BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Michael Ellis]

What we want, need and expect from the BBC is a lack of bias and proper impartiality—that is all anyone expects. It is supposed to be a leader in its field and to set an example for other smaller broadcasters. I make no apology for expecting high standards from the BBC.

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

In relation to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp), is it not the case that, when we have a criminal case in this country, the BBC describes the people in those criminal cases as murderers, burglars or whatever else they are? We have a legal framework in this country that has determined that this is a terror organisation, and the BBC should apply the same rule in that situation.

[Sir Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As my example indicated, it does that for Daesh, which is another terrorist organisation. It will not do it for Hamas, and that is because of a link with Israel. Not all examples are as flagrant; the bias of BBC News and its journalists can be seen in other ways, which shows the depth of the problem. The BBC follows Hamas’s cynical policy of not distinguishing between civilian and combatant casualties. BBC News reports routinely add what amounts to disclaimers on information released by Israel or the Israeli army as being unverified. Time and again, that same rule is not applied to information released by Hamas. It was only after another pressure campaign that the BBC even started informing viewers that casualty figures in Gaza were provided by a terrorist-controlled Hamas health ministry, yet that seldom comes with a disclaimer about how they are unverified by the BBC.

For example, take a story on the BBC News website from just 2 February this year, in which it reports:

“More than 26,750 Palestinians have been killed and at least 65,000 injured, according to health officials in the Gaza strip.”

It then states:

“Israeli officials say that 9,000 of those killed were Hamas militants but have not provided evidence for the figure.”

By the way, Hamas have subsequently said that they had lost 6,000 fighters, still half of what Israel has claimed, but the BBC has chosen to ignore that Hamas statement, unlike many other news outlets. That happens daily. Each time the message that it conveys to readers, viewers or listeners is that Israel is not to be trusted over the word of a proscribed terror group that are known to wage information war.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) on securing this debate.

All reporting on this conflict should be done from the starting point of remembering that on one side we have a Jew-hating, gay-hating, misogynistic, terrorist death and rape cult, and on the other we have a democratic, liberal state with strong independent processes, which was attacked on 7 October. The fact that 77% of British Jews—remember that just 0.5% of the population of this country is Jewish—do not consider its coverage to be fair should be taken by the BBC as a cry of pain from the Jewish community, and it should take that very, very seriously.

My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned the director-general’s recent email. I ask the Minister to follow up with the director-general to ask what he is actually doing to respond to these examples of antisemitism in the BBC. In a debate a couple of months ago, I described the BBC as Israelophobic, and I think that the words that my right hon. and learned Friend used—about it having an institutional problem with antisemitism —are absolutely true. That is fuelling not only hate towards the Jewish population in this country; the way in which the BBC is presenting this conflict on television is also fuelling hate towards Members of Parliament.

Why do I say that? We have heard my right hon. and learned Friend talk about how the BBC continues to quote as fact casualty figures from Hamas—an organisation that has previously misrepresented casualty figures. Meanwhile, Israeli witnesses to the rape of Israeli women on 7 October had their story told on the BBC with the proviso that the BBC had been unable to verify those claims. That was not applied to Hamas, of course. The BBC has deliberately presented this conflict from the point of view of civilians in Gaza and contrasted that with the Israeli military or with Israeli politicians, including those at the most extreme ends of the Israeli Government, with whom all of us on the Government side of the House would have little to do and who, at the end of the day, have little impact on the positioning of the Israeli Government’s policies.

The BBC has chosen to subject viewers to an antisemitic “The Apprentice” participant. Even when it became aware of that, it offered him sensitivity training. I have written to the BBC numerous times asking who provided that training and what the specific content was on antisemitism, because none of the charities that deal with this and have expertise on this, such as the Antisemitism Policy Trust, were involved, and the BBC will not tell me.

