Online Safety Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Thornton and Lord Swinfen
Baroness Thornton
I am sorry but the Minister needs to address the issue—and I hope he will do so—of parents who do not know how to take action, who cannot do so or do not speak English, and the issue of children in care. Millions of children are accessing the internet in many different ways, often not with their parents present. The Government have to take this on board. How serious does this have to get before they realise that parents need some assistance?
Lord Swinfen
My Lords, all people in cars, including children, have to be strapped in with a seat belt. The Government have made it illegal not to do so. We are asking the Government to provide a safety belt to protect children on the internet.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I understand the points that have been made. I have also made it clear that I understand the importance of keeping children safe online. However, I think we differ in terms of the way in which we go forward. Perhaps noble Lords will allow me to continue because I have some issues to point out concerning the controls.
Industry partners in UKCCIS are committed to putting in place filters which will see adult content blocked on more than 96% of public wi-fi. All UK mobile operators block adult content. Leading laptop and PC manufacturers, including Toshiba, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, and Tesco, and also high street retailers Argos, John Lewis and Dixons Group are delivering solutions, which prompt the set up of parental controls on start-up or at point of sale, with Argos offering free filtering software. Industry-led solutions, designed with customers in mind, will, I believe, achieve a better outcome for parents and children than legislation could. However, we are not complacent. There is more that can be done and is being done.
I now want to focus on education, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and others. In education, 96% of primary schools and 73% of secondary schools teach e-safety, either as separate lessons or embedded in others. It is part of the statutory ICT curriculum and it also forms part of tutor sessions and personal social and health education—PSHE—lessons. Ofcom’s research shows that 87% of parents agree that their children have been taught to use the internet safely. In upskilling children and parents in partnership with Childnet and the Safer Internet Centre, all ISPs have developed video tutorials, demonstrating how to install and set up parental controls, available on the Safer Internet Centre website from December 2012. Many initiatives are in place. For example, TalkTalk has developed an internet safety badge for the Girl Guides; BT operates internet safety workshops for parents; Sky has built a social networking and cyber-bullying module for school children where they can create their own Sky News reports; and Facebook works with CEOP, the Samaritans, the UK Safer Internet Centre and the Internet Watch Foundation to deliver training and provide support for users, teachers and parents. I was also interested to hear from my noble friend Lady Benjamin her considered views on the importance of education of children and parents in managing online sites, which is the approach that we are taking.
I should also like to focus on the issue of vulnerable children, to which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, alluded in one, if not two, of her questions to me. There is always more to be done. Several noble Lords have raised the issue of vulnerable children and this is an area of concern. Regardless of the options available to them, there are some chaotic homes where parents may be absent, uncaring or simply incapable of taking steps to protect their children online. In those circumstances, children may also be at risk of other forms of neglect or abuse and we must ensure that such children are first protected from these more serious threats through the existing safeguarding mechanisms that schools, health workers and social services so crucially provide.
The specific online risk to children in vulnerable circumstances is an area that UKCCIS is exploring, which the board will need to consider how to take forward. I do not think a blanket regulatory approach to protect a minority of children is the way forward. Ofcom’s research shows that almost 80% of parents of children aged five to 15 have rules in place about their children’s internet usage and almost half—that is 46%—have parental controls installed in the home. Clearly, we need targeted solutions for vulnerable children.
I now turn to some of the issues raised in the debate. In terms of an overarching comment, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the Bill was not 100% perfect, but it was a step in the right direction. I have noted that. The work that UKCCIS has been doing goes much further than the Bill. It takes a holistic approach to protecting children, working to implement parental controls at device level as well as at ISP level. It is working to educate children and parents and working with service providers, manufacturers and high street retailers such as Tesco, Argos and John Lewis.
I should like to address some of the issues from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, who has done so much work on the subject of online violence, focusing on pornography and the importance of protecting the young. I was alarmed to hear her comments about BT and Starbucks, which we will certainly be following up to find out what can be done to resolve that.
The UKCCIS work on increasing the awareness and availability of parental controls has been focused on preventing access to all types of harmful content, not just pornography. It includes violence, drug misuse, cyber bullying, extremism and the promotion of criminal skills, suicide and eating disorders.
I realise that many questions have come out of this interesting debate. If I have not been able to answer any, particularly on age verification, I will certainly make it a point to reply to noble Lords.