Children: Online Grooming

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I cannot disagree with the noble Baroness that the sooner the online harms Bill comes our way, the better. I certainly know that the response to the consultation will be published very shortly. The sooner we can get on with this, the absolute better for our children.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, is there any way for the authorities to monitor communications with children who are in local authority care and particularly vulnerable to the offer of a relationship, and in this way prevent the grooming altogether?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I have to say to my noble and learned friend that in local authorities, particularly when local authority systems are being used, there are firewalls to prevent some types of abuse, but if a child has a smart phone with such things as Messenger or Snapchat on it, it is incredibly difficult for local authorities to keep tabs on children who are at the end of such coercive behaviour. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, talked about the online harms Bill next year: that is going to be crucial, because it will place a duty of care on service providers and social media platforms to actually protect vulnerable people from this sort of thing.