Online Safety Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Borwick and Lord Cormack
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to be able to add my congratulations to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. She has been a doughty campaigner throughout her life on a number of causes. I remember our early involvement together when she was campaigning for what became the Equality Act and she then came to be the first deputy chairman of the commission for equality. She has served this country extremely diligently and very effectively for a very long time. I am glad to have been associated with her in a number of her endeavours. This is not the least of her services that she is performing for her country and for this House today. She has introduced with great clarity a Bill that is clearly needed.
However, I want to reflect on a number of things which give me extra cause for concern. My two sons grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s. My grandchildren have grown up—over the past 16 years in the case of the eldest of them; I have others of 14, 10 and eight—and I worry very much for them. Perhaps the worst that we could get up to when I was growing up, as I mentioned in Grand Committee the other week, was to smoke a surreptitious Woodbine behind the bike shed—it was so disgusting that I have not smoked since. Today, it is so very different. The way in which the privacy of our young people is taken advantage of and invaded is deeply disturbing. Of course, you cannot blame the young for being inquisitive and curious and for pressing buttons that might produce something that they had never really thought of or seen; yet we are seeing—I do not want to be too hyperbolic about this—the corruption of a generation of our young in the interests of amoral commercial exploitation.
That really is what we are about today—we are seeking to tackle just one aspect of this. I think of the bullying to which noble Lords have already referred, of the sexting that one reads about, and of the chilling articles that we have seen in recent days and weeks about boys as young as 11 raping girls. I think, too, of the hideous example of that ghastly man who was last week sent to jail for raping babies. What a world. We have a duty as legislators, as Members of this House, to do something to protect our young. This Bill is just a small step in the battle for protection.
I would myself go much further. In this country, we ban certain dangerous substances. I can think of no more dangerous substance than some of the things which our young people have access to on the internet. While I applaud and endorse everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has said, I would go further. I suspect, from what he said, that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester would go further. I would make the production of those dangerous substances a criminal offence, no matter by whom they were consumed. I am not one who favours censorship as such, but I think that dangerous substances have to be banned, and we are dealing with dangerous substances.
What is more, for those found guilty of purveying this filth, I would have exemplary sentences. If I may say so with affectionate respect to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, one of the deficiencies in the Bill is that it does not prescribe sentences. When we come to Committee, I would be inclined, if it does not impede the Bill’s progress, to suggest a few, because we are dealing with something very serious indeed.
It was the great Edmund Burke who said that all that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. I thought of that last night. I was watching a fascinating programme on Byzantium and, suddenly, there came across the screen, “Breaking news on BBC1”. My wife and I flicked over to see what had happened. We all know what had happened: the death of one of the greatest, most influential, most amazing men of the past century, to whom I am sure we will have an opportunity to pay tribute in this House at a later date. I am so grateful, as we all are, to the Lord Speaker for ensuring that there is already a book of condolence in the Royal Gallery.
If Nelson Mandela stood for anything above all others, he stood for human decency, without regard to race, colour or creed. As has already been referred to by the right reverend Prelate, the protection of children was high on his agenda. I would say to the House, paraphrasing Edmund Burke, and relating it to Nelson Mandela, that all that is needed for the triumph of depravity is that decent people do too little. He did a great deal. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to show us that it is possible to change things for the better. Now we have a duty incumbent on us to try to change things for the better.
I sometimes say that I wish the internet had never been invented, but that is like Lear crying on the heath. It is there. It can do great good; it can bring great benefit; but it can also bring great harm, pose great dangers and threaten. We must ensure that the good that it does is preserved and enhanced and that the evil that it does is curbed and destroyed. In so far as the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, attacks this problem, she deserves the unqualified, total support of all Members of this House and of another place.
Lord Borwick (Con)
I agree with everything that my noble friend has said so far, but does he believe that Clause 3, which states:
“Manufacturers of electronic devices must provide customers with a means of filtering content”,
is possible in a world where fridges and motor cars are designed to download content? Would it be illegal to import such a device? Would we not sideline ourselves from the advances in devices that have nothing to do with pornography?
Lord Cormack
If my noble friend, whose recent friendship I have come to treasure, knew little more about me, he would know that I am not the best person to ask deeply technical questions. I can with honesty say to him that I do not know, but I am aware that it is possible to download so many things in so many different ways, although I am not guilty of it myself because I am incapable of it. It is clearly important that any measures we take can cope with the sort of peradventure that my noble friend suggests may be possible.
I return to where I was a moment or two ago. We have a duty upon us in this House and in the other place, but that duty also extends to the Government. We are well into the second half of this Session. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and I know—this is something I do know about—that the chances of getting the Bill on to the statute book are negligible unless it has absolute, immediate and total government endorsement. I hope that it will have that and that we will be able to expand and improve it in some of the ways that I have suggested. Most of all, I hope that there will be no more vague and general speeches, welcome as they are, from our political masters. Rather, I hope that there will be total determination to tackle this cancerous problem. I hope that that will be articulated on the Floor of this Chamber by my noble friend when he replies. I hope that such a measure will be given absolute priority in the next Queen’s Speech. I know that my noble friend cannot say what will be in the next Queen’s Speech, but he can pass on the serious and considered views of this House, so that the Prime Minister is aware that his general statements have our total support but that we urge him to translate them into legislative action, and to do so soon.