Written Statements

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

Friday 25 February 2022

Online Safety

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

The Government recognise the impact that online abuse, including anonymous abuse, has on people and their online experience. Too many people experience online abuse and protecting users is a priority for this Government.

The Online Safety Bill introduces vital new protections from online abuse. The legislation will require all companies in scope to manage the risk of criminal abuse effectively, including anonymous abuse, on user-to-user services. Companies will need to assess the functionality of anonymous and pseudonymous profiles and the role they play in allowing illegal abuse and mitigate the risk associated with such functionality.

All services likely to be accessed by children will also have to put in place appropriate measures to protect children from cyber-bullying and other forms of abuse, whether anonymous or not.

Category 1 companies—those which are high risk and high reach—will also have to set out clearly what abusive content they accept on their platform for adults and have effective systems in place to enforce their terms and conditions.

The Government recognise concerns that have been raised by the Joint Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, alongside the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the Petitions Committee and others regarding the impact of online abuse and ensuring users have more control over whom they interact with online, while protecting the right of individuals to be anonymous if they choose. We thank the committees and campaigners for their scrutiny of the Online Safety Bill.

As a result, I am pleased to announce that we will strengthen the duties in the Online Safety Bill by adding two new additional duties on category 1 companies to provide adults with optional user verification and user empowerment tools.

The user verification duty will require category 1 companies to provide their adult users with an option to verify their identity. Ofcom will set out in guidance how companies can fulfil this new duty and the verification options companies could use. In developing this guidance, Ofcom must ensure that the possible verification measures are accessible to vulnerable users and consult the Information Commissioner, as well as vulnerable adult users and technical experts.

The user empowerment tools duty will require category 1 companies to provide tools to give adults more control over whom they interact with and the legal content they see. Under the proposed new duty, for harmful content that category 1 companies do allow, they would have to provide users with the tools to control what types of harmful content they see. This could include, for example, content on the discussion of self-harm recovery which may be tolerated on a category 1 service but which a particular user may not want to see.

In addition to the existing provisions in the Bill, the new duties will help provide robust protections for adults, including vulnerable adults, while protecting freedom of expression online.

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UN Negotiations: Ocean Biodiversity

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)]

My noble Friend the Minister for the Pacific and the International Environment (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) has made the following written ministerial statement:

The fourth intergovernmental conference to negotiate an international legally binding instrument under the UN convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction—known in short as the BBNJ agreement—takes place at the UN in New York from 7 to 18 March 2022.

The BBNJ agreement will be an important step forward in ocean governance, building on existing obligations in UNCLOS to protect the marine environment. Formal negotiations on a draft agreement have been underway since 2018. This conference, originally scheduled for March 2020, had to be postponed due to covid restrictions. It will be a key moment for delegations to regroup in person to make progress. This will be challenging in the time available. In a lengthy draft text of more than 70 articles, with many square bracketed options, plus more than 400 pages of alternative text proposals from delegations, there are still a number of key points of divergence in positions.

The mandate for negotiations is set out in UN General Assembly Resolution 72/249 of 24 December 2017. The resolution mandates the negotiations to address the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. The elements of the package to be negotiated are: marine genetic resources, including questions on the sharing of benefits; area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (MPA); environmental impact assessments and capacity-building; and the transfer of marine technology. The resolution also reaffirms that the work of the conference and the agreement should be fully consistent with the provisions of UNCLOS and should not undermine the work of the existing ocean governance bodies. The conference is the final round of negotiations envisaged in the resolution.

The UK is keen to see an ambitious agreement concluded in 2022. Of particular importance are provisions that would enable the establishment of MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

This is important to help to achieve the target to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030, championed by the UK-led Global Ocean Alliance ahead of the upcoming 15th conference of parties to the convention on biological diversity. We also recognise the need to give better effect to UNCLOS commitments on capacity building for, and technology transfer to, developing countries. We understand the need to share the benefits of research into marine genetic resources and are keen to see greater international collaboration and the open sharing of scientific knowledge. The agreement must respect the freedom in UNCLOS for all states to conduct marine scientific research on the high seas, and should not create barriers to such research.