As Hamas perpetrated its massacres on 7 October, the BBC aired an interview with Refaat Alareer, a lecturer at the Islamic University of Gaza, who described the attacks as “resistance” and “legitimate and moral”. A senior BBC broadcast journalist joked about a woman whose grandmother was abducted by Hamas as receiving an “inheritance”. On Christmas eve, the BBC reported unverified and false claims from Hamas that the Israel Defence Forces were carrying out summary executions—it had to apologise for that. Today we see an example of that with the coverage of civilians in Gaza. Of course, there is absolutely no doubt that civilians are suffering, but the coverage provided on the BBC today is not something that was given to members of Israeli society or to those victims. I would like to go on, but the speaking time in the debate is so limited that it is impossible to.

In my final few minutes, I will ask the Minister to do a couple of things. One is to ask the BBC for a full review of how its coverage of this conflict contrasts with others’, and the other is to ask whether the BBC plans to offer proper antisemitism training, provided by actual members of the community with expertise on the subject.

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[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis), whose opening speech covered such a wide area, with many vital points backed up by the evidence that his fine legal mind was always going to bring to this debate.

My Jewish constituents are bloody terrified now. It was bad enough leading up to the 2019 general election, when many of them felt that they would leave this country, but they had fairly good faith that the Labour party would not win that election. Now, they are truly terrified. I have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) say that he feels safer in Israel than on the streets of his own country. That is true for a great number of my constituents who, to make matters worse, are seeing an in-built bias in the BBC almost justifying those launching antisemitic attacks against my constituents.

[Andrew Percy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I did not get chance to say this because of the limited time, but will he consider the coverage today on the BBC? Once again, the picture being painted by the BBC is of suffering Gazans—who inevitably are suffering, of course—versus a well-armed Israeli military trying to deal with Hamas. There are no images of Hamas fighters or the hostages being held. It is this picture of civilians versus the Israeli military that gives a wholly false impression of the battle going on. There is a whole day of it today on the BBC, and all that will do is lead to more threats and abuse for Jewish people in this country. Nobody has been able to verify any of the information coming out, and we know that people cannot speak freely because Hamas control the message and control people. The coverage today is appalling.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He brings to the debate a unique perspective on what is actually happening to the Jewish population in this country; it is more than I could hope to describe at this time.

There are several ways in which how terrible the Israelis are just creeps in, especially when listening to the radio, when we do not necessarily have the pictures. For example, “Israel have bombed a refugee camp”—most people believe that a refugee camp is an area full of tents and people who have been displaced and are suffering. These are historical refugee camps, with concrete buildings and towns that have been built around them. The laziness about going further and actually describing the situation adds to these issues.

The BBC is a very important institution in this country. There is always a role for public service broadcasting, but I hear so many of my constituents say that they hate the BBC. I would argue that what they hate is BBC News, not the BBC itself, but the reality is that the BBC’s bias is coming through in so many ways. Gary Lineker can say what he wants, but those who said that he could not say it and then did nothing about it are doing untold damage to the credibility of the BBC.

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[Andrew Percy]

I like the hon. Lady and I hate to criticise her on this, but I think that that is not really credible. The BBC reported it, and I believe—I will check this—that it went out on push notifications. The fact remains that as a serious public broadcaster, on an issue as sensitive and as serious as this, the BBC should have applied independent verification to this story—as it demands and requires Israel to provide on claims—before it put that out and gave it such prominence. So I do not think that its response is really credible, with respect to the hon. Lady.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I just felt that this was the BBC’s position and I wanted that to be clear, because it does not have a voice in this debate right now.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Which, in that, is attributed to Palestinian officials, but absolutely—I think it is worth watching it back. But the BBC position is that it was very clear about that.

On the ideas around the bias or the lack of impartiality, apparently 36% of the public see the BBC as neutral; 15% see the BBC as pro-Palestine; and 17% see it as pro-Israel. There have been protests outside BBC studios throughout Scotland suggesting that the BBC is in fact too pro-Israel. Those protests have taken place outside a number of BBC studios in Scotland, including twice in Aberdeen. Any of those things are concerning and worrying for staff. People absolutely have a right to protest. Whichever the view of the protesters, the protests can be worrying for people who are perhaps not anywhere near reporting on either what is happening in Gaza or on any other sort of foreign affairs.

