Freedom of Expression (Communications and Digital Committee Report)
Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Gilbert for moving this debate on the committee’s report. I also thank noble Lords who are members of that committee for having the foresight to place digital regulation at the centre of public debate, especially in their report. Let me also thank all noble Lords, whether or not they are on the committee, for their contributions.
Before I turn to the specific recommendations made in the report, as noble Lords asked about one fundamental issue that lies at the heart of this debate—freedom of expression—I think it is worth looking at that. Your Lordships’ committee highlighted the importance of protecting freedom of expression online and, as was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, this is an age in which the internet has brought huge opportunities for freedom of expression. It allows people from all over the world to exchange ideas at a speed and scale never seen before. We should not throw that out.
When I was lecturing on international business courses, we used to talk about this concept in academic terms as space-time compression leading to globalisation. This has been of huge benefit to mankind, and one of the challenges for countries where we have reasonably good internet access is how to spread that to the rest of the world. Sometimes that is via mobile devices, if the landlines are not good enough, but we should not forget the important progress we have made. We should also remember how we can harness the good side of that technology.
As a result, as my noble friend Lord Gilbert said, the largest tech platforms exercise great influence over public discourse. They determine what content people encounter online and can arbitrarily remove content, with no accountability and few routes for users to appeal. One of the interesting questions around this debate is that there are always tensions. We are talking about freedom of expression against security or safety, and also how we behave towards other people and who has the right to remove content or to be an arbiter. Sometimes we see a tension between property rights and freedom of expression, and we have to address how much we give those platforms, which can argue, “Well, it’s our space, we have a right to arbitrate on who can have that debate here”. We see that in the physical world as well, where certain schools and campuses ban speakers. There is a tension between freedom of expression and property rights. The number of issues just shows how difficult this is.
This is why the Online Safety Bill is so important. We will bring it back soon—as soon as possible. By that I mean sooner than possible, and “possible” is not “probable”, if that makes sense. I wish I could say more, but I am always warned by my officials to be very careful what I say, because of various processes. Noble Lords who have been in government will understand this.
For the first time, tech companies are going to be accountable to an independent regulator for the protection of children and tackling of illegal content, while also protecting freedom of expression. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allan, for his points on the challenges and difficult issues that companies will have to overcome. It is not as simple as it sounds: we all want children to be protected, but it brings up lots of tensions and debate about how you do that and what the trade-offs are. But I am confident, having taken one Bill through this House, that we can rely on the wisdom of noble Lords to find an appropriate balance and address that tension. There is almost universal consensus on protecting children online but, as I said to the House yesterday, for adults we have to straddle that difficult tension between freedom of expression and protecting the vulnerable.
I hope that noble Lords will allow me to summarise some key changes to the Bill since the committee’s report. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about fraud. That is covered under illegal content. I know that the committee made recommendations on content, and most noble Lords agree on the need to ensure that the Online Safety Bill includes strong protections against illegal content and criminal activity, while avoiding the removal of legal speech.
The Government have added provisions in the other place to establish how providers should determine whether content is illegal. We clarified how companies should determine whether content is illegal, protecting against both under-removal and over-removal of content, as the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, alluded to. The Bill also includes strong protections for freedom of expression. Companies must have regard to freedom of expression when discharging their illegal content duties. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Allan, and I will have debates about what “due regard” means. Again, that is one of the issues we must address, and the largest platforms must set out what they are going to do to safeguard free speech.
The Government also welcome the committee’s endorsement of the importance of child safety. The strongest protections in the Bill remain those for children, but as the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, said, how do we achieve that? How do we get there?
We have also addressed the committee’s concern that pornographic services were not captured in the Bill. We have made changes to require all websites which publish or host pornography to put robust checks in place to ensure that users are 18 years old or over. Again, as with many of these things, the question is how we deal with determined teenagers, who are often more tech-savvy than their parents and can run rings around them. We can put the best protections in place, but even the world’s best cybersecurity experts cannot stop hackers. So, we have to reduce this as much as possible, but I have to be honest: are we going to prevent the most determined and tech-savvy teenager from accessing content that we do not want them to access? That is a challenge, but we have to be honest about what we can and cannot do: what we can do through regulation, what companies themselves can do, but also what we can all do as society, as parents, as neighbours.
