Online Harms

Adam Jogee Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

It is an understatement to say that the internet and social media have changed everything. The early optimism of internet pioneers was that we would all benefit from a world in which all information was at our fingertips. In many respects, they were not wrong, and rapid technological advancement has massively improved our lives, whether that is significant developments in healthcare and easier communication with friends and family or online banking, which is a real benefit to many people here in the UK. We have also seen the benefit across the world—in humanitarian crises, for example, where cash transfers are increasingly used as part of the humanitarian response. It is much safer and easier to make those happen from a laptop or someone’s mobile phone, rather than having to helicopter huge sums of cash through war zones or refugee camps, which is what happens without that ability.

The fact that the online world has amplified everything means just that: almost everything, no matter how sinister or extreme, is available to us and, most distressingly of all, to our children. Not only is it available to us, but algorithms designed to push extreme content mean that violent, misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and other hateful content is winning the battle for our attention and causing real harm. It is no longer just in ideological echo chambers. Algorithms and the introduction of suggested content that is pushed at the user mean that such content has permeated youth culture and taken over many of the spaces where young people communicate with each other and the language that they use. It is now just as easy—if not easier—-to tune in to extremist content online as it is to watch cartoons, go to the park or go to a house party, and that has real-life impacts in our constituencies.

In Cowdenbeath in my constituency, antisocial behaviour is a real issue. Tomorrow, I will hold a second meeting on antisocial behaviour, following an antisocial behaviour summit I held in December. We have found that social media is having a real impact by encouraging more extreme behaviour between young people, because it is filmed and shared online. Local headteachers also report the impact of apps like Snapchat as a real factor in bullying between schoolchildren.

We know that this is a global problem. Radical and violent groups profit from the recruitment to their online causes of young men in particular, pushing violence and very real threats to our democracy, including ISIS in the middle east, the Proud Boys in the United States and Yoon Suk Yeol, whose misogynistic platform was a factor in his election as President of South Korea and the attempted insurrection in 2024 for which he is now serving a life sentence. The truth is that the big tech companies are so obsessed with outdoing each other to profit from the attention of our children or other vulnerable people that they have ignored their responsibility to keep them and our communities safe, and to prevent people from being exposed unwittingly to the most horrific material.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am about to mention another hon. Member, who is not present, and I just want to confirm that I have notified him in advance. Too many people have been prepared to sacrifice the safety and cohesion of our communities for the right price. This week, an investigation showed that the leader of Reform has been paid to take extreme political positions on the Cameo app. According to The Guardian, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) took money to call for the release of P. Diddy and of a Honduran drug trafficker, to support a rioter, to repeat extremist slogans and to endorse a neo-Nazi event. Members of the public will be able to draw their own conclusions from that kind of behaviour.

Too often, action to prevent harmful content is too slow. In March last year, when new powers in the Online Safety Act came into force, I wrote to Ofcom requesting that action be taken, using that Act, against a website that actively encourages its users to die by suicide—I will not name the site for obvious reasons. Ofcom launched an investigation of the site, but it had still taken only a provisional decision against that site last month. I promise hon. Members that spending five minutes on the site would tell them immediately that it has no place in our country and no place online at all. It is shocking that action has not been taken. Tragically, since the illegal harms code came into force last year, the death of two more people have been linked to that site. Does the Minister agree that Ofcom is far too slow in responding to sites like this, and will he please take that up with Ofcom?

There are so many reasons why I am glad that our Government are taking steps to consult on a social media ban for under-16s. To be clear, I support such a ban.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

We are enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech; she has a number of pages left, and we want to hear all of it. She rightly talks about the potential ban for under-16s. I was at Newcastle academy last week, and a number of young people said that they would feel much safer if such a ban were imposed, so I would like to add my support to hers.

[Melanie Ward]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I would add that I was recently at a primary school in my constituency, and I asked the young people how many of them were on social media—a class of 10 and 11-year-olds—and almost all of them were. However, when I talked to them about how social media work, I found that everybody had different rules for what they are allowed to do and when they are allowed to go on social media. It was clear that their parents are trying really hard to regulate their children’s access to social media.