[Andrew Percy]

I am sorry to do this again, but I heard this when I met the BBC. I have had it said to me that, “Look, a lot of people think we are pro-Palestinian. A lot of people think we are pro-Israeli.” That is irrelevant. It is about the actual coverage; it does not matter what the perception is. That does not mean that there is not an issue here. I have so far not found a single example of a BBC journalist who has had to be dealt with, suspended or reported for making pro-Israeli statements on their social media accounts, whereas there are plenty that relate to this. The fact that there might be that perception does not alter the fact that there is an issue.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Actually, I do think the perception is important. It is also important that, as the hon. Gentleman said, 77% of Jewish people in the UK think that the BBC is biased. Having said all of that about the views of the general population, it is none the less incredibly important to listen to the communities who have a long history of persecution, particularly Jewish people. It is incredibly important to listen to those views and to understand that, if a community feels that the BBC is doing something wrong, it needs to take that incredibly seriously.

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[Julia Lopez]

That is the point that I am trying to make. We do not seek to interfere with the BBC editorially, but where there is a risk that trust and faith in the organisation will be undermined because of how it is being run, that should be of concern to the BBC, of concern to Ofcom and of concern to the Government.

[Andrew Percy]

Further to the point from my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), I feel we are being trolled in this debate. Someone has just sent me a picture of the main banner running alongside the BBC News website at 3.39 pm today, which says:

“Gaza health ministry: 29,878 Palestinians killed”.

We are being trolled in this debate. There is no reference to that being Hamas’s figures. There is no reference to the fact that we know that thousands of those people who have been killed are Hamas operatives. These are the very issues we have raised today. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are facts, and then there are opinions. It is a fact that these are Hamas’s figures, but they are not being presented as such. In this very debate in which we are calling this out, the BBC is trolling us. It is having a laugh.

[Julia Lopez]

As I say, I am trying to get the line correct between giving the BBC editorial independence and expressing concern.

In the mid-term review, we have tried to ensure that there is much greater power for the BBC board to conduct thematic reviews of complaints and to have much more independence from the editorial teams, so that if there is a clear pattern coming through in the nature of the complaints about the BBC’s reporting and editorial decision making, the BBC can look into it. That is a new innovation from the mid-term review.

I note that Samir Shah, the incoming chairman of the BBC, has made reference to the idea that there may be an opportunity to review how the BBC is reporting on foreign conflicts, to ensure that the corporation is getting it right. This goes to the fundamental currency of the BBC: it is a trusted organisation, but with that level of trust comes a much deeper level of responsibility. Hon. Members have spoken about how licence fee payers are paying for this content and therefore rightly expect certain standards to be adhered to.

A response is needed, not so that we can kick the organisation and its dedicated reporters, but so that the BBC can discharge its fundamental duties to be a beacon of trusted information in an era of water muddying, truth bending and industrial disinformation. That is precisely how we worked in the mid-term review. Halfway through the royal charter, the review was an opportunity to pause, examine and evaluate the effectiveness of the BBC’s governance and regulation. The review focused on a range of issues, including editorial standards and impartiality, and our recommendations were unambiguous about the fact that there is scope for material improvement across a variety of areas.

The review highlighted that impartiality continues to be a major challenge for the BBC. Audience perception that the BBC is not sufficiently impartial is an ongoing issue. Within a culture of continuous improvement, we think that more can be done. Following direct and constructive dialogue with the Government, the BBC is implementing major reforms, although perhaps not major enough for my hon. Friend the Member for Stone.

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[Andrew Percy]

As we are on the topic of asking questions, will the Minister write to the director-general to ask him what his actual plan is to deal with the institutionalised antisemitism in the BBC, which I think he has acknowledged himself in his email to staff? Will she ask him what specific training was given to the antisemitic, racist star of “The Apprentice”—well, I will not call him a star, because he is not a star; he is just a nasty little racist—on content related to antisemitism, because the BBC will not tell me? Will she ask him whether the BBC has an editorial note on antisemitism within the newsroom and, if it does not, whether it will produce one?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for those searching questions. I have regular discussions with the director-general. Hon. Members regularly talk to me about their concerns relating to how the BBC is run, and I relay some of those concerns. We have open discussions when he comes to see me and vice versa. As my hon. Friend notes, an email has gone out to all staff within the BBC in relation to antisemitism. I will be happy to discuss his specific questions about training for the candidate for “The Apprentice” and the other issues in person with the director-general at our next meeting, if not before.