Let me turn to the committee’s recommendations on adult safety. We agree that platforms’ moderation decisions are inconsistent and opaque. That is why the duties in the Bill require major platforms to be transparent about and accountable for how they treat users’ content. We will continue to ensure that the Bill strikes the appropriate balance between safety and freedom of expression, but that will move in this House. We have also added measures to give adults more control over who can contact them. Adult users will be given options to verify their identity—the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asked about this—and to decide whether to interact with unverified users. We hope that this will empower adults to manage their personal online experience, while protecting the anonymity of those who may need it, such as victims of abuse. Again, there is a very difficult balance to strike: we must make sure that we can tackle those who are anonymous and malicious, but we also have to protect those who have to remain anonymous for fear of abuse turning into something worse.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, mentioned a point that the committee rightly highlighted: the importance of platform design in keeping users safe online. We hope that the Bill will ensure that companies design their services to mitigate the risk of harm from illegal content, and to protect children. This has always been the policy intent. We clarified this in the other place by amending the Bill to include an explicit duty on companies to take measures relating to the design of their services. These changes will ensure that companies build in safety by design, managing the risk of illegal content and activity on their services, rather than mostly focusing on content moderation.
My noble friend Lady Stowell, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and others talked about digital markets regulation. The committee made a number of recommendations. The Government remain committed to establishing a pro-competition regime to boost competition in digital markets. We want to introduce new, faster, more effective tools to address the unique barriers to competition in digital markets. The Government will set out their plans for the new regime in a draft Bill during this legislative Session. As set out in the Plan for Digital Regulation, the Government are committed to ensuring that our regulators have the capacity and expertise to regulate effectively and proportionately.
The committee also recommended the creation of a new parliamentary Joint Committee to scrutinise the work of digital regulators. I am afraid I have to refer noble Lords back to the position the Government adopted in their response. The Government believe that such a permanent Joint Committee it is unnecessary when we already have rigorous scrutiny provided by established committees, such as your Lordships’ committee and the DCMS Select Committee in the other place. However, the Government intend to work with Parliament to support scrutiny of the Online Safety Bill in a way that captures the skills and expertise in both Houses. We welcome further views during the passage of this Bill.
I turn to a number of the points raised specifically by noble Lords. I will start with my noble friend Lord Vaizey. I would like to ask him: what does he know that others do not know about the reshuffle? I hope this is not fake news to drive traffic to his podcast.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
On a slightly serious point, I know that the Minister in the Commons, Damian Collins, has left his post, which is a very sad reflection on how seriously the Government are taking the progress of the Online Safety Bill.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I should take this opportunity to pay tribute to my honourable friend Damian Collins for his expertise. I sat in on a fascinating meeting that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, organised last week with children’s groups. It was clear that he was on top of his brief. I have to admit that there will be a gap to fill, but I hope we will be able to fill it.
On that, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in her absence, for organising that round table, and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, others who attended for their comments. It was touching, moving and gave me lots to think about. When I met Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, I said to him that we will do all we can to try to ensure this does not happen again. That is something I am sure noble Lords across the House agree on. We might disagree on how we do that, but let us keep that in mind as we go through the Online Safety Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, was absolutely right: we have to equip our children to be robust enough to stand up to difficult arguments. I teach international politics. In my academic job, which I am on leave of absence from, my boss is a Marxist and I am a libertarian-minded Conservative, so we are at two different ends of the political spectrum. But we both agree that it is important to try not to indoctrinate our children but to expose them to arguments from across the political spectrum, and to let them decide and to argue and debate with each other. That gives them robustness, but it also allows them to think intellectually and develop. I agreed with the noble Baroness when she said that this is really important. We have to be very careful about mollycoddling our children and overprotecting them. We should expose them to arguments but also to tools to argue back against people. I know that some noble Lords will disagree. Once again, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made those remarks.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, made some fascinating points about respect and civility—I can tell why she is a philosopher. We also need to understand the issue of subjectivity. If someone says something and you are harmed, does that give you cause for redress? There is also an awful lot of hypocrisy in discussing freedom of speech. People often say that they are in favour of freedom of expression until they are offended, and then they are suddenly against it. I remember when I was in the European Parliament and there were the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. I am a practising Muslim. I was offended by some of the cartoons and I actually found some of them funny, but I did not think that they should be banned. I was happy to see the debate around them in a free society.
Then I took part in a debate and talked about the whiteness of the European political space, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity, some of the imperial ambitions of the EU and racism across the spectrum, including on the left, and I was asked to apologise because I had offended some people. The same people who extolled the virtues of freedom of expression were suddenly asking me to apologise because they did not like what I said. We have to be clear when we are concerned about something or are harmed or offended. We talk about freedom of expression: let us make sure we are consistent. Let us make sure that not only do we think we should feel free to say things, so long as they are not encouraging violence against others, for example, but at the same time are willing to be open to criticism in our own right. That makes for a stronger, more robust and more intellectually challenging society. From discourse comes liberty. That is an important point that we should not forget.
