Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Brinton

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

Very briefly, I shall build on the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We are often obsessed with a view of what is normal, as if in every classroom in the land all children come from a traditional, normal background. I know from the children whom I come across daily in schools that they know from their own experience that their friends come from single-parent families, whether through bereavement, divorce, separation, kinship carers, foster parents and, yes, children of civil partnerships. Some children know that they were born by IVF and have more than two parents. The father of one child I know married the woman who had first been his mother-in-law, and later she became his step-sister-in-law before becoming his wife. That is something to do with family values in the 21st century.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the value of a stable relationship is absolutely key—and that is what the research should be looking at. The research quoted from Cambridge already demonstrates that there is really strong evidence in that sort of same-sex relationship.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am building again on the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. There is no need to attach this amendment to this Bill. The Secretary of State is already bound to provide guidance to teachers under all circumstances, and will do so with regard to this Bill in the right and appropriate manner. This is not the way to do it. The amendment is not appropriate, as noble Lords can see if they read it themselves that the research is commissioned in this Bill.

Online Safety Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Brinton

Friday 9th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, I am pleased and honoured to be speaking on behalf of my party at the end of this important debate, held after a week or so during which the safety of our children, both online and off, has been in the headlines and in all our thoughts. I should begin by declaring an interest as a proud and newly recruited champion of the Internet Watch Foundation, an example of successful UK self-regulation on criminal child sexual abuse content. Happily, that is not our concern here today.

I also need to put on the record that my husband, John Carr, who has already been referred to in this debate, is, among other things, an adviser to the United Nations on exactly these issues. He sits on the UK Government’s principal advisory body, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. On behalf of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, for which the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, was speaking, he is pro bono secretary. He spoke at the seminar held by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and gave evidence to Claire Perry MP’s excellent all-party inquiry concerning online protections. It is not often that one has a declaration of interests concerning one’s partner that is larger than one’s own but in this case I felt that it was important to put those things on the record.

Noble Lords have a right to assume that my contribution today should be technically competent but the views I express are on behalf of the Labour Party. We need to see this Bill in the context of a fast-moving world. The first time I spoke in your Lordships’ House about the internet and child safety was over 10 years ago and my speech concerned the then unfamiliar crime of grooming children on the internet, the dangers that that posed and the problems associated with chatrooms. That was long before the days of Facebook. As technology moves on, as well as providing everyone with new and wonderful opportunities in the online world, including our young people, it poses new challenges, particularly regarding their safety. There are many ways that technology is present in our lives.

Like the right reverend Prelate, I am not a techno wizard but, for example, I watched the American presidential election results by taking the BBC coverage on my iPod to bed and having my BlackBerry at hand for those essential texts with a daughter in Cambodia, a son in Brussels and a husband in Azerbaijan at the Internet Governance Forum this week, to keep them in the picture. I was the political information hub for my family for the night. I shared tweets with friends in America who were on the spot and I saw the newly elected President’s tweet announcing his victory.

This was all possible because of one wi-fi connection in my home. As my noble friend Lord Harris said, in a home with children of different ages there will be many devices. There could be a digital TV that is internet-enabled, several laptops, iPads, iTouches, a desktop computer, games consoles, BlackBerrys, smart phones and other mobile devices. I recently saw an article which suggested that in many family homes today it is not at all unusual to find 18 or more appliances connected to the internet.

So while we hope and want every parent to pay attention to what their child or young person is doing online, the reality is that this may not happen for any number of reasons many of which have already been mentioned. Indeed, online safety is not a one-off event. It is not something that a parent does and then forgets about. Whatever the technical solutions, we still need parents to engage on an ongoing basis. But what about the families where no amount of outreach to parents and no amount of media literacy work is ever going to have any impact? What if the parents in question do not even read or understand the English language?

What the noble Baroness’s Bill proposes is to make that process easier, better, surer, because it automatically removes from the equation material that, by common consent, should not be there in the first place for younger users. It demands that a technical solution be found to help with this problem, as well as the important issues mentioned in Clause 3. As many noble Lords have said, this is a huge and growing problem. A company that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, has already referred to called MetaCert recently produced a free application that blocks only pornography sites that can be accessed via an iPad. The fact that startled me was that they found over 640 million pages to block containing porn, some of which would be hard core.

The Wolak Mitchell and Finekhor research shows that that 42% of 10 to 17 year-olds were exposed to online pornography and 37% of 16 to 17 year-old boys are visiting adult sites. Some of them will become addicted to pornography. I know some will say, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, that this is the natural curiosity of a pubescent young man. In the past, we would all have recognised this as being a top-shelf matter. Indeed, noble Lords smiled as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned his own curiosity.

