Children: Exposure to Harmful Content

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran [V]]

The noble Baroness is right to point out both the benefits for children of being online, through education, entertainment and communication with their friends, but also the risks. We remain committed to bringing forward the online harms legislation in this Session, and I hope she will be pleased to hear that the laying of the age-appropriate design code, in which she was closely involved, is imminent.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the figures in the BBFC survey are shocking but not a surprise. Millions of pounds were spent so that effective age verification could be delivered, and it was ready to be introduced. Then, on 16 October, the Government abruptly abandoned Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, which would have prevented children accessing unsuitable and harmful content. It is all very well talking about the online harms legislation, but it has been delayed and it is still ages away from implementation. Why were the Government so intent on waiting, when age verification was ready to start? Does the Minister agree that the facts clearly demonstrate that the Government have contributed directly to these shocking figures?

[Baroness Barran [V]]

I cannot agree with the noble Lord’s last remarks. The Government have worked very hard on the guidance that has been published, the funding we have made available to organisations supporting vulnerable people, and the work we have been doing with the sector. As I have already said, we believe that the way to protect children from accessing harmful online content is through the legislation that we will bring forward later this Session, but a number of other elements are also being brought forward, including our media literacy strategy and the safety by design framework.

Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as chair of the Fundraising Regulator, the independent non-statutory body that regulates charitable fundraising. Our role is to promote best practice so as to protect donors by setting standards, by investigating public complaints and by enforcing the Code of Fundraising Practice. These are challenging times for charities. Some charities will fail, possibly including well-known household names. The Government assistance package addresses only part of the £4 billion shortfall highlighted by the NCVO. We do not know when the current health crisis will end, but the economic aftershock will be long-lasting, so the two-way squeeze, in which charities have less money but greater demand on their services, will continue. The problems are not going away anytime soon.

If we want charities to continue to play a pivotal role in society, the question for the Minister is whether the Government will provide further support for charities as the coronavirus crisis continues, including the many excellent suggestions made in this debate, and ensure no less favourable treatment than that under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme announced by the Chancellor?

Recent weeks have seen extraordinary fundraising efforts and generosity by the British public in response to the pandemic. Despite personal incomes being squeezed, I hope that will continue. To this end, the Fundraising Regulator, working with the Charity Commission and the Institute of Fundraising, has published new guidance designed to equip people with the tools they need for their own charitable appeals while adhering to the standards of the Code of Fundraising Practice. Similarly, the regulator is working with online platforms to increase transparency of fees and card charges so that people can be confident about how much of what they give goes to the charities concerned.

We have also been collaborating with other organisations, including National Trading Standards, which I also happen to chair, to alert people to those nauseating fraudsters and scammers who are trying to cash in on people’s generosity at this time of crisis. I hope the Minister will continue to support these efforts so that the public can continue to trust charities and their fundraising.

Gambling: Children in Africa

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I certainly agree that that is an interesting suggestion, particularly the bit about chief executives taking responsibility for the companies. I would not go so far as to say that it should be a matter for the criminal law but it is an interesting suggestion. As I said before, the Gambling Commission is the Government’s adviser; I am sure that it will bear the noble Lord’s suggestions in mind.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

Can the Minister explain why it is not a matter for the criminal law?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I was suggesting that that would be a change to the existing arrangements and that I do not think it right to suggest a change in the criminal law from the Dispatch Box without considering it fully.

Online Harms

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The right reverend Prelate is right that holding international companies to account is absolutely crucial, as I think I said before. There are limits to that, obviously, but some of the methods that we are consulting on—ultimately leading to closing the website down completely—are pretty serious, particularly for the large companies. We absolutely understand that. In addition, we want to continue to work with our international partners, such as the G7, the G20, and those countries that share our views on freedom of speech and on balancing that with controlling and dealing with the worst harms. We want a free and vibrant internet but we do not want the harms that go with it. I absolutely take his point, and we will listen to what people have to say about the correct means of holding international companies to account, but it is crucial that we are able to do that. I can tell noble Lords that we have now had 50 responses to the consultation.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, like most of your Lordships, I think, I welcome this White Paper, because it has taken us forward in a sensible and thought-through way. However, first, I am slightly confused in relation to the question posed by the noble Baroness about how seriously and where the Government are taking on board issues which are about the undermining of democracy. They are flagged up early in the White Paper, in paragraph 4, but then there is a vague section about leaving it to the regulator and having a code of conduct. That may be a valuable approach but should the Government not be taking action directly on such matters? For example, Sweden has produced a counterinfluence handbook designed specifically for these purposes. What are the Government’s intentions as far as that is concerned?