I can try to beat the clock. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, talked about media literacy. It is a crucial skill for everyone in the digital age. Key media literacy skills are taught through a number of compulsory subjects in the national curriculum, but we need to be careful about it. We have to make sure that it is always up to date. There are new challenges. We have to make sure that these curricula are updated. We have the computing national curriculum, which builds digital literacy and citizenship education—some noble Lords do not like the idea of that. We want to make sure that there is critical thinking in debates in relation to the proper functioning of democracy. The Department for Education is reviewing its Teaching Online Safety in Schools guidance and its non-statutory guidance, which provide advice and support on how to teach children to stay safe online. The DCMS and the Department for Education work closely to create a holistic, whole-of-government approach to supporting media literacy.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, asked about an Australian-style bargaining code. We are committed to defending media freedom and enhancing the sustainability of the press sector, and we hope that the pro-competition regime conduct requirements will improve transparency and allow large platforms to provide the businesses that rely on them with fair and reasonable terms. This will make an important contribution to the sustainability of the press. In addition, we are minded to pursue the use of a binding final-offer mechanism as a backstop to resolve challenging price-related disputes where needed. We will design the mechanism to boost competition in all digital markets and have been engaging with the Australian Government to understand the impact of their news media bargaining code on platforms and publishers. This regime presents just one aspect of the Government’s wider support for news publishers, and we will continue to consider all possible options in the interests of promoting and sustaining the sector. Once again, we are open to the wisdom and knowledge of noble Lords in this House on how we do that.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Strathcarron, Lord Vaizey and Lord Londesborough, asked about age verification. There will be clear requirements for companies to prevent children accessing harmful content, such as online pornography. Companies that are likely to be accessed by children will need to use a range of technology, including age verification, to comply with the new requirement. Age assurance and age verification have now been referenced in the Bill, which provides clear direction to Ofcom and companies about the measures we expect may be used where proportionate. The Bill will not mandate that companies use specific technologies to comply with their new duties. It is important the Bill is future-proofed as much as possible, and what is most effective today may not be effective in the future. Once again noble Lords talked about issues such as VPNs, and there are ways around them, and there are other technologies that will challenge people’s safety. For example, I was told about face-scanning technologies and iris recognition for age verification, but is there something eerie about using that sort of technology? Do people feel concerned about that technology and the way the data is stored? Does it feel like a Big Brother society or is it useful to society? There will be different views among noble Lords in this Chamber, but we have to understand the spectrum of views. We know that age-assurance technologies are developing rapidly and there is growing usage.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked about JS Mill. He knows that I am classically liberal-minded, so it is worth quoting Mill, who said that
“the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”.
But there is disagreement over what is harmful, and JS Mill acknowledged that. When I was reading about this, I remember one paper saying that Mill does not say that the Government must always intervene to prevent one person harming another. Clearly, that is a philosophical discussion and there are a number of interpretations of JS Mill, but it is important that we recognise some of those issues. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for bringing that up so that I could digress into political philosophy.
This has been a fascinating debate. It has highlighted the arguments and tensions between online safety and freedom of expression, which I know we will return to during debates on the Online Safety Bill very soon. Let me once again thank all noble Lords for their wise contributions today and for exposing some of the challenges that we are going to face as we take that Bill through the Lords. I end by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, for moving this debate. I look forward to continuing the debate and to working constructively with noble Lords as we chart our course through these new challenges.
National Heritage Act 1983
Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and his ability to generate publicity for this debate. I also pay tribute to my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I would not go so far as to say that he is a national treasure but he is treasured by many of us for his knowledge and the way in which he went about his duties.
Before I respond, it might be worth recalling some of the origins of the National Heritage Act 1983. I say this as a new Minister for Heritage; I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, would describe me as the temporary Minister for Heritage. Indeed, in some ways all Ministers are temporary—we are the opposite of puppies. People say that puppies are for life, not for Christmas; we are just for Christmas. We recognise our ephemeral nature. In my new role I am the Minister for Heritage, but my honourable friend Stuart Andrew is the Minister responsible for museums. Of course, there is overlap, and we talk all the time about these issues, but I focus on heritage. I have been reminded by my department to stop getting so excited about heritage railways and canals; there is far more to our heritage, as Historic England reminds me.
