Queen’s Speech

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech. I start by echoing the pleas of my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, for more attention to be paid to culture and media issues in these debates. I hope that the good points made already by many noble Lords around the House will be picked up by DCMS. I declare an interest as a member of the Communications and Digital Committee of your Lordships’ House. However, what follows are my thoughts on the online safety Bill, prefaced in the gracious Speech.

In Our Digital Future, published yesterday, the Labour Party made it clear that we want empowered citizens who do not merely have access to the internet but are equipped with the skills and tools to make the most of technology and who are protected from those who use it to cause harm. The online safety Bill shares these aspirations, and, in so doing, reverses the history of international internet technology governance, based as it is on a 1990s presumption that this would be best left to companies and technologies, which had little legal ability to govern the things that people did on the platforms.

Thankfully, democratic Governments have begun, at last, to appreciate the extent of the harms that arise for citizens and businesses due to a loosely governed internet and its patchy adherence to human rights. In that spirit, I welcome the draft online safety Bill. The Government have got a lot right, particularly the adoption of the duty-of-care approach, the focus on systemic measures and the roles to be played by Ofcom, the DMU and the ICO. However, there are some gaps and concerns which have been referenced already, including the very long lead time before the Bill will actually reach the statute book, democratic accountability and a worry that the Bill underplays the current dangers to children and vulnerable users.

However, the welcome pre-legislative scrutiny will help sort out these issues. I hope it will focus on the following points. The internet gives everyone a voice—a really important point—but the resulting cacophony can mean that minority voices are lost in their entirety. Forms of expression which in the past were tolerable, even if they offended, are amplified to the point where action may be required to moderate volume and identity. But that brings real threats to freedom of expression and to quality journalism. How can these tensions be resolved? What content should be treated as illegal and who decides what should be treated as illegal but harmful? If there are forms of activity that were lawful in the past but should now be made unlawful, surely Parliament needs to set these new laws, lead and give clarity. If platforms are to determine their community standards, what role should be played by the regulator—or regulators—and will it have the resources and the powers it needs across the piece?

Online platforms have a responsibility to protect users against fraudulent and scam content as well as other harms. The Bill needs to rise to the broader challenge to democracy posed by digital technology itself, and we will need systems of regulation that protect that. As the Bill recognises, the platforms are a big part of the solution to online harms. They hold the technical expertise, the resources and the access to clean up online spaces, but they do not have the legitimacy to make decisions about what constitutes a free society and they should not be asked to do so without appropriate democratic oversight by Parliament.