Children: Online Safety

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

I can understand my noble friend’s extreme concern about this issue, but it is the case that anything that is illegal offline is also illegal online. On his point about the self-regulatory environment that we have been encouraging—and great progress has been made—with the technological advances in this whole sector, we need to be ahead of the game. That is why we are working to get the internet service providers to be part of the teams, to ensure that the problems to which my noble friend has referred are matters of the past.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful for the progress that the Government have made in protecting children online. Education is also a very important part of the solution, along with default filtering. Will the Minister set out the Government’s new plans to improve online safety education in schools and say when these plans will commence?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, education of children and, I have to say, parents clearly is absolutely key to a successful resolution. Therefore, as part of the reforms to the national curriculum, from September this year e-safety will be taught as part of computing at all four key stages, which apply to pupils from the ages of five to 16. The internet child safety organisations have been playing a very big part in helping to formulate how the computing curriculum is arranged.