write to him about that. He also asked whether charges for commercial aircraft should be based on the numbers of passengers carried or the aircraft weight. The CAA currently sets price caps at regulated airports and sets a maximum price per passenger that airport operators can charge. As I said before, the charges within that are a matter for the airport.
My noble friend asked whether there were any other mechanisms to protect access. Any mechanisms to protect regional air services at congested hub airports would have to comply with the overarching European legislation. Also, we do not believe that traffic distribution rules are of assistance, because in practice they may be used to restrict only certain forms of traffic. They cannot be used to compel airlines to operate particular services.
If I have missed any other important points or have anything significant to add, I will of course write in the usual way. While I understand the laudable motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, in proposing his Bill, I must conclude that, on the basis that the Bill would ultimately be incompatible with current EU law, the Government will not be able to support the Bill into legislation.
Lord Empey
I am grateful to the noble Earl and to other noble Lords who contributed to the debate. His final remark is of no surprise to me, but of course my principal point is that I am trying to remove those obstacles. I welcome the fact that he said that he would look carefully at the activities in the European Parliament. I cannot expect him to do more at this stage.
The noble Earl pointed out the wishes and interests of consumers. Consumers are important. I have here a document from the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, which urges support for my colleague Mr Nicholson's amendments in the European Parliament. Indeed, it circulated a list supporting those amendments, which were subsequently accepted. The Consumer Council has been a stalwart in support of our proposals throughout this entire process. Indeed, the Minister in Northern Ireland, the regional development committee in Stormont, the CBI, IOD and other organisations have all given their support.
As the Minister said, it is not because there is any immediate threat. I do not detect an immediate threat. But that is not always the point of legislation. The point is to anticipate something that may or may not happen. Because of the coincidence with the activities in the European Parliament, the logical time to make changes seemed to be now, when the issues are running in parallel. If we let this opportunity pass and in a year or two something happens in the airline sector that we have not anticipated—and in view of the volatile nature of that sector who can tell what is around the corner—we would be left completely flat-footed in this country, with no power to intervene.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made a point about the PSO obligation existing in law. That is correct. It is Regulation 95/93, which allows a Government to consider an application for a PSO. If there is inadequate connectivity or connections between regions, a PSO could be funded. That is not the point. The Bradbourn report calls for Regulation 95/93 to be amended because, under that regulation, an airport cannot be specified, only a region.
Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, the reality is that there is one major hub airport in the United Kingdom, whether we like it or not. Other airports are aspiring to be hubs and to improve their international connections, and that is entirely understandable, but in reality, looking at it from a business point of view, trying to sell the advantages of a region around the world, business people are simply not going to go round in circles when they get to a country. As things stand in this country, Heathrow is the only significant hub airport, but it is full. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, the whole driver of the current argument about air capacity in the south-east is that Heathrow is full. Many of our European partners do not suffer from that problem. They have an easy solution; they can add a slot or two, use up some spare capacity and overcome the regional disconnect in that way. We are not so lucky in this country. So, while things may change in the future, it is currently a one-horse town as far as connectivity is concerned.
I hope that this will progress. I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for his unswerving and stalwart support, particularly of Northern Ireland’s interests in this House. I very much appreciate it, but this is not a regional, Northern Ireland Bill, it is a national Bill aimed at all regions. I ask the Minister, we talked about flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen; what would happen if they became international flights attracting grossly inflated APD levies? I wonder whether some of those advocating independence have thought that through. International flights, of course, attract a huge increase in duty; those who are advocating independence need to think very carefully about what they are suggesting, because that is the implication on air services if one travels on an international flight. A lot of these questions have not been thought through by those who seek independence.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, tried in vain to winkle out of the Minister some response on the broader aviation issues. I am sure he will keep trying; whether he succeeds or not is entirely another matter. Stonewall Jackson would have been proud of the noble Earl’s performance today. I thank noble Lords for remaining at this late stage on a Friday. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.