Animal Torture: Online Videos

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

The debate on this matter in Committee on the Online Safety Bill was well attended and certainly well received. The purpose of the Online Safety Bill is to intervene between the platforms on which the distressing images are published and the users who see those platforms. It is, first, for human beings and, secondly, for their experiences online. The appalling instances that the noble Baroness referenced, particularly in the BBC documentary, would themselves be covered by either the Animal Welfare Act or the Communications Act, both of which make those criminal offences without the need for recourse to the Online Safety Bill.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, these offences are bad enough by themselves, but does the Minister accept that there is a direct connection between animal cruelty and violence towards humans? If so, is this not yet another reason why the Government should use the Online Safety Bill to combat animal cruelty offences and make this a priority offence under the Bill?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I join the whole House in absolutely deploring these behaviours. The concern about adding animal cruelty offences to the Online Safety Bill is that it is a Bill built around the experiences online of human beings. To rearchitect the Bill around actions perpetrated or commissioned on animals runs the risk of diminishing the effectiveness of the Bill.