Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Ben Wallace

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Will the Secretary of State commit to publishing his Department’s analysis of leaving the European Union as far as forfeiting our rights and responsibilities under article 42.7 of the Lisbon treaty is concerned?

[Mr Wallace]

I will be delighted to write to the hon. Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Ben Wallace

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I hope that the online harms White Paper will address many of those issues, and I look forward to my hon. Friend’s contribution to it.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Too often what happens is that the content that is uploaded does not break the law, but it leads to the law being broken, and is often followed by harassment campaigns against individuals. Too often Facebook is not just a safe space for that stuff—which it is—but actually the weapon of choice. When will we get legislation to properly regulate companies such as Facebook that, from what I can see, do not really give a damn?

[Mr Wallace]

First, the online harms White Paper consultation, which as I have said will be published imminently, will be a chance for all of us to contribute to the best policy tools to deal with that threat. Secondly, we need to recognise that under EU law we currently have the issue of mere conduit, whereby one of the statutory defences for the companies is, “We are just a conduit for this material: we do not take responsibility for it.” That is why issues such as duty of care are an attractive policy model that we should look at adopting as a potential solution to the problem.

Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Ben Wallace

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman has been a good campaigner on that issue, which he has brought to the attention of the Home Office on a number of occasions. One of the reasons why I think this is the perfect time to review Prevent is that I truly believe that if the public knew how much it does in respect of the far right, there would be more support for it, not less. It is having significant success. Half the Channel cases involve the far right. The work that has been done over the last two years clearly shows that Prevent is not about a particular group or ideology, but is similar to other forms of safeguarding that are carried out every day by our social workers, teachers and police.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

As far as I can see, those far-right organisations are winning the hybrid war against society. Will the Minister talk a wee bit about what his Department is doing to curb the extremely dark channels of money that are coming in from around the world and funding far-right extremism here in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Wallace]

Terrorist financing, including of the far-right group that was proscribed 18 months ago, is worrying because actually it is not as high as people imagine. In the day of the internet, people can be groomed and inspired for very small amounts of money. Indeed, the five main terrorist attacks of 2017 cost £5,000 in total. That is the reality of a modern-day terrorist attack and the financing behind it. I do not see much evidence of huge swathes of money funding it; what I do see is growing evidence of the impact of the internet in allowing people to join up who in the past had nowhere to go. They may have been the oddball or odd one out in their village, but they now have the ability to live in a fantasy world, indulge their bigoted beliefs, learn how to make bombs and damage and hurt people, and find kindred spirits across the internet. That is what has given one of the big boosts to terrorism, including far-right terrorism.