It is a very different matter today. It is a very different thing if the top shelf and publications that would not be on the top shelf—that would have to be accessed in brown paper envelopes from places in Soho that would not be easily available— are in your son’s and your daughter’s bedrooms on a screen available to them at any time. They are on the iPad that they may take and share with their friends. If one puts that together with the fact that Ofcom recently reported that a third of 3 and 4 year-olds now have access to internet-enabled devices, what price the media literacy of that age group? We all have a responsibility here. That is why, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, all the children’s organisations strongly support this Bill. I understand that CEOP and many experts support the thrust of this Bill.

I do not intend to explore the different technical ways of achieving the Bill’s objective as outlined in Clause 1, but ask the Minister two questions. Are the Government in favour of the principle of establishing age verification as the basis for allowing access to adult content on the internet in any and all environments? Should such a policy be seen as migrating to the virtual world the practices almost universally accepted and understood in the real world, for example, in relation to sex shops and cinemas?

This Bill contains a simple proposition: all internet access providers should restrict the availability of adult content on the internet to persons who have been verified as being 18 or above. It is now the case, with only one exception, that all the mobile phone companies have been blocking adult content on a voluntary basis since 2004 for all their pay-as-you-go phones because, as noble Lords will be aware, they are the ones most commonly used by children and young people.

If all the UK’s major wi-fi providers intend not to allow any adult content on any of the services they provide to the public—for example, in railway stations, hotels or, as my noble friend Lady Massey explained, in Starbucks coffee houses and other places, many of which will not even allow an age verification option—the adult bar will be fixed. Therefore, it will soon be impossible for anyone out and about to access adult content online on a mobile, either at all or without going through an age verification process. The only place where this will not apply will be the home. The only place where pornography and other adult content will be easily accessible to children and young people will be in their home. I cannot see that that is right. Does the Minister agree with our analysis on this matter?

I invite the Government to join us in welcoming this Bill and the principle it contains. I call on the Minister to declare his support for the principle behind the Bill—that adult content on the internet should be restricted to adults and a way must be found to make that happen. I am surprised by some of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I respectfully suggest that she may be out of date in the technology that is available and the anecdotes that she told the House. As other noble Lords have said, this is such a problem that I would be surprised if she were saying on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches that they think the status quo is adequate, because I do not think that anybody else in the House would agree with them on that matter.

[Baroness Brinton]

I intervene to clarify things. I did not say that my party thinks the status quo is satisfactory and I made that very clear during my speech. I hope that the noble Baroness will see that when she looks at Hansard tomorrow. I also make clear that some of the anecdotes that I have raised are contemporary, particularly the ones about Stonewall and schools.

[Baroness Thornton]

I obviously accept that the noble Baroness is not speaking on behalf of her party and I find that a great relief.

[Baroness Brinton]

I am sorry to intervene again but that is not what I said. I said that the point of my speech was to make it clear that there are problems with the Bill, not that we think that the status quo needs to remain the same.

[Baroness Thornton]

That underlines my relief. I am very relieved to hear that that is indeed the case. We all know that there are legitimate questions about how it will be implemented or how it might work, but today I am seeking a commitment about the desirability of the principle, which seems to me crystal clear and correct.

Like others, I am aware that this Government have been concerned about this issue and have not been inactive. I know that the Prime Minister himself has often expressed very firm views about this matter. However, we know that solving this is not straightforward. There are possibly, on my count, at least five or six government departments involved in the policy development. Obviously, the Department for Education is involved as it has responsibility for children and education, possibly the Department of Health, which has an interest in safeguarding nought to five year-olds under the new arrangements in the Health Act; the Home Office, the Justice Department, the DCMS—hence the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, is replying to the debate on behalf of that department—and BIS because of the business interests concerned. If I have left anyone out I apologise, but that, indeed, is why government has to act and why I am going to conclude with the following suggestions and requests.

Like my noble friend Lady Massey, I want specifically to say that I am aware that in Summer 2011 the “big four” ISPs—that is BT, Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk—gave the Prime Minister a specific undertaking to implement active choice before October 2012: that is, before the end of last month. I think that they reiterated their pledge at a special summit which the Prime Minister called in Downing Street. I would like to know whether they have done what they have promised. In particular, I would like to know what each company is doing in relation to active choice for new and existing customers. The House needs to know what each company is doing to assist in relation to wi-fi routers in the homes where their customers live. In other words, will there be any way that their solutions will help to ensure that the controls parents might set on the PC or main device also automatically work in relation to all other devices using the same connection, or do the poor parents have to go through the same routine on every single device in their home? These are important matters germane to the progress of this Bill. If the Minister does not have this information to hand, I would be very happy for him to write to me and copy his answer to all noble Lords who have spoken today. My noble friend Lord Harris is absolutely correct, the Government appear to be dithering on this matter and they need to stop doing so.

We on these Benches call on the Government to get on with making online protection of children happen. If not in this Bill, can I have a cast iron assurance from the Government that they will establish a working party or a task force, as called for by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, to report back within six months on the practicalities and technicalities of how adult content on the internet can be restricted to adults and how that might be implemented?

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and look forward to working with them on the Bill.