Among the reasons why I want us to act by banning social media for under-16s are not only the impact on young people, which I have tried to lay out, but the job parents are struggling to do because social media companies cannot behave properly. I saw a survey showing that one third of parents had cried because of the stress of trying to manage their children’s access to social media and online content. To me, this is about backing parents as well as about keeping our young people safe online and in the real world.

We banned the sale of alcohol to under-18s in 1923, and when we banned the sale of tobacco to those under 16 in 1908. I very much hope that future generations will look on our Parliament as the Parliament that finally took action to prevent the public health risk and the real-life harm that is addictive social media and extremist content in the hands of children, as well as in the hands of so many vulnerable young people. We must act now. The safety and wellbeing of our children is at risk.

Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent

Adam Jogee Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman, who is my friend, is absolutely right. With the right structure, creativity and public art can go a long way to helping to reduce some of the structural problems we see in our communities, whether that be antisocial behaviour or derelict buildings. If he would ever like to join us for a tour around Stoke-on-Trent, I can show him some of the wonderful public art and particularly some of the murals on our buildings, which not only succinctly tell the story of the city but do so much to brighten up the place in a vibrant way.

I had reached G in my A to Z, so I shall talk about “The Great Pottery Throw Down”, which is not only a wonderful demonstration of the heritage skills we have in Stoke-on-Trent but proof that blockbuster television can be made in Stoke-on-Trent. We are privileged that it is filmed at Gladstone Pottery Museum, which was also the set for “The Colour Room”, a wonderful Sky adaptation of the life of Clarice Cliff. That demonstrates that with the right imagination anything is possible in Stoke.

That imagination is what has allowed us to take some of our heritage buildings back into use. The Spode site in the middle of Stoke town is becoming a createch hub—a place where creative industries and organisations are coming together to work together, not only to share their ideas and aspirations but to put their creative skills to use. That is producing this microcosm of energy and ideas that is having real dividends for those organisations, particularly as they now have a shared apprenticeship scheme that allows individuals from Staffordshire University to see different areas of the creative industries that could be available to them once they graduate.

One of the organisations involved is i.creation. It is run by the wonderful Andy Jackson, who does so much work in terms of community news and helping organisations to tell a better story about who they are.

Just down the road from Andy’s i.creation we have Junction 15, which is technically in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), but we are one big, happy north Staffordshire family. One of Junction 15’s directors won an Emmy for the work they did at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. [Interruption.] The Minister corrects me—not for the first time—but we will hear his speech later.

We are fortunate in north Staffordshire that underpinning the creative industry are two wonderful universities. Next year, Keele University is bringing in a music production, game design and digital media course, because it realises that growing a pipeline of local talent is important for growing the local creative industry.

One of the companies looking for that pipeline is Lesniak Swann, an award-winning business-to-business marketing organisation. The company has asked me to point out that the creative industry is one of our best export markets because the work we do in the UK is highly desirable to organisations around the world. Lesniak Swann does wonderful B2B marketing work, which is incredibly creative, from its home in Stoke-on-Trent but for companies based in Norway and America. We need to think about where our creative industries can contribute to UK exports.

All this is part of Made in Stoke, a network of entrepreneurs, philanthropists and individuals who have a connection to our city and who want to come together to make it better. One of the strands they are looking at is how individuals who have gone away from Stoke-on-Trent and done wonderful things in arts, culture and creativity can come back to the city to help to inspire the next generation of new and aspiring creatives.

