Children: Sexual Abuse

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, on securing this important debate. One of the challenges presented by the horror of child sex abuse pertains to the way in which it is growing, not just in its extent but also in its definition. There was a time when one thought of child sex abuse narrowly in terms of physical acts committed by an adult in relation to a child. While child sex abuse of that kind continues, it is also manifest in other ways, and in the brief time available to me this evening I will look at the public policy challenge of how best to address these more novel forms of child sex abuse.

New means of communication, principally the internet and mobile phones, play a key role. In recent years children and young people have started to use their mobile phones to take pictures of themselves or others naked and then to text those images to others or distribute them through new social media. This practice, called “sexting”, is hugely damaging. One can gain some appreciation of the problem by examining the Children’s Commissioner’s recent literature review on the subject, Basically... porn is everywhere, which is a deeply disturbing document.

Among other things, the report highlights studies demonstrating that between 4% and 17% of young people have sent or received “sexts” or have posted self-generated images online. I have references to them in my notes. Crucially, the report makes it very plain that such images can be taken and/or disseminated as part of bullying, or their discovery may lead to bullying. This may also lead to threats or blackmail, or may be posted to or shared by paedophile chat sites. Also, according to one of my sources, Wolf, online distribution of material generated via sexting has the potential to lead to self-harm and/or suicide.

Just because sexting and associated cyberbullying do not necessarily involve physical contact and may be committed by children on children as well as by adults on children, it does not follow that these practices, when they involve people under 18, are anything other than a new form of child sex abuse. If we are to have an adequate public policy response to child sex abuse, we must engage with sexting and associated cyberbullying. The truth is that these behavioral abuses of the otherwise wonderful potential that the internet has to offer can only be addressed through challenging and educating.

This is one of the two central provisions of my Online Safety Bill which is currently awaiting its Second Reading in your Lordships’ House. Clause 4 places an obligation on internet service providers and mobile phone operators to make customers aware of internet and mobile safety issues, which include the online behavioural challenges of sexting and cyberbullying. Clause 5, meanwhile, places an obligation on the Secretary of State to provide parents with education materials about online safety, including sexting and cyberbullying, to help them speak to and teach their children about such challenges. I would like to know what the Government plan to do to help parents engaging with this key educational challenge, and I hope that the Minister will enlighten us when he replies.

We then turn to another crucial issue: to what extent are we prepared to do what we can to help ensure that children do not stumble on legal but entirely inappropriate adult sexual content online? Knowing what we do about the development of the brains of children with respect to sexual images, I firmly believe that there is a real sense in which a culture that chooses not to invest appropriate resources on preventing children from accessing such material is itself guilty of a form of child sex abuse. While we may not yet have the public policy tools to provide complete safety for children online, I believe that at any given time we should do everything that it is technologically possible to do to protect children from stumbling upon such images.

If we pass on this opportunity, we ourselves are guilty of allowing a form of abuse. That is why Clause 1 of my Bill requires internet service providers and mobile phone operators to provide service users with an internet service that is free from inappropriate adult sexual and violent content at the point of purchase but with the option for anyone to access such material, subject to their opting in and going through a verification process demonstrating that they are 18 or over.

I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister on taking on this issue and, in particular, on his 22 July NSPCC speech in which he addressed both the availability of illegal child sex abuse images online and the current ease with which children can access legal but inappropriate adult content online. He has shown real leadership on the issue and for this I thank him. However, I gently suggest that his phrase, “Nothing is more important than this”, with which I completely agree, sits rather oddly alongside his refusal to introduce legislation in deference to the industry's desire for self-regulation. Self-regulation may sound very fine but it is worth remembering that it was tried before when seeking to engage with the great child rights challenges of the past. In 1847 any aspiration for self-regulation of the factories had to be abandoned in favour of a statute, and no one questions the wisdom of that now. I suspect that we will come, sooner or later, to the realisation that we require legislation—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but I remind her—

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

I am just finishing. We will come to the realisation that we require legislation to address the problems that I have outlined and that in the future those looking back would be incredulous that we ever dared think otherwise.

Probation Services: Outsourcing

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements will be made for the recall of those on licence who breach the conditions of that licence, in the event of the outsourcing of probation services.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the Government are committed to tackling rates of reoffending, which remain too high. The Transforming Rehabilitation consultation, which closed on 22 February, sets out our proposals for revolutionising the way we rehabilitate offenders and we are currently considering the responses. We have proposed that providers will be obliged to report material breaches of community orders, suspended sentence requirements and licence conditions to the public sector, which will then advise the court or the Secretary of State. We are absolutely clear that relationships between the public sector and contracted providers are vital to make the reformed system work effectively.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I thank the Minister for that interesting Answer. As the Government are currently saying that the probation service would recall, but the private sector will supervise on a day-to-day basis, how would the service get the proper information to decide whether a recall to custody is justified? Would not such a system be open to legal challenge on the ground that the probation service was not involved in the day-to-day supervision and was therefore not in a position to recall?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the public sector will continue to play a vital role in probation. This is about bringing together the voluntary community sector, the public sector and the private sector to ensure that rehabilitation works. While money has been spent on probation, a total of £800 million of the £3 billion budget, the results in terms of the effectiveness of probation have not been what we had hoped. I believe that this revolutionising agenda provides the right pathway for bringing together the three different sectors. However, the public sector will retain overall responsibility.