It is worth remembering that this Act established the Royal Armouries, the Science Museum, the V&A and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, as many noble Lords have mentioned, as non-departmental public bodies. We have to remember that, under the provisions of the Act, the bodies are governed by the trustees, not the UK Government. Many noble Lords may well question that, but it is a principle that we have to be quite clear about. The Act outlines the responsibilities of trustees of these institutions, which includes caring for objects in their collections and exhibiting them to the public, supporting research but also promoting public enjoyment and understanding of the unique and special subjects covered by their collections, as well of course as, rightly, generating much debate. Noble Lords have spoken about some of that debate today.
The Act also sets out the board’s duties about the acquisition and disposal of objects. It provides that the board of trustees may not dispose of an object in its collection unless they are duplicates,
“unsuitable for retention in their collection and can be disposed of without detriment to the interests of students or other members of the public”
or
“useless for the purposes of their collection by reason of damage”.
The Act exists to protect the objects and artworks in our national museums to ensure that they are preserved for public benefit now and in the future. As my noble friend is aware, this is one of several Acts that govern our national museums.
Clearly, the underlying question of where cultural objects belong is an important and, as my noble friend acknowledges, highly complex issue. Complexity should not be used as an excuse for inaction; it just means that we have to unpack some of that complexity and look at some of the issues. As someone who grew up in an immigrant household and is from a non-white and non-European background, it is very easy for me to see the feeling of superiority of white European culture over the rest of the world—you sometimes saw this in the referendum, for example—and to feel baffled by this question, given the rich histories of many other countries. I remember my parents telling me when I was a child, “We’ll go to the British Museum, but remember there’s nothing British in the British Museum.” I acknowledge that when I actually turned up there, that was not true, but many of the collections came from around the world, and many of those items are subject to much debate and ongoing discussions.
In the UK, of course, given that the trustees operate independently, it is up to the museum’s own trustees to respond to restitution claims. Of course, in our national museums there is also legislation, including the Act that we are discussing today, that prevents them from removing items. But there are two exceptions—my noble friend rightly acknowledged the case of art looted by German national socialists in the 1930s and 1940s. Of course, in 2000 we had the Spoliation Advisory Panel to consider the claims for the return of these objects. So far, it has advised on 20 claims, and 13 cultural objects have been returned to families. Therefore it is of course important that there are exceptions and to recognise that such claims are deserving of special consideration.
Of course, there are also legal measures in place to allow human remains under 1,000 years old to be returned to their descendants around the world. Since the introduction of this measure, there have been a number of successful repatriations of human remains from our national museums. As recently as July 2022, the Natural History Museum transferred the custodianship and care of the ancestral remains of 113 Moriori and Maori individuals to their descendants in New Zealand.
Given all this, I now turn to the questions from my noble friend Lord Parkinson and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, about the potential implications of the new measures in the Charities Act. I am aware that it has been reported that the two provisions, Sections 15 and 16 of the Act, have the effect of enabling national museums for the first time to restitute items from their collections, based on moral grounds. However, I am also advised that when your Lordships and the House of Commons debated the Charities Bill, no such intent was considered, nor agreed on. Given this, the Government are deferring the commencement of the sections of the Act, which we initially expected to be part of the first tranche of commencements in the autumn, until we fully understand the implications for national museums and other charities. I hope that noble Lords will respect that decision; we really want to understand the implications. Whatever one thinks of the debate, it is important that we understand the legal implications for that.
We also recognise that restitution cases are complex and that every situation is different. Given that, at the moment the Government are not changing their position. However, as noble Lords have rightly acknowledged, we are seeing museums exploring other circumstances in which they may be able to return objects in their care. This is to be encouraged. Noble Lords have already talked about the return of the Benin bronzes to Nigeria by the Horniman museum in August this year. The complexity of deciding what is Benin, who the rightful owners are and where the bronzes should be returned to has also been shared with noble Lords. There are many issues such as these when people call for restitution. Some claim to speak for others; many people have claims on restitution. That does not mean that we should not try, but it exposes the complications and the complexity of the debate.
Let me be quite clear: I understand the powerful argument that often museums are willing to return objects to countries but are prevented from doing so due to existing law. Many people—indeed many noble Lords—feel that there will sometimes be very good reasons why an object should not be returned, such as concerns over preservation, curation, storage or who to return it to. But they also feel that a law preventing items being returned should not be the only justification about returning those items. I understand that debate and these arguments completely.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I see that my noble friend Lord Vaizey is getting very excited for his next podcast.
I understand these arguments. However, the Government’s position remains unchanged. The Government will continue to abide by the long-standing principle and legal position supported by successive UK Governments that claims should be considered on a case-by-case basis. I remind your Lordships once again that we believe that it is the trustees, not the Government, who are responsible for these decisions—not as a way out, but to clearly state that factor as a part of these considerations.
