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

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I follow a very moving speech from my noble friend Lady Smith. As many noble Lords have, I welcome this valuable chance to follow up on some of the issues that were raised at the Second Reading of the Online Safety Bill this week. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for the excellent and comprehensive introduction to her Bill and other noble Lords who have shared the concerns and supported the Bill so eloquently.

As many have said, the scale of the issue is clear. Ian Russell, who attended every minute of the Second Reading debate on Wednesday, has the admiration of the House. There were many references to him in the debate, and his testimony is damning and shocking. Many noble Lords who are in the Chamber now or were here on Wednesday were there for his presentation of the thousands of posts that were made to his daughter Molly, before her death, which encouraged self-harm and suicide. Many who have been involved in online safety since the Green Paper and before were shocked. Even those who had been inured to issues of the internet were utterly shocked by the sheer scale of the messaging—thousands and thousands across every platform to which Molly had access.

So I welcome the promise of a new offence but, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and by my noble friend Lady Smith in relation to eating disorders, under the Online Safety Bill, only content that is illegal will be properly caught when this is applied to adults. As has been pointed out by a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, there is a cliff edge between childhood and adulthood, and we are going to treat 18 year-olds as adults from the day they turn 18. That cannot be right in these circumstances, without involving further risk assessments, protection and monitoring—which this Bill would provide. This is as a result of some very recent changes to the Online Safety Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, our briefing and the Samaritans’ briefing cogently describe, basically it is as a result of deleting the duty to have a risk assessment of legal but harmful content. The Online Safety Bill has been watered down; there is no doubt about that.

The proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, are modest. I hope she also tables them as an amendment to the Online Safety Bill in Committee. As the Minister and his department have heard very eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and from around the House, this is very much something that we want to get right on a cross-party basis. I hope that they take on board the proposals in this Bill, having heard the voices on Wednesday and from around the House today.

In essence, the Bill gives Ofcom a duty to devote resource—and my noble friend Lady Benjamin quite rightly talked about investment—as, under the current form of the Online Safety Bill, it would not have a duty to monitor this kind of content and advise on the effectiveness of current regulation and what needs changing in light of the harm being caused.

In the light of the evidence we have heard and the fact that in the Bill, as it currently stands, there is not even the duty of risk assessment for category 1 content of this kind, this seems the bare minimum that the Government can agree to. This is an effective way of future-proofing the Bill, which, as we heard today and on Wednesday, is absolutely necessary. We cannot keep playing catch-up with the technology and the harms that it can create. I will resist the temptation to digress on the many risks and opportunities that new technology, AI and algorithmic systems can create, but I thought the noble Baroness’s closing statement that yesterday’s science fiction is here today is absolutely apposite. Our regulation absolutely needs to take account of this, so we on these Benches thoroughly support the noble Baroness’s Bill.