Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in this wide-ranging debate and would like to concentrate on issues concerning children. I declare an interest as per the register.

First, I address a matter regarding BBC children’s television and its prominence on the EPG—that is, the electronic programme guide. I am concerned that it is becoming more and more difficult to find BBC children’s programmes on new connected televisions. Believe it or not, on one new platform it takes at least 22 clicks on the remote to get from the home screen to CBBC. Parents know that BBC content for children is of the highest quality; it is entertaining as well as educational yet, worryingly, it is not easy to find on many platforms and televisions, especially for new parents. The legislation with regards to PSB UK-produced content prominence is already out of date. As my noble friends Lord Foster and Lord Storey and others have said, on one platform CBBC and CBeebies are buried beneath 14 commercial channels on the EPG, many of which predominately show American content. Will the Government commit to updating the legislation to ensure that BBC children’s content is prominent on all platforms?

I turn to children’s television provision. Recently there was the launch of Save Kids’ Content UK, and I believe that the Digital Economy Bill would be a timely and effective vehicle to introduce legislation that puts an obligation on commercial PSBs to meet quotas for children’s programming here in the UK. Historically, the Broadcasting Act 1990 required public service broadcasters to devote specific amounts of provision for children, from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. However, the Communications Act 2003 downgraded children’s content from tier 2 to tier 3 programming. This relieved commercial PSBs of their obligation to meet quantitative targets of children’s programming. This unforeseen consequence saw a dramatic decline in children’s programming, compounded in 2006 with the advertising ban on high fat, salt and sugar foods during children’s programmes. Since then, investment in children’s content over the past 10 years has collapsed by 95%. This dramatic decline has created a situation in which the BBC has the monopoly on producing children’s programming by default, because commercial PSBs are no longer obliged to commission children’s content. The recent decision of ITV to cut the role of head of children’s programming is a further sign that original children’s production will continue to fall and that foreign content and repeats will continue to rise.

We need to reverse this decline, because our children deserve to see themselves and their roles in society reflected in UK-produced programmes. Children have the right to access content that is rich in cultural terms, inspires their imagination and enriches their development. We need to create content that reflects them, their lives and their aspirations. Therefore, I believe changes to legislation, introduced through the Digital Economy Bill, in Part 6 relating to the powers for Ofcom, would give Ofcom the tools to actually improve commercial PSBs’ compliance. Will the Government consider this proposal to bring in this legislation?

I turn to Part 3 of the Bill, which covers age verification for pornographic content. As I said many times in this House, childhood lasts a lifetime. What children see and experience stays with them for ever. At the moment, some children are viewing graphic and horrific sexual images—children as young as four. So I am so pleased that the Government have tackled their manifesto commitment to,

“stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online”,

with the proposal that pornographic websites that are accessible in the UK must have age-verification measures in place. Thank goodness for that. It is something that I have campaigned for over many years, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, should be congratulated, because she has brought her Private Member’s Bills to this House asking for this legislation for years. It brings the online and offline worlds on to a level playing field. I am so pleased to see Clause 80, which was introduced on Report in the other place. It means that age verification will apply to 18-rated video on-demand pornographic material live-streamed from this country to people in this country, in just the same way as the legislation has always required that of 18-rated video on-demand pornographic material streamed into this country from sites based abroad. This introduction could not come soon enough.

I sit on the Lords Select Committee on Communications, where we are conducting an inquiry on children and the internet. I am very aware of the benefits of the internet, but also of the potential difficulties of bringing in effective regulation. However, I have become more convinced than ever—as I have read about the impacts of pornography on our children and young people, with more and more of them suffering from anxieties, depression and trauma—that we would be doing them a grave disservice not to enact the measures in Part 3 of the Bill.

We expect offline protections to restrict access to certain goods that are inappropriate for children and young people, and we should expect them in the online world as well. I commend the Government for taking this action. However, I have worries about how the Bill will be enforced. Clause 20 allows the age-verification regulator, the British Board of Film Classification, to impose fines upon non-compliant websites, which is very welcome, but I am concerned about how the Government will be able to ensure that overseas sites will pay these fines. The Bill, as drafted, does not require these providers to take any action in relation to the website, although the Government’s assumption is that they will. Will there be legal certainty in place if there was an express requirement on these providers to block payments and withdraw services? I fully support the ability of the regulator to require ISPs to block access to websites that are not following the law in the UK. ISPs can block access to sites that are in breach of UK copyright law, so why not do it to protect children? Business rights are not more important than children’s rights. So Clause 23 is to be supported.

In seeking to protect children from stumbling upon pornography, it is particularly important that social media is covered by the Bill. That is one of the primary ways in which children are exposed to pornography. There has been some debate about the scope of Clause 15 and the ancillary service providers, but it seems clear to me that social media should be covered by this. I was particularly delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, confirmed to the Lords Communications Committee on 29 November that:

“The Bill covers ancillary services. There was a question about Twitter. Twitter is a user-generated uploading-content site. If there is pornography on Twitter, it will be considered covered under ancillary services”.

Can the Minister confirm that this will be the case and also the case for all other social media, including, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram? I know that there are online issues beyond pornography that parents are concerned about, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce an amendment to ensure that family-friendly filters offered by internet service providers will continue with legal certainty. One of the central pillars of our adult content filtering regime refers to public wi-fi. Will the Minister please confirm that the amendment which the Government intend to introduce will make space for the use of adult content filters in relation to public wi-fi?

Finally, the NSPCC, CEOP, CARE, the Children’s Media Foundation and many others all believe that the internet should be a safe place for children by default in the same way that other media, and indeed life, is. The Bill is an opportunity to ensure this happens and to truly protect our children. This is going to be an important debate on the future of child protection in the online world. We are world leaders in putting protection in place for children; the world is watching us and will follow suit. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on the Bill.