We are committed to supporting museums and trustees in delivering their duties in care of their collections. Noble Lords will be aware that our national development agency for museums and cultural property and Arts Council England, which is sponsored by the DCMS, published the museum guidance, under the title, Restitution and Repatriation: A Practical Guide for Museums in England. I am sure it is a bestseller. This guidance offers museums a technical framework to evaluate claims on a case-by-case basis, and it advises on a spectrum of outcomes, including returning, not returning and making long-term loans and partnerships.
We understand that claims often also lead to opportunities for enhancing understanding for all parties involved in the discussions, including improving knowledge, contributing to research, building mutually beneficial international partnerships and relationships with the originating communities, and opening up a dialogue and discussions about cultural heritage. For example, as my noble friend Lord Vaizey said about the return of the marble head of the Greek god Eros to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, these two institutions have been co-operating since the 1930s—this is nothing new. However, this agreement is part of an ambitious new cultural partnership between the V&A and the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and the Government support the V&A with its arrangements of renewable cultural partnerships, which are a pragmatic way of—
Lord Kamall (Con)
My noble friend was a government Minister; he knows that it takes a bit of time to come to the answer.
I know that noble Lords are proud of our world-class national museums and the fact that we have more than 24 million overseas visits to DCMS-supported museums, accounting for 50% of all visits, despite the closure of museums due to national lockdown measures. The global public also benefit from our collections, because let us remember that between 2019 and 2020 the UK national museums lent more than 71,000 objects to more than 2,000 venues around the world. It is not black and white or inaction compared with action. Some of these things are already going on. These are deep, complex conversations, but they also provide opportunities for cultural partnerships. Noble Lords talked about global Britain. What a great example of soft power it is if we can be seen to be co-operating and tackling those sometimes difficult discussions head-on. Surely it is better that we have some of those conversations.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said, technology plays a vital role. Much of our national collection is available online. We recognise the importance of that, which is why my department supported the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s successful bid for £90 million to advance the use of digital technology. These initiatives demonstrate that our museums are dedicated to making their collections accessible, so that as many people as possible can experience, engage with and even be touched or inspired by them.
These collections are also the focus of scholarship and research. In fact, the national museums are internationally recognised as leaders in their academic fields—but, once again, they partner with universities, museums and other research organisations around the world. They collaborated with more than 1,000 UK and international academic and research institutions between 2019 and 2020.
Much of the research is focused on the provenance of museum collections. It is amazing; it shows just show complex these issues are that we have almost a whole new academic field looking at the provenance of the collections, the issues and whether whoever gave it in the first place—or claimed to give it—had any legitimacy. There are a number of other complex issues, as many people would acknowledge. Today we are also committed to combating the illicit trade in cultural property, so that we do not make the same mistake.
In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, we are aware of the positive discussions between Cambodia and some of the national museums. Once again, we welcome conversations such as these. I pledge to write to noble Lords to answer the questions I was unable to answer due to my verbosity.
Our museums co-operate extensively with partner institutions. They share their knowledge and collections, which has enabled our museums to co-operate internationally, to lead programmes, to collaborate and to consider issues case by case, but also, with our research on provenance, to ask whether we can unpack some of the difficult debates around those issues and to consider future claims. The law exists to protect the objects in our national museums, but we want to share these wonderful objects with the rest of the world, whether in person, digitally or through bilateral conversations.
I am afraid that for these reasons the Government have no current plans to amend this Act. It took me 12 and a half minutes, but we got there. Do not worry; we will have much more time to discuss it on one of my noble friend’s podcasts.
Dementia: Art and Music-based Interventions
Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Kamall (Con)
The department itself is working closely with Music for Dementia and other organisations. Across government, we are looking at music, beyond just performance, to see how it can impact our lives and the role that it can have in levelling up and community cohesion, for example. Across government, I am sure that a number of departments are looking at this.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, the former Secretary of State, Matt Hancock, deserves an enormous amount of credit for setting up the National Academy for Social Prescribing. Before he came into the department, the Department of Health could not have been less interested in the power of the arts and music to have an impact on people’s health. The second anniversary of the academy has just passed. Can the Minister commit to issuing a report on its third anniversary—since I know that he will still be in the post—to suggest how to take it forward? Also, we still do not know what instrument he plays, but perhaps he could take it with him on his first visit to the academy, as soon as possible.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am not sure which question to answer first. If noble Lords will excuse a second of self-promotion, I am an electric bass player and sing the blues as well.