I have no doubt that somebody from the BBC will be listening to this debate and noting the concerns that have been expressed in this Chamber about how the organisation is run. It must be very difficult in BBC newsrooms when staff have concerns about other members of staff in relation to personal opinions on social media that have recently come to light. Again, it goes back to the fundamental interests of the organisation, which are to make sure that staff can work in the newsrooms with a drive towards the truth and without fear of intimidation from anybody else in that newsroom.

I return to the mid-term review. We worked very hard with the BBC and Ofcom to try to tackle the fundamental concerns that have been raised about impartiality. A new, legally binding responsibility on the BBC board will require it actively to oversee the BBC’s complaints process to assure audiences that their concerns are being fairly considered. I appreciate that many hon. Members in this Chamber wanted to move on from the BBC First complaints process. Again, that is an issue that will be considered in charter renewal. We will also be closely monitoring whether there is a substantial change in how complaints are handled as a result of the mid-term review changes.

We have recommended that Ofcom’s regulatory responsibilities be extended to the online content that the BBC produces. I believe that one hon. Member referred to a complaint about how an incident involving antisemitism on a bus in Oxford Street was reported. That was part of the BBC’s online material, and it is the kind of complaint that will be brought into scope because of the mid-term review.

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.)

Online Safety Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

I must put on record my support for amendments 11 and 12, tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright). In Committee, we heard multiple examples of racist, extremist and other harmful publishers, from holocaust deniers to white supremacists, who would stand to benefit from the recognised news publisher exemption as it stands, either overnight or by making minor administrative changes. As long as the exemption protects antisemites and extremists, it is not fit for purpose. That much should be clear to all of us. In Committee, in response to an amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), the then Minister promised a concession so that Russia Today would be excluded from the recognised news publisher exemption. I welcome the Minister’s comments at the Dispatch Box today to confirm that. I am pleased that the Government have promised to exclude sanctioned news bodies such as Russia Today, but their approach does not go far enough. Disinformation outlets rarely have the profile of Russia Today.

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

While the shadow Minister is on the subject of exemptions for antisemites, will she say where the Opposition are on the issue of search? Search platforms and search engines provide some of the most appalling racist, Islamophobic and antisemitic content.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is absolutely right. In Committee, we debated at length the impact search engines have, and they should be included in the Bill’s categorisation of difficult issues. In one recent example on a search engine, the imagery that comes up when we search for desk ornaments is utterly appalling and needs to be challenged and changed. If we are to truly tackle antisemitism, racism and extremist content online, then the provisions need to be included in the Bill, and journalistic exemptions should not apply to this type of content. Often, they operate more discretely and are less likely to attract sanctions. Furthermore, any amendment will provide no answer to the many extremist publishers who seek to exploit the terms of the exemption. For those reasons, we need to go further.

The amendments are not a perfect or complete solution. Deficiencies remain, and the amendments do not address the fact that the exemption continues to exclude dozens of independent local newspapers around the country on the arbitrary basis that they have no fixed address. The Independent Media Association, which represents news publishers, describes the news publisher criteria as

“punishing quality journalism with high standards”.

I hope the Minister will reflect further on that point. As a priority, we need to ensure that the exemption cannot be exploited by bad actors. We must not give a free pass to those propagating racist, misogynistic or antisemitic harm and abuse. By requiring some standards of accountability for news providers, however modest, the amendments are an improvement on the Bill as drafted. In the interests of national security and the welfare of the public, we must support the amendments.