Secondly, the Minister said that time was of the essence so we are going through a three-month consultation process. Is the intention that there be legislation in the next parliamentary Session, whenever that may start? Thirdly and finally—I refer to my interests in the register on this—how are the Government planning to deal with adverts on the internet which are designed to be misleading? How will they deal with scammers who are on the internet?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, with regard to disinformation connected with democracy and those essential questions, the White Paper deals with disinformation generally. With regard to electoral reform and how elections can be affected by the use of the internet, as I said, the Cabinet Office is bringing out a report soon to deal with that. It is right that constitutional affairs are dealt with there.

On disinformation, we have listed in the White Paper some of the areas we expect the regulator to include, such as:

“Promoting diverse news content … Improving the transparency of political advertising”—


noble Lords can read it themselves; there are other things. That is how we are trying to do it across government. As I said, there are other areas that we deliberately do not cover in the White Paper, but that should not be taken to mean that work is not going on. However, I accept the noble Lord’s suggestion that it is important and needs to be done soon. I take that on board.

As far as time is concerned, we are having a consultation, as the noble Lord said, which will end on 1 July. Obviously, it is not possible for me to say today when legislation will come before the House. That is a decision for the Government and the Leaders of both Houses. Judging by the discussions we have had today, and the feeling I get from across the House, all noble Lords think that this is an important issue. The Government think that this is an important issue. We are aware that we have taken time over the consultation. As far as the Home Office and DCMS are concerned, we want to get on with it.

We have just announced a review of advertising that will report in due course.

Mobile Networks: Resilience

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, alluded to, by 2020 the universal service obligation will give every household in this country a legal right to be connected at a speed of not less than 10 megabits a second.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, when the Minister and his colleagues consider the resilience of the mobile phone network—I refer to my interests in the register on this matter—could he ensure that resilience for all providers is covered in respect of electricity power outages and their impact on mobile phone aerials? Most of those have a battery life of only two hours if the electric power is off.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Yes, power outages, pandemics and flood are some of the issues that the ECRRG, the group which I mentioned, has considered. It has improved the organisation for that in recent months.

Television Licences: Over 75s

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Minister answered my noble friend’s question. If it was a manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party that the licence fee concession would continue until 2022, why have the Government subcontracted it to the BBC to break that manifesto commitment? Does he regard the licence fee as a tax and, if so, do the Government subcontract taxes to other people?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I think that the noble Lord misunderstands the position. We made it absolutely clear to the BBC that we expect it to continue with this important concession, and in October the Secretary of State also made that clear to the House of Commons committee. However, the Digital Economy Act, which was passed before that, also made it clear that the Government retain the power to maintain the concession until 2020, which we will do, after which full responsibility will transfer to the BBC. Therefore, the settlement took place before the manifesto was written.

Distributed Ledger Technologies

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, moving on to distributed ledger technology, which everyone wants to talk about, I agree with my noble friend that it has tremendous potential. The United Kingdom is well set up to be a global leader, as the APPG’s report released on Monday outlined. There is proof of concept going on in several government departments—for example, Defra, DfID, the NHS and, in my own department, the National Archives. The evaluations are not available yet, because this is at an early stage. As for co-ordination, the projects are in various departments. There is an officials group which meets to discuss these. We have participated in two round tables in the last few months and we are considering how best to co-ordinate the efforts across government.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, in the various discussions taking place, to what extent is the Home Office involved in these considerations? In particular, this is because distributed ledger technology could provide a means by which people would be able to verify their identity without the so-called concerns that people used to have about identity cards with a centrally maintained register held by the Government. A DLT-based technology would enable us to hold our own identity details in a way that would be verifiable across the world.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. That is a very good example of where this distributed technology could be used, and there are other, similar areas. One of the benefits of this technology, and the fact that it is distributed and everyone has the same copy of the database, is that it builds trust in data, and this is an important area across many departments. I do not know specifically what proofs of concept the Home Office is doing at the moment, but I will certainly take that back to my noble friend the Minister. As I said in my previous answer, there is a cross-governmental officials group and we are currently looking at how best to co-ordinate across government.

Youth Services

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As I said in my previous Answer, local needs are best addressed by local authorities. It is not the ideal position of central government to look at local needs such as those to which my noble friend referred. However, it is not just a question of local authority spending. That is why we are spending £200 million on the National Citizen Service, £40 million on the #iwill fund—looking after a third of its running costs—£40 million on the Youth Investment Fund and £10 million from LIBOR fines for uniformed youth groups. Importantly, we are spending £700,000 on the Delivering Differently for Young People programme, which gives local authorities technical and legal support to help them develop new models for delivering youth services.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, it is all very well saying that decisions are best made locally, which of course they are, but if the Government reduce the funding to local authorities by more than two-fifths, it is inevitable that youth services and other non-statutory mainstream services will suffer. The Government have a responsibility. What are they going to do about the fundamental issue underlying the noble Baroness’s Question, which is that there is a problem in terms of activities for young people which should be properly resourced and funded?