Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I will lend my support to Amendments 19 and 22. It is a pleasure to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I may be one of those people in your Lordships’ House who relies significantly on the British Board of Film Classification for movie watching, as I am one of the faint-hearted.

In relation to app stores, it is not just children under 18 for whom parents need the age verification. If you are a parent of a child who has significant learning delay, the internet is a wonderful place where they can get access to material and have development that they might not ordinarily have had. But, of course, turning 17 or 18 is not the threshold for them. I have friends who have children with significant learning delay. Having that assurance, so they know which apps are which in the app store, goes well beyond 18 for them. Obviously it will not be a numerical equivalent for their child—now a young adult—but it is important to them to know that the content they get on a free app or an app purchased from the app store is suitable.

I just wanted to raise that with noble Lords, as children and some vulnerable adults—not all—would benefit from the kind of age verification that we have talked about. I appreciate the points that the noble Lord, Lord Allan, raised about where the Bill has ended up conceptually and the framework that Ofcom will rely on. Like him, I am a purist sometimes but, pragmatically, I think that the third concept raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about protection and putting this in the app store and bringing it parallel with things such as classification for films and other video games is really important.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a really fascinating debate and I need to put a stake in the ground pretty early on by saying that, although my noble friend Lord Allan has raised some important points and stimulated an important debate, I absolutely agree with the vast majority of noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment so cogently put forward by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding.

Particularly as a result of the Bill’s being the subject of a Joint Committee, it has changed considerably over time in response to comment, pressure, discussion and debate and I believe very much that during Committee stage we will be able to make changes, and I hope the Minister will be flexible enough. I do not believe that the framework of the Bill is set in concrete. There are many things we can do as we go through, particularly in the field of making children safer, if we take some of the amendments that have been put forward on board. In particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, set out why the current scope of the Bill will fail to protect children if it is kept to user-to-user and search services. She talked about blogs with limited functionalities, gaming without user functionalities and mentioned the whole immersive environment, which the noble Lord, Lord Russell, described as eye-watering. As she said, it is not fair to leave parents or children to work out whether they are on a regulated service. Children must be safe wherever they are online.

As someone who worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in putting the appropriate design code in place in that original Data Protection Act, I am a fervent believer that it is perfectly appropriate to extend in the way that is proposed today. I also support her second amendment, which would bring the Bill’s child user condition in line with the threshold of the age-appropriate design code. It is the expectation—I do not think it an unfair expectation—of parents, teachers and children themselves that the Bill will apply to children wherever they are online. Regulating only certain services will mean that emerging technologies that do not fit the rather narrow categories will not be subject to safety duties.

Schools: Online Learning

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Berridge

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to say that as of 21 January 41% of children who are in contact with a social worker were indeed in school. Having a school place is one of the best protective factors for vulnerable children during the pandemic. We have also announced as of last Wednesday another £300 million in catch-up for the national tutoring programme, and catch-up will be a focus during the remainder of this Parliament.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, what specific guidance has the department given to schools and developers, and what standards has it set, for the design, procurement and operation of remote online learning services in terms of ethics, transparency and the sharing and use of sensitive personal data? This appears not to be covered at all in the review guidance of January. Does the DfE understand at all many of the issues involved with the digital world?

Covid-19: Educational Settings

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Berridge

Thursday 7th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a very important point; we are aware that many children are living in accommodation with no outside space and limited indoor space. The guidance we published today is obviously for children in school—the full curriculum—so that will cover PE as well as everything else, and there is now a requirement for remote PE lessons with children. There are also links to the advice from Sport England on activity, and it is important to emphasise for everybody that the guidance enables households to get out once a day for exercise. It is very important that families do that.

Daily contact with children is not just about whether they are engaging with the content; it is also about how they are. As the noble Baroness will be aware—I have seen this with children I know—you can sometimes see from their pallor that they are not getting enough activity. This is something to do with well-being that we expect staff to monitor in the children they teach.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Teach First has demonstrated the extent of digital exclusion among schoolchildren during the pandemic, and it is a huge concern. Last year, the Government promised a million laptops and tablets, but then slashed many allocations by 80% in October and, in the end, delivered only 500,000. What faith can we have that the extra 500,000 devices can be delivered urgently now, and are they enough? What guarantee of delivery do students have, and when?