Growing up with the Internet (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Gordon of Strathblane Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Best, in offering my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, on his appointment as chairman of the Select Committee. Having just been appointed to it myself, I look forward to serving under him. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and will listen with interest to what he has to say.

Congratulations must go also to the noble Lord, Lord Best, on this comprehensive report, and to the Government. I only wish that I had been on the Communications Committee when the report was drawn up, because the members must have learned so much about this fascinating area. I think that we will be returning to this subject almost constantly. The internet and digital media are changing so fast that you cannot simply do a report and assume that it is now dealt with. I hope that the Communications Committee will respond favourably to the Secretary of State’s invitation made at the conclusion of her letter, which reads:

“I hope the Committee will feel able to respond to the Internet Safety Strategy consultation”.


Consultation is a good thing. I am all in favour of it and I endorse the feeling that we must try to get the industry to recognise the benefit to it of behaving properly and having good regulation. I am a great believer in the concept of enlightened self-interest and getting 95% from people voluntarily. When I was in business, I did not try to force the other 5%. When it is voluntary, people will give their heart and soul to the job, but when you enforce the further 5%, they will say, “Oh! Five o’clock already?”, and off they go. Therefore, if we can get the agreement of the industry, so much the better, and it is right that the Government should pursue that. However, we must simultaneously prepare a plan B and examine what leverage we have to deal with an internet giant that decides not to comply.

I regret that, during the consultation period, the Government have not opted for the original default position on child pornography, which was that we would not allow prohibited material—in other words, bringing offline in line with online. The British Board of Film Classification said as much in its evidence to the committee. The Government deserve congratulations on dealing with this problem now. The tragedy is that a whole generation of young people has grown up with a warped view of sex and relationships, and we may pay a very heavy social consequence for that neglect. I am delighted that this is happening now, but I hope that the Government will not postpone revising the code and the method by which it will be implemented, and perhaps consider the British Board of Film Classification recommendation that they go back to prohibited material and do not allow something online that would be prohibited offline. After all, nowadays, things are delivered online, whether it is music or video.

I belong to a generation that regards the term “disruptive” as having slightly pejorative overtones—no teacher wanted a disruptive pupil in his or her class. But disruptive is now used with approbation in the digital world, and, in a way, I can see why. They are shaking things up, bringing us back to fundamentals and asking us to look anew at why we do things, how quickly we can do them and how directly. The problem is that if you are analogue in your formation—and I was for most of my life, seven-eighths of it—it is very difficult to think digitally. Here I take slight issue with my new chairman, because I think that children are in a different world. I have never been more conscious of the wisdom of the poet Kahlil Gibran and his remarks in “On Children” in the book “The Prophet”:

“You may house their bodies but not their souls.

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams”.

I am afraid that there is an element of truth in that. I cannot think digitally but my grandchildren automatically think digitally, and there is a huge gulf.

Nobody wants to curb the curiosity of children or the great potential of the internet to satisfy that. However, where that satisfaction comes in a form that is not intermediated, it is asking a lot of a child to spot the difference between a blog from an idiot and well-researched news editorialised by the BBC: they look the same on the screen. Education is the answer, but it teaches skills and cannot impart wisdom to an eight year-old. Regrettably, that tends to come only later in life. Therefore, the role of parents will be especially important.

That too brings problems, because it is true that children are better at the internet than their parents almost by definition. In fact, you can imagine the comic scene of a parent asking their child to set the parental lock for them. Children adopt this technology almost automatically; it is intuitive. Therefore, we will have to do something to help, such as establishing a kitemark that endorses the terms and conditions so that parents do not have to read all the pages. I am almost scared to read through all the pages in case I lose the connection, so I tick “I agree”—and for all I know I could be mortgaging my house to Apple or whoever it might be. Nobody ever reads the full terms and conditions, but clearly somebody should.

The Government are clearly behind almost everything that the committee has come up with. I am more relaxed than the noble Lord, Lord Best, that they have gone for a Minister rather than a digital champion. Although “digital champion” is glitzy, I always worry when Governments resort to unorthodox things such as tsars for drugs and other issues, as though somehow the problem is solved by the terminology. It is not.

Frankly, a belief system will be important to give children a reference point against which to set what they are learning on the internet; otherwise, they are literally adrift in a new world. It is a very exciting new world. I am awe-inspired by the possibilities of the internet, but terrified of its harmful consequences. The committee has done a good job in balancing both, and I hope the Government will follow through with great urgency. The answer to the idea of having a digital champion—as well as a digital Minister, which we already have—might be to strengthen the department and appoint a junior Minister who will act as the children’s champion.