If people do come to Stoke, one of the best places they can visit is the New Vic Theatre, a purpose-built theatre in the round. Again, it is just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, but, again, we are one big, happy north Staffordshire family. The work the theatre does is not just about award-winning stage productions that often come down to London’s west end. It also does outreach work through Borderlines, which uses creativity and culture to tackle community cohesion issues and community prejudices through art, drama and music. Both as a theatre and through outreach work, the New Vic has been able to demonstrate that, if they want to be involved, there is a role in culture and creativity even for some of the toughest communities that may not immediately have thought about it.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend both on securing this debate and for acknowledging the wonder that is north Staffordshire, and not least for acknowledging the brilliant work that takes place at the New Vic Theatre, which is in Newcastle-under-Lyme but not too far away from the Stoke-on-Trent Central border. Through my hon. Friend, I extend to the Minister an invitation to come and see for himself the wonderful New Vic and the great work it does in the community.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend has stolen my thunder, as I was going to offer the Minister an invitation at the end of my speech. The New Vic is wonderful, and with a creative boundary review it may one day be in Stoke-on-Trent Central—but that is for another debate.

The wonderful and creative heritage of Stoke-on-Trent has produced an Oscar winner. Rachel Shenton, who is currently gracing our screens in “All Creatures Great and Small”, has demonstrated that being from Stoke-on-Trent is not a barrier to creative success or something that should hold people back. I am grateful for the work she does in coming back to the city to talk to young people about the potential for creative careers, be that in acting or theatre.

The process of learning through creativity is something we could all benefit from across the country. That is why I am glad that in my constituency I have a group called the Popcorn Learning Agency, which uses digital design and animation to create high-spec training and learning videos that go around schools throughout the country. The group is also working with some big-name organisations to create in-house opportunities. That is something thousands of people will see day in, day out, and it is all made in Stoke-on-Trent from a lovely small unit with people who are incredibly dedicated to their craft.

The Minister will be wondering what more questions there are—this is the only way I could fit a Q into this alphabet soup. He will know that I will put lots of questions to him at the end.

First, though, I will tell the Minister about Restoke, a civic arts organisation that has been using art and culture to engage some of our most disengaged communities. Its recent production of “The Lotus Eaters” was done in collaboration with the National Theatre, and saw people from Stoke-on-Trent come down to London and perform theatrics and creative industry work in the National Theatre. That is something people do not often associate with Stoke-on-Trent when they think about what we are and what we do.

There is so much going on that one organisation—Stoke Creates, run by the wonderful Susan Clarke—is taking a lead in trying to pull it all together. It is a cultural compact that is basically sitting in the middle of the sector and thinking, “What can we do to bring organisations together?” One of the challenges we have in north Staffordshire is the splendid isolationism in which people operate. Stoke Creates is teasing out the different aspects of what we can achieve and how we can achieve it. It is making the case that if someone wants to do culture and creative industries well, there are few places better than Stoke-on-Trent.

That was demonstrated recently by the exhibition Stoke on Clay, run by a gentleman called Simon, which brought together new ceramic artists for a wonderful display of creativity, making people rethink the material my city is synonymous with. It was a wonderful exhibition at the old Spode museum, bringing together the old and the new and demonstrating that what was our past and heritage is also our future.

Across north Staffordshire we are blessed with some wonderful theatre companies. I want to give a nod to the work of Claybody Theatre, run by Deborah McAndrew and Conrad Nelson. Claybody Theatre has started to think about the story of who we are in Stoke-on-Trent and what makes us who we are, and then to write plays so we can tell our story better. One of our challenges has always been how we tell our story in a way that is engaging. The theatre has put together “Bright Lights Over Bentilee”, a play currently being shown at the Dipping House in Stoke-on-Trent. It talks about the bizarre array of UFO sightings that happened over one of the largest council estates in my constituency. It is a story that in any other circumstances would be unbelievable, but it has been translated into a wonderful piece of theatre, for which I am grateful.

I need to mention the University of Staffordshire, because it is leading the country on e-gaming and high-quality creative design work. It now has a campus down in London, as well as the work that it is doing up in Staffordshire. It recognises that this is a growth industry and is working incredibly hard with partners, agencies and business—crucially, all this is with business —to ensure that the e-gaming industry in north Staffordshire is vibrant, buoyant and suitable for growth. A lot of the people trained by the university go on to work for VCCP, which is another organisation that ought to be name-checked. VCCP relocated from London up to Stoke-on-Trent because it knew that the quality of the graduate work it could get in Stoke-on-Trent was equal to, if not better than, anything it could get out of the London universities, but staff would also get the quality of life that comes with living in north Staffordshire.

