Independent Pornography Review

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Russell of Liverpool

Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

We are working with Ofcom on the requirement to introduce age-appropriate protections. A number of businesses are already beginning to do that, as I am sure the noble Lord knows. Our task is not to find the technology, which I believe is already out there; it is to make sure we have a standardised system that runs across all businesses and social media sites, so that people can be assured the same rules are being applied across the piece, rather than individual companies introducing their own age-assurance and age-protection requirements. I would like to think that it is not a technological bar we are confronting.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, a great deal of the efforts of those of us involved in the passage of the Online Safety Act were focused on safeguarding children. Given that primary school children onwards can easily access the internet and online pornography, and given that research shows that one in eight pieces of pornography is actively violent, and eight and nine year-olds are seeing that, will the Government please recognise this issue and take action? I do not want to be asking this question again in a year’s time.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right about that. However, I reassure him that Ofcom has robust enforcement powers that will be available to use against companies that do not fulfil their duties to take action against these sites. The frustration is, in part, because not all aspects of the Online Safety Act have been introduced yet; some are not coming onstream until next year. But I like to think that once all the elements of the Act are introduced, we will have a robust system. As I have said, if gaps appear we will take action to try to fill them. It is not our intention to have an incomplete range of legislative tools to tackle what, as the noble Lord says, is a very important threat to our country.