Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Kennedy of Shaws and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I support this amendment, which has been brilliantly introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and we have heard some very strong and emotional speeches in favour of it. It is quite obvious that the internet is a most incredible thing. I cannot imagine what the past year would have been like—and, of course, this year and all years into the future—without the connectivity that the internet has given us when life could have been extremely lonely.

At the same time, the internet can be a very dangerous place because the dominant companies have the most incredible amount of power. This small but crucial amendment would go a long way towards protecting our children. With the USA, it is obviously even more important that we have these sorts of protections, not just because those companies think that anyone over 13 is not a child any more but because they have a strategic interest in disassembling regulations from other countries, which is to maintain their dominance in this area.

This Government like to use moral panic to justify all sorts of legislation—repressive legislation, I would call it—using censorship and spying to further their aims. They cannot have that in only one direction. The same logic must support this amendment, to protect children from the darkest corners of the internet.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too support this revised amendment. Like everyone else, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who is a true reforming pioneer. Her ground-breaking work both domestically and internationally in seeking protective regulation for children really goes before her. She has been combating the hugely damaging impact of social media on children’s lives and has been at the forefront in creating a code of standards for child-sensitive design in technology and so on. Here is an area where, because of her persuasive skills, the UK really is leading the world. I hope that it will continue to do so and be at the vanguard of protecting children.

There is increasing recognition of the addictive nature of social media; probably most of us suffer from it in relation to our constant need to check our emails and our inability to function without our iPhones, so we know the nature of this particular development. For young people at an important stage in their psychological development, the harm can have very long-term effects and be especially damaging. I sit on the human rights advisory council for one of the big American tech companies, and not one of the people who lead those companies would let their children have the kind of access to the internet that so many of our young have. They put restrictions on their children having phones; they do not allow them usually until they are well into their teens; they put limits on their app use once they are 15 and 16, and they demand a handover of the phone in the evenings after supper so that they do not take it to bed and stay up all night linked in to other people.