All of this comes together because we are a craft city. I am happy that we were recently awarded world craft city status to recognise that our ceramic work and our creative approach to industry is in our DNA. It is who we are and it is what we do. Importantly for our younger generation, it is also about how we translate the opportunities that exist now into real opportunity. That is why, having run through all the letters of the alphabet bar two, I will move on to a couple of questions for the Minister.

First, will he visit and meet some of the organisations, so that he can see first hand the excellent work that we are doing not only in pursuit of our own economic development, but in pursuit of the Government’s own agenda to ensure that creative industries and culture are available to all? Will he consider recognising north Staffordshire as a cultural cluster—something that the last Government were not able to do, but which would give us the standing we need to demonstrate that we are here for the long run?

Will the Minister speak to his colleagues at the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that any industrial strategy that comes forward to encourage growth in the UK looks seriously at creative industries? The creative industries in Stoke-on-Trent are where our growth can come from. That is where we can make a difference to all the organisations that are currently looking to take the next step to becoming vibrant, big, national groups.

Will the Minister also speak to his friends in the Department for Education to ensure that we keep art and creative subjects on the curriculum at B-tech, higher education, further education and A-level? The pipeline of talent that we need to service the expectations that the Minister has will come from young people who are already in education. I will leave him with those three points. I hope he has enjoyed the little tour around my constituency, and I thank him for listening so diligently.

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

It is a particular joy to see you in the Chair, Dame Caroline, as with one of your many other hats on you have a passionate interest in the creative industries. It is great to have you here.

I will start by commending my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) on being elected again, which is a great delight—this is a slightly different debate from the one we might have had if it had been led by his predecessor. It is good to see him return to the House. He says he hopes that I enjoyed his tour; the danger is that I enjoyed the tour so much that I might not need to make the actual tour.

I will answer the specific questions first and then make some other comments. First, on whether I will visit, I am very happy to; it is just a question of when we can make that work. I am in two Departments, so it would be good if we could try to combine some of the work on tech with some of the work on creative industries, which would follow on from what the council has done locally. I think of tech as a creative industry, but the council has led the way in trying to combine the two.

Secondly, on whether we will look at creating a creative cluster, my hon. Friend makes a very good case. We are looking at what we need to do about creative clusters in the next round of announcements next year, so he has made a good bid and my officials are listening very attentively.

[Adam Jogee]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Oh dear.

[Adam Jogee]

Just very briefly. It is important to reiterate my hon. Friend’s point that there is a groundswell of support in north Staffordshire for such a cluster, so I urge the Minister to take not just his word for it, but mine. The Minister talked about combination. I hope that his visit will be combined with a visit to Stoke-on-Trent Central and indeed Newcastle-under-Lyme.

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I am also the Minister for tourism, so I feel as if I will be going on a tourism visit. We will see what works as the best kind of visit. I am always a little worried about trying to do too many things in one visit and then nobody gets a proper insight into anything, but we will certainly look at that. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central makes a good point about creative clusters. It is a key way of developing a real levelling-up strategy.

My hon. Friend’s third question was whether the creative industries will be a key part of an industrial strategy. The Government are working on this at pace, and I can assure him that we are making a strong case for the creative industries being an absolutely essential part of that strategy. I do not think Britain can have a successful future economically speaking—let alone sociologically, and in many other ways—unless that is the case, so I can assure him that it will be.

My hon. Friend asked a fourth question—I am answering all these questions directly; it won’t catch on—about whether we would have conversations with the Department for Education on the curriculum. I will not bother reading out what has been written for me—the answer is yes. We are already having those conversations. We have seen a shocking decline—in the region of 40% to 50%—in the number of students studying music, drama and art over the past 14 years, and we want to reverse that. It is not going to happen overnight, but we have to put all these subjects right back at the heart of the curriculum. That is an essential part of what we have to do.