Digital Platforms: Impact on Democracy

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I am happy to agree with my noble friend that we should accept the result of the recent election.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

The United Kingdom is home to ground-breaking domestic legislation—such as the recently passed age-appropriate design code and the upcoming online harms Bill—that seeks to protect children online. However, the protections that these measures offer are at risk from an aggressive lobbying effort that is leveraging the US-UK trade negotiations and might undermine our domestic regulation. In doing so, it is undermining promises made to an electorate who have voted repeatedly for a Government who have promised to protect children online. This is in a context where today, right across the BBC, we see programming highlighting the risks to children online, including a 50% rise in child sexual abuse material during Covid. What steps is the DCMS taking to ensure that UK children are protected in the US-UK trade talks, and will the Minister be willing to liaise with the Secretary of State for Trade so that I and other concerned parliamentarians can put the case clearly for a carve-out in the trade deal to protect UK children from online harms?

[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, protecting children online is perhaps the greatest priority in our online harms legislation. Obviously, we are working very hard to understand the interaction between our trade policy and our online harms policy in future trade agreements, but we stand by our online harms commitment and nothing in the US trade deal will affect that. I am more than happy to do my best to liaise with colleagues in the Department for International Trade, as the noble Baroness suggests.