Finally, I come to a topic that I have spoken about passionately in this place on a number of occasions and that is extremely close to my heart: violence against women and girls. Put simply, in their approach to the Bill the Government are completely failing and falling short in their responsibilities to keep women and girls safe online. Labour has been calling for better protections for some time now, yet still the Government are failing to see the extent of the problem. They have only just published an initial indicative list of priority harms to adults, in a written statement that many colleagues may have missed. While it is claimed that this will add to scrutiny and debate, the final list of harms will not be on the face of the Bill but will included in secondary legislation after the Bill has received Royal Assent. Non-designated content that is harmful will not require action on the part of service providers, even though by definition it is still extremely harmful. How can that be acceptable?

Many campaigners have made the case that protections for women and girls are not included in the draft Bill at all, a concern supported by the Petitions Committee in its report on online abuse. Schedule 7 includes a list of sexual offences and aggravated offences, but the Government have so far made no concessions here and the wider context of violence against women and girls has not been addressed. That is why I urge the Minister to carefully consider our new clause 3, which seeks to finally name violence against women and girls as a priority harm. The Minister’s predecessor said in Committee that women and girls receive “disproportionate” levels of abuse online. The Minister in his new role will likely be well briefed on the evidence, and I know this is an issue he cares passionately about. The case has been put forward strongly by hon. Members on all sides of the House, and the message is crystal clear: women and girls must be protected online, and we see this important new clause as the first step.

Later on, we hope to see the Government move further and acknowledge that there must be a code of practice on tackling violence against women and girls content online.

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[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

I rise to speak on amendments 50, 51 and 55, and I share the free speech concerns that I think lie behind amendment 151. As I said in Committee to the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who knew this Bill inside out—it was amazing to watch him do it—I have deep concerns about how the duty on “legal but harmful” content will affect freedom of speech. I do not want people to be prevented from saying what they think. I am known for saying what I think, and I believe others should be allowed the same freedom, offline and online. What is harmful can be a subjective question, and many of us in this House might have different answers. When we start talking about restricting content that is perfectly legal, we should be very careful.

This Bill is very complex and detailed, as I know full well, having been on the Committee. I support the Bill—it is needed—but when it comes to legal but harmful content, we need to make sure that free speech is given enough protection. We have to get the right balance, but clause 19 does not do that. It says only that social media companies have

“a duty to have regard to the importance of protecting users’ right to freedom of expression within the law.”

There is no duty to do anything about freedom of speech; it just says, “You have to think about the importance of it”. That is not enough.

I know that the Bill does not state that social media companies have to restrict content—I understand that—but in the real world that is what will happen. If the Government define certain content as harmful, no social media company will want to be associated with it. The likes of Meta will want to be seen to get tough on legally defined harmful content, so of course it will be taken down or restricted. We have to counterbalance that instinct by putting stronger free speech duties in the Bill if we insist on it covering legal but harmful.

The Government have said that we cannot have stronger free speech obligations on private companies, and, in general, I agree with that. However, this Bill puts all sorts of other obligations on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, because they are not like other private companies. These companies and their chief executive officers are household words all around the world, and their power and influence is incredible. In 2021, Facebook’s revenue was $117 billion, which is higher than the GDP—

[Andrew Percy]

Is that not exactly why there has to be action on legal but harmful content? The cross-boundary, cross-national powers of these organisations mean that we have to insist that they take action against harm, whether lawful or unlawful. We are simply asking those organisations to risk assess and ensure that appropriate warnings are provided, just as they are in respect of lots of harms in society; the Government require corporations and individuals to risk assess those harms and warn about them. The fact that these organisations are so transnational and huge is absolutely why we must require them to risk assess legal but harmful content.

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[Andrew Percy]

This has been an interesting debate on a Bill I have followed closely. I have been particularly struck by some of the arguments that claim the Bill is an attack on freedom of speech. I always listen intently to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), but I think they are wrong in the conclusions they have reached about legal but harmful content. Indeed, many of the criticisms that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West made of the various platforms were criticisms of the present situation, and that is exactly why I think this legislation will improve the position. However, those Members raised important points that I am sure will be responded to. I have also been a strong advocate of the inclusion of small but high-harm platforms, as the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), both know—we have all had those discussions.

