Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I believe it will. Certainly, both government and Parliament will take into account judgments in the court on this Bill and in related areas of law, and will, I am sure, want to respond.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

It is not just the judgments of the courts; it is about how the criminal law as a very basic point has been framed. I invite my noble friend the Minister to please meet with the Dawes Centre, because it is about future crime. We could end up with a situation in which more and more violence, particularly against women and girls, is being committed in this space, and although it may be that the Bill has made it regulated, it may not fall within the province of the criminal law. That would be a very difficult situation for our law to end up in. Can my noble friend the Minister please meet with the Dawes Centre to talk about that point?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am happy to reassure my noble friend that the director of the Dawes Centre for Future Crime sits on the Home Office’s Science Advisory Council, whose work is very usefully fed into the work being done at the Home Office. Colleagues at the Ministry of Justice keep criminal law under constant review, in light of research by such bodies and what we see in the courts and society. I hope that reassures my noble friend that the points she raised, which are covered by organisations such as the Dawes Centre, are very much in the mind of government.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, explained very effectively the nuances of how behaviour translates to the virtual world. He is right that we will need to keep both offences and the framework under review. My noble friend Lady Berridge asked a good and clear question, to which I am afraid I do not have a similarly concise answer. I can reassure her that generated child sexual abuse and exploitation material is certainly illegal, but she asked about sexual harassment via a haptic suit; that would depend on the specific circumstances. I hope she will allow me to respond in writing, at greater length and more helpfully, to the very good question she asked.

Under Clause 56, Ofcom will also be required to undertake periodic reviews into the incidence and severity of content that is harmful to children on the in-scope services, and to recommend to the Secretary of State any appropriate changes to regulations based on its findings. Clause 141 also requires Ofcom to carry out research into users’ experiences of regulated services, which will likely include experiences of services such as the metaverse and other online spaces that allow user interaction. Under Clause 147, Ofcom may also publish reports on other online safety matters.

The questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, about international engagement are best addressed in a group covering regulatory co-operation, which I hope we will reach later today. I can tell him that we have introduced a new information-sharing gateway for the purpose of sharing information with overseas regulators, to ensure that Ofcom can collaborate effectively with its international counterparts. That builds on existing arrangements for sharing information that underpin Ofcom’s existing regulatory regimes.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, relate to providers’ judgments about when content produced by bots is illegal content, or a fraudulent advertisement, under the Bill. Clause 170 sets out that providers will need to take into account all reasonably available relevant information about content when making a judgment about its illegality. As we discussed in the group about illegal content, providers will need to treat content as illegal when this information gives reasonable grounds for inferring that an offence was committed. Content produced by bots is in scope of providers’ duties under the Bill. This includes the illegal content duties, and the same principles for assessing illegal content will apply to bot-produced content. Rather than drawing inferences about the conduct and intent of the user who generated the content, the Bill specifies that providers should consider the conduct and the intent of the person who can be assumed to have controlled the bot at the point it created the content in question.

The noble Lord’s amendment would set out that providers could make judgments about whether bot-produced content is illegal, either by reference to the conduct or mental state of the person who owns the bot or, alternatively, by reference to the person who controls it. As he set out in his explanatory statement and outlined in his speech, I understand he has brought this forward because he is concerned that providers will sometimes not be able to identify the controller of a bot, and that this will impede providers’ duties to take action against illegal content produced by them. Even when the provider does not know the identity of the person controlling the bot, however, in many cases there will still be evidence from which providers can draw inferences about the conduct and intent of that person, so we are satisfied that the current drafting of the Bill ensures that providers will be able to make a judgment on illegality.

Creative and Cultural Sector: Social Mobility

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Berridge

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: many exciting job opportunities are open to people in the creative industries and the cultural sector, backstage and off-screen. Because film and television were supported to open up more quickly than live performing arts, a lot of people have switched between those parts of the sector. I mentioned the Discover Creative Careers programme, which Julia Lopez launched last month. That will provide £1 million over three years to give young people in 77 targeted areas across England better career provision, letting them know about the exciting job opportunities on offer so that we can fill those skills gaps and get people into the sector.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend’s department gives many grants to the sector. Can he outline what conditions are put on those grants, particularly for work experience and internships, so that those who maybe do not live in London or near a major city, or who do not have parents who can support them, can access work experience and internships?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As my noble friend knows, we have ensured that the Arts Council, which distributes a lot of taxpayer subsidy to arts and culture, does so more fairly across the whole country, bringing opportunities and high-quality cultural provision close to people’s doorsteps. Since 2018, the Arts Council has asked national portfolio organisations, as it calls them, to provide data on the socioeconomic background of their permanent staff. We have asked them to take the socioeconomic background of the people involved into account so that we can make sure that everybody is able to enjoy the opportunities that that affords.

Football: Illegal Entry to Matches

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Berridge

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Absolutely—and we are not. As I have explained to the noble Lord before, we have taken action to implement a series of changes to the football banning order legislation with which he was associated when he was in government to help ensure safety at football matches. That included adding football related online hate crime to the list of offences, amending the threshold for the imposition of a banning order, extending the legislation to the women’s domestic game and adding football-related class A drug crimes to the list of offences. We continue to work with the police and football bodies to review disorder and consider whether any further action is necessary.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to tailgating, could my noble friend the Minister outline whether the Government are considering making this an offence and making it slightly broader? This happens a lot on the Tube. Particularly as a woman, being tailgated through a barrier by somebody trying to come in behind you means you virtually are assaulted. TfL’s policy is not to do anything, probably because it is not an offence. Could the Minister review this to see whether it should be made an offence not just in football but on the Tube?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend is right to point to the impact on people being followed through ticket barriers. Fare evasion is a criminal offence and Transport for London publishes its revenue enforcement and prosecutions policy. If convicted, people face a criminal record and a fine of up to £1,000, as well as compensation for the fares they have avoided, a victim surcharge and prosecution costs—so this is something that should not be done.

Suicide: Online Products

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Berridge

Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has mentioned various statutory agencies, but is this not a particular category of legal but harmful content? Assisting suicide is a criminal offence, as is potentially conspiring to assist suicide. Will he ensure that all those statutory bodies involved really relate to the boundaries of the criminal law that exists today? These companies should be ensuring that they are not assisting or conspiring to assist suicide.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend is right: there are existing criminal sanctions here and content which encourages or assists suicide, and therefore breaks the existing law, will be covered as well by the safety duties providing for illegal content under the Online Safety Bill. We want to ensure that the Bill adds to the armoury that we have to prevent as many suicides as we can.

Educational Settings

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Berridge

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the Government are keenly aware that, in taking the decisions that we have in relation to movement of the public and schools to suppress the peak, there are massive implications for the economy, and a raft of measures have been introduced in relation to that. We have made changes to arrangements for statutory sick pay: it is now payable on first day off, and self-isolation is viewed as a sickness. The minimum income floor has been lowered in relation to self-employed people. But, yes, there is much work still to do on alleviating the effects on the economy for us all.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, we have 10 further minutes for Back-Bench questions on the Statement if noble Lords wish.