Animal Torture: Online Videos

Debate between Viscount Camrose and Lord Inglewood

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I do not accept either that the existing legislation is not working or that, if it is not, the way to fix it is to make an amendment that redirects the Online Safety Bill in such a dramatic and fundamental way.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

Does the Minister not agree that, on the basis of what has been said in the House today, there is clearly a problem? There appears to be some disagreement over exactly how that problem is to be solved, but does he agree that if there is a problem, it needs to be solved sooner rather than later?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I certainly agree that there is a problem. I am afraid that over the course of a year, the Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition documented about 5,500 individual links to videos containing animal cruelty on the major platforms—YouTube, Facebook and TikTok—but globally the number of views of those incidents exceeded 5 billion. So I agree that there is a problem but I do not accept that the solution to it is a radical change to the Online Safety Bill, as was debated in Committee. I am open to working with my colleagues in Defra on what a more effective solution might be.