Negotiations will take place at senior official level and the UK delegation is led by the FCDO, working closely with DEFRA, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the National Oceanography Centre, the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Defence and the Natural History Museum. In the last two years of informal intersessional work, the UK has participated in online dialogues organised by the IGC President, Ambassador Rena Lee of Singapore, and in high seas dialogues organised by Belgium, Costa Rica, Monaco and the High Seas Alliance, and has also co-hosted a number of other workshops to build understanding.

The Prime Minister announced the UK’s membership of the High Ambition Coalition on BBNJ at the One Ocean summit organised by France on 11 February. We hope that the coalition will give political impetus to the negotiations and will press coalition members to deliver on their commitments.

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Singapore Negotiations

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I have today signed a ground-breaking digital trade agreement with Singapore.

The DEA represents the most ambitious package of provisions on digital trade we have agreed to date. It will serve as a model for such agreements in future, cementing the UK’s place as a world leader in digital trade.

The nature of digital trade and the digital economy means that the DEA is about far more than tech firms, valuable as the contribution they make to the UK economy undoubtedly is. Whether it is through opening digital markets, promoting the free flow of trusted data, or slashing red tape through overhauling outdated paper-based processes, digital trade has the potential to turbocharge UK exports and deliver benefits to businesses and consumers across the whole UK economy, from offices in Dundee to living rooms in Derbyshire and factory floors in Devon.

More detail will be set out in the explanatory memorandum that will accompany the laying of the text before Parliament, but key benefits of the deal include:

Supporting UK businesses to access Singapore’s digital markets. Digitally-delivered services made up around 70% of UK-Singapore services trade in 2019, and this deal will help grow our trade in this area.

Cutting red tape by supporting the overhaul of outdated, paper-based trading systems. For example, the agreement contains specific commitments around maintaining legal frameworks that enable the digitisation of trade documents.

Keeping our country and citizens safe through deepening our partnership with Singapore in areas such as cybersecurity, as well as promoting the importance of online consumer protection and personal data protection.

The DEA will also support our bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), joining Singapore and 10 other vibrant trading nations. Membership would mean access to a £8.4 trillion free trade area with some of the biggest and fastest- growing markets in the world.

Following signature of the agreement today, it will shortly be laid before Parliament, in line with usual practice, after which it will also be published online. I expect the agreement to come into force later this year once both the UK and Singapore have completed our respective domestic procedures.

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Transport

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)]

Further to my statement to the House on 21 February 2022, I am updating the House on a new extraordinary funding settlement between Transport for London and the Government which expires on 25 February. I have agreed with the Mayor of London a new settlement to 24 June 2022.

This new settlement demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to supporting the capital, while balancing the interests of the national taxpayer. It provides Transport for London with £200 million of emergency funding as it recovers from the pandemic and continues to work towards financial sustainability. It also continues the Government’s commitment to cover fare revenues lost due to the pandemic. Together, this takes the Government’s overall contribution to close to £5 billion, on top of an ongoing annual capital commitment of just over £1 billion through the spending review, in line with previous levels of funding.

Furthermore, the Government recognise the need for certainty and stability in Transport for London’s capital investment programme. The Government are therefore willing to consider a longer-term capital settlement for Transport for London, which we intend to agree before the start of the next financial year. This will be on the condition that Transport for London co-operates fully and openly with the Government and provides sufficient information and data about its capital investment plans.

Transport for London needs to ensure that it is both financially sustainable in the short to medium term and in good financial health in the long term, ensuring good value for money for the UK taxpayer. Within this next funding period the Mayor has agreed to: prepare a plan setting out options to realise operating cost savings, up to and including £400 million in 2022-2023; progress with consultation on the options he has identified to raise between £0.5 billion and 1 billion per annum of additional revenue from 2023; deliver against TFL’s accelerated modernisation plan and make significant progress in moving the pension fund into a financially sustainable position.

Transport is devolved to the Mayor of London. It is therefore for him alone to take responsibility for the decisions needed to return TfL to financial sustainability. The Government will continue to work with the Mayor and TfL to ensure London’s transport system delivers for local citizens and businesses and contributes to the country’s economic recover. At all times the Government will continue to balance our obligations to the national transport network as a whole and to provide value for money for the taxpayer.

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