In the time I have, I want to focus principally on the issue of search and on new clauses 9 and 10, which stand in my name. As the shadow Minister has highlighted, last week we were—like many people in this place, perhaps—sent the most remarkable online prompt, which was to simply search Google for the words “desk ornament”. The top images displayed in response to that very mundane and boring search were of swastikas, SS bolts and other Nazi memorabilia presented as desk ornaments. Despite there having been awareness of that fact since, I believe, the previous weekend, and even though Google is making millions of pounds in seconds from advertising, images promoting Nazism were still available for all to see as a result of those searches.

When he gave evidence to the Bill Committee recently, Danny Stone, the Antisemitism Policy Trust’s very capable chief executive, pointed out that Amazon’s Alexa had used just one comment posted by one individual on Amazon’s website to inform potentially millions of users who cared to ask that George Soros was responsible for all of the world’s evils, and that Alexa had used a comment from another website to inform those who searched for it that the humanitarian group the White Helmets was an illicit operation founded by a British spy.

As we have seen throughout the covid pandemic, similar results come up in response to other searches, such as those around vaccines and covid. The Antisemitism Policy Trust has previously demonstrated that Microsoft Bing, the platform that lies behind Alexa, was directing users to hateful searches such as “Jews are bastards” through autocompletes, as well as pointing people to homophobic stories. We even had the sickening situation of Google’s image carousel highlighting Jewish baby strollers in response to people searching for portable barbecues.

Our own Alexa searches highlighted the issue some time ago. Users who asked Alexa “Do Jews control the media?” were responded to with a quote from a website called Jew Watch—that should tell Members all they need to know about the nature of the platform—saying that Jews control not only the media, but the financial system too. The same problem manifests itself across search platforms in other languages, as we highlighted not so long ago with Siri in Spanish. When asked, “Do the Jews control the media?” she responds with an article that states that Jews do indeed control international media. This goes on and on, irrespective of whether the search is voice or text-based.

The largest search companies in the world are falling at the first hurdle when it comes to risk assessing for harms on their platform. That is the key point when we ask for lawful but harmful content to be responded to. It is about risk assessment—requiring companies that do not respect borders, operate globally and are in many ways more powerful than Governments to risk assess and warn about lawful but deeply harmful content that all of us in the House would be disgusted by.

At present, large traditional search services including Google and Microsoft Bing, and voice search assistants including Alexa and Siri, will be exempted from having to risk assess their systems and address harm to adults, despite the fact that other large user-to-user services will have to do so. How can it be possible that Google does not have to act, when Meta—Facebook—and Twitter do? That does not seem consistent with the aims of the Bill.

There is a lot more that I would like to have said on the Bill. I welcome the written ministerial statement last week in relation to small but high-harm platforms. I hope that as the Bill progresses to the other place, we can look again at search. Some of the content generated is truly appalling, even though it may very well be considered lawful.

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I join everyone else in the House in welcoming the Minister to his place.

I rise to speak in support of amendments 15 and 16. At the core of this issue is the first duty of any Government: to keep people safe. Too often in debates, which can become highly technical, we lose sight of that fact. We are not just talking about technology and regulation; we are talking about real lives and real people. It is therefore incumbent on all of us in this place to have that at the forefront of our minds when discussing such legislation.

Labelling social media as the wild west of today is hardly controversial—that is plain and obvious for all to see. There has been a total failure on the part of social media companies to make their platforms safe for everyone to use, and that needs to change. Regulation is not a dirty word, but a crucial part of ensuring that as the internet plays a bigger role in every generation’s lives, it meets the key duty of keeping people safe. It has been a decade since we first heard of this Bill, and almost four years since the Government committed to it, so I am afraid that there is nothing even slightly groundbreaking about the Bill as it is today. We have seen progress being made in this area around the world, and the UK is falling further and further behind.

Of particular concern to me is the impact on children and young people. As a mother, I worry for the world that my young daughter will grow up in, and I will do all I can in this place to ensure that children’s welfare is at the absolute forefront. I can see no other system or institution that children are allowed to engage with that has such a wanting lack of safeguards and regulation. If there was a faulty slide in a playground, it would be closed off and fixed. If a sports field was covered with glass or litter, that would be reported and dealt with. Whether we like it or not, social media has become the streets our children hang out in, the world they grow up in and the playground they use. It is about time we started treating it with the same care and attention.

There are far too many holes in the Bill that allow for the continued exploitation of children. Labour’s amendments 15 and 16 tackle the deeply troubling issue of “breadcrumbing”. That is where child abusers use social networks to lay trails to illegal content elsewhere online and share videos of abuse edited to fall within content moderation guidelines. The amendments would give the regulators powers to tackle that disgusting practice and ensure that there is a proactive response to it. They would bring into regulatory scope the millions of interactions with accounts that actively enable child abuse. Perhaps most importantly, they would ensure that social media companies tackled child abuse at the earliest possible stage.

In its current form, even with Government amendment 14, the Bill merely reinforces companies’ current focus only on material that explicitly reaches the criminal threshold. That is simply not good enough. Rather than acknowledging that issue, Government amendments 71 and 72 let social media companies off the hook. They remove the requirement for companies to apply their terms and conditions “consistently”. That was addressed very eloquently by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who highlighted that Government amendment 14 simply does not go far enough.

Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I am afraid that my right hon. Friend cannot tempt me, and I will say why shortly.

I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) for bringing forward amendments 14 to 17 to clauses 59 and 60. They would expand retrospective rights to upgrade and share apparatus in buildings owned by private landlords, such as blocks of flats, also known as multiple dwelling units or MDUs. I begin by saying that I have considered this issue carefully. I have been lobbied extremely heavily on it by one operator in particular, and I have tested the proposition with my officials, legal advisers and other operators.

I would not like to pre-empt what the hon. Lady might say as to why she tabled the amendments and their perceived need. However, I reassure her, and any others considering supporting them, that as a fellow London MP with many MDUs in my seat I am concerned about the dangers of a digital divide emerging, and I am doing what I can to avoid that circumstance. If I thought that the amendments genuinely helped on that front, I would do all I could to incorporate them, but there is a glaring lack of consensus among the telecoms industry about their need. Indeed, only one operator has contacted me in support of them, while four separate operators and representative bodies have strongly opposed the amendments, arguing that they are anti-competitive. I will talk a little more about that in a minute.

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

I welcome the Minister’s rejection of those amendments. In my area, we have KCOM, which is a strong local performer. Had it not been for KCOM, most of my constituents, who are on the dual network, where it can be KCOM or Openreach, would not be anywhere near to getting gigabit broadband. We therefore do not want to see any changes that will give BT Openreach an advantage or preference over other providers, such as KCOM, which have got their acts together and got gigabit broadband delivered to our homes.

--- Later in debate ---

The Bill is taking aim at many of the right problems in product security, and the SNP welcomes its aims in good faith, but the Minister is not returning that good faith, because she is simply ignoring some of the simple tweaks that we have asked for and suggested in order to close those loopholes and oversights. I hope that she will reconsider.

[Andrew Percy]

It is interesting to follow the comments of the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), particularly on disinformation and misinformation. If he wants to see some examples of excellent disinformation and misinformation, I refer him to some of the fake content that occasionally goes out from cybernats.

My only interest in this legislation is in what it will do for my constituents in Brigg and Goole. Some hon. Members might remember me banging on, many times in previous Parliaments and over the last few years, about the poor mobile and broadband coverage in my constituency. I used to refer to our broadband speed as two megabits a fortnight. I therefore welcome the general principles and direction of the Bill, which are so important to speeding up the roll-out of proper gigabit broadband.

In my intervention on the Minister, I highlighted my belief that it is competition that has delivered a massive increase in the roll-out of fibre-to-the-premise, gigabit-enabled broadband in my constituency. In East Yorkshire, we have a mixed network: large parts of East Yorkshire have no BT network at all and are entirely on the Kingston Communications system—now known as KCOM. That is why there are no red telephone boxes; we have white or cream telephone boxes locally. When I worked in America, someone bought me a postcard of red phone boxes to remind me of home, but of course they were entirely alien to me as I grew up in the piece of East Yorkshire where red phone boxes and BT did not exist.

In parts of East Yorkshire, we have the KCOM network. In other parts, including the part that I live in and represent, we have the BT Openreach network and we also increasingly have the Kingston Communications network. That is why I am concerned about some of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), to which the shadow Minister spoke on her behalf, and about anything that potentially gives an anti-competitive advantage to one provider over another.

I do not have a particular problem with BT Openreach, which did a reasonably good job in the first fibre roll-out—the fibre-to-the-cabinet 24 megabit roll-out—across North Lincolnshire and my part of the East Riding of Yorkshire, which was generally delivered on time and in line with the contract. However, that is obviously not sufficient now, some years on. People increasingly demand and require proper full fibre to the premises, and I am afraid that that is where BT Openreach has not done its job. It has been left to Kingston Communications to roll out proper gigabit broadband to Goole, Broughton and, increasingly, Brigg and other communities in my constituency. We welcome that. As I said, it is purely competition and the work of Ofcom which has enabled us to have that.

Despite my praise of KCOM, those works have not been without some difficulties locally. Some of its pavement and streetworks leave something to be desired, and it has occasionally set fire to a number of residents’ hedges, which is awkward for residents and KCOM. Those problems and troubles aside, we now have significant roll-out of gigabit broadband to the premises as a result of that competition. Indeed, that is why the UK, having languished at the bottom of the full fibre league tables for some time, has begun to rise to a more respectable position.

As I said in my intervention on the Minister, I have some concerns about the amendments that seem to give preference to BT Openreach in some places. As I say, I have no problem with BT Openreach, but the Minister needs to look at some of its investment decisions. For years, it refused to provide full-fibre broadband to most parts of my constituency, including Goole. KCOM came along and did one part of it, leaving Old Goole. We put a town deal bid together to try to roll out full gigabit broadband to Old Goole, and then all of a sudden—I am sure it was entirely unconnected— BT Openreach gave notice that it planned to upgrade the exchange in Old Goole, but could not confirm whether it planned to roll out to premises. That leaves us in a quandary: should we proceed with our town deal, using public money on that project? I am sure it is all a coincidence, but it is important that the Minister looks at how many coincidences there are, where there is investment by one alternative provider and suddenly the behaviour of BT Openreach around that provider seems to take a certain pattern. As I say, I am sure it is all a complete and utter coincidence.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Does he accept that the point he is making about competition goes wider than Brigg and Goole? The more competition we see across the country, the better the provision will be.

[Andrew Percy]

Indeed, but as my right hon. Friend will know, Brigg and Goole is of course the most important place in this country, and I am therefore particularly exercised by what happens there. He is absolutely right, though: that competition, which is also seeing the KCOM network expanded and rolled out in his constituency in the northern bit of East Yorkshire, is really very important. That is not to say that BT Openreach does not have an incredibly important role to play—of course it does, and I praise it for its work in getting gigabit broadband expanded across the country, but some of its behaviour raises questions.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who moved amendment 14 and spoke to the group I am referring to, brushed aside concerns about private property rights and the claims that BT Openreach and others will potentially have greater powers than the police to enter private property. He said that that would all be on the basis of no loss or damage. Well, that is all fine, but it is a fairly high bar in loss of personal property rights—or a low bar, depending on how you want to think of it. I was not exactly comforted by his dismissal of people’s legitimate concerns around one provider having particular rights to access property that others would not have. On that basis, I urge the Government to reject and oppose those amendments.

[Julia Lopez]

I am grateful to all Members who have spoken in this debate, to the Opposition for their support for the Bill, and to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) in particular for the very collaborative approach he has taken throughout and his acknowledgement of the improvements we have made. I shall test officials on the further points he makes. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for highlighting the product security parts of the Bill. Some of the detail he seeks will be in secondary legislation. Goods sold in online marketplaