Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Lexden

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, one of the important ways in which this Bill was enhanced in another place was through the removal of the “rough sex” defence. In successfully making the arguments for this change, Members in the other place cited evidence submitted by Louise Perry of the campaign group We Can’t Consent to This. Ms Perry said:

“We can’t really ignore the porn factor … It’s there at a click of a button and can be accessed at such a young age. And the algorithms push you into a rabbit hole of more and more extreme stuff.”


At that time, I was heartened by the fact that, in addition to removing the “rough sex” defence, the Government would soon be making a key investment to combat domestic violence in the future by delivering on the 2015 Conservative manifesto commitment to

“stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material”

through the online harms Bill.

The negative impacts of exposure to pornography on child development are extensive. In February 2016, the DCMS stated in its important document Child Safety Online:

“Pornography has never been more easily accessible online, and material that would previously have been considered extreme has become part of mainstream online pornography. When young people access this material it risks normalising behaviour that might be harmful to their future emotional and psychological development.”


I quite agree. One of the very negative impacts of exposing children to pornography is the impact it inevitably has in normalising rough sex in their thinking, and in the development of their expectations.

In addition to helping parents protect their children from the wider harms associated with exposure to pornography, the Government’s commitment also provided a key way of helping to prevent the normalisation of rough sex in the thinking and expectations of the next generation. I was therefore very disturbed when the Government announced last month that the online harms Bill will not meet its manifesto commitment and will, instead, only seek to protect children from user-generated pornography.

As the online harms Bill will plainly not be delivering on the earlier manifesto commitment, the obvious way forward would be for the Government to now implement Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act to give effect to the world-leading legislation that your Lordships’ House has already passed to protect children from accessing pornography and, therein, the normalisation of rough sex on pornographic websites. This House has already passed that legislation; now we just need the Government to implement it.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.