Online Safety Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I know how unpopular it can be at 9 o’clock at night to detain the House further. However, I did speak on previous stages of the Bill, and I want to speak about a couple of issues this evening.

I thank the Secretary of State for her meetings with me and members of some of our Jewish community groups about the change to “legal but harmful”. She knows we were not particularly happy when we heard the first iteration of what was proposed, but I think we have got to a position where Jewish community groups have been able to row in behind this Bill. It may be imperfect in some ways, but it is certainly a lot better than the starting point we were coming from. I also pay tribute to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who has also worked very hard, particularly on the issue of antisemitism. As I say, I thank the Secretary of State for getting us into a position, through her hard work, where we and groups such as the Centre for Countering Digital Hate are very supportive of the Bill.

I and the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) were in Washington with the Antisemitism Policy Trust just before Christmas, when we met Members of Congress and Senators, who told us how much this piece of legislation was very much world-leading and very much an indicator for where they intend or would like to get to, although things are little bit more complicated there because of the constitutional issues. This is indeed a world-beating piece of legislation. As with all legislation, it is imperfect, but it is a piece of legislation of which we can still be very proud.

I am pleased that we have dispensed with some of the nonsense about free speech arguments, because some of those put forward were nonsense. There is a misunderstanding by some people—I have to say, sadly, on my side of politics—that free speech is presented as an ability to say anything without consequences, but that is not what free speech is. We should always remember that there are consequences to some of the things we say, and there should be consequences.

I want to speak briefly about the issue of conspiracy theories and this legislation, particularly antisemitic conspiracy theories. I am sorry to detain the House, but I do think this is an important issue at the moment, given that we have had a Member of this House in recent times promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. The juxtaposition of covid conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories with antisemitism is, I am afraid, one that we see all too often in the online space. The Bill will do something to address that, but we have to do more.

I want to give a couple of examples in the few minutes I have of what coronavirus conspiracy theories and antisemitism have looked like. We have had huge amounts of online material produced that suggests everything from “covid is not real and is a Jewish conspiracy” to “covid is real and was designed and spread by Jews”. We have had a celebration of Jewish deaths through conspiracy theories, and even the promotion of conspiracy theories around vaccines and the role of Jews. The Antisemitism Policy Trust, and the CST in its briefing “Covid, conspiracies & Jew-hate”, highlight the anti-vaccine element of antisemitism. We have seen gratuitous online content of Jews being presented as scientists holding syringes, and Jews who work as senior executives in various pharmaceutical companies have been targeted because of their faith. We have even seen the menorah presented with lots of syringes on it. All that is deeply antisemitic, conspiracy theory hate, based around the vaccine and the antivaxxer movement.

A colleague of ours recently found himself in trouble, quite rightly—I praise our Chief Whip for acting so swiftly on this—for promoting a tweet that likened the covid vaccine to the holocaust. Although that in and of itself is not necessarily antisemitic, we have seen anti-covid groups using gratuitous holocaust imagery in their campaign against the vaccines and the promotion of other covid conspiracies. It is not a very big step from promoting a holocaust image to entering into deep and dangerous antisemitism, and I am afraid that a lot of the anti-covid and anti-vaxxer movement find themselves in that space. It is vital that people in government and across this House call that nonsense out for what it is, which is dangerous, anti-science crap.

The Bill will go some way to addressing that, particularly the elements that are related to antisemitism and illegal content, but we need to do a lot more in the future. I am a big supporter of the Bill, and pay particular tribute to the Secretary of State, her officials and ministerial team for getting it to this point, but there will be a lot more to do. I am afraid this hate is there and is not going away. Since I called out what happened last week my inbox has exploded with all sorts of conspiracy theory nonsense, threats, and antisemitic emails and calls to the office. I know the Chief Whip has suffered the same. There is a lot more to do. I hope I have not detained the House for too long, and I support the Bill. It is a good start, it is world-leading, but we will have to come back to the issue as technology develops, because there will be more to do in this space. I end by associating myself with the calls with regards to advertising. The amount of advertising money in some of these hate sites is staggering and frightening, and we will have to do more on that.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Ordered,

That Mrs Heather Wheeler be appointed to the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, until the end of the present Parliament, in pursuance of paragraph 1(d) of Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, as amended. —(Penny Mordaunt.)