OFCOM (Duty regarding Prevention of Serious Self-harm and Suicide) Bill [HL]

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, first I will apologise for being late to this debate—five seconds, according to the annunciator. AI assisted me in getting here, because my Fitbit is synced to my phone and there was a message from the Whips saying, “Get in here fast”, so I got here as quickly as I could. Clearly, the previous Private Member’s Bill moved rather swiftly. This one is very important, as are all Private Members’ Bills, and it necessitates a lot of reflection.

This morning, I would like to take noble Lords back to an earlier era, long before the internet. From looking around the Chamber, I think most but not all noble Lords remember life before the internet.

I want to tell your Lordships a story about Eileen. Eileen was 11 when her father died, and she was very close to her father. She was 17 when her eldest sister died; it was a sudden and unfortunate death, and Eileen descended into difficulties with mental health and anorexia. The anorexia persisted from the age of 17 until she was 40. She married and had a child, so she managed to function, but, at some point, the daughter came home to find that her mother had been taken to hospital with an overdose. It was never clear to the daughter whether the overdose was intentional or not. Her mother survived and, at that point, got appropriate treatment.

Fast forward almost 40 years. When the mother was lying on her deathbed with COPD, caused by chronic smoking and addiction, she apologised to the daughter, and by extension to her ex-husband, for the difficulties that she had put her family through. She said, “I knew I wasn’t going mad, but I felt as if I was going mad. The only way I could cope, until I saw a psychiatrist who knew how to help me, was by waiting, counting the minutes until I could have my next cigarette.” In those days, there was no internet, just television and film advertisements for the tobacco industry, which was legal but clearly harmful. This is about addiction.

If Eileen had been born in the age of the internet, she would not have been waiting for the next cigarette, which she would light herself. She would have been impacted by internet sites and algorithms because, as soon as she started seeing things on the internet, there would be a push factor. You need to look at only one internet site for the algorithms to kick in.

Before the debate, I looked at academic research on eating disorders and the internet. I randomly clicked on a report from 2012. The author, Dr Emma Bond from the then University Campus Suffolk—which is not a campus I had heard of—produced a report funded by the Nominet Trust that looked at only 126 websites that are pro-ED and pro-ana. “Pro-ana” internet sites support anorexia. They do not support victims of anorexia or purport to help young people who have anorexia; they glorify anorexia and eating disorders. That was a study into 126 websites 10 years ago, but that was not the sum total of relevant websites; these were only the websites that did not have passwords or were not in the dark web. These were easily available, open-source internet sites.

We have all heard of Molly Russell and the cases that my noble friend Lady Benjamin referred to earlier. The internet can be a source of good or it can be a source of real difficulty for people—those who are most vulnerable or are at risk of addiction. The algorithms are potentially very dangerous, so it is incredibly important to put this legislation on the statute books. I know from the Library briefing that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has suggested that her Private Member’s Bill could also be taken up as an amendment to the Online Safety Bill. If that were possible, it would be welcome. Perhaps the Minister could explain whether the Government are open to such an amendment.

Before I sit down, I should declare the interest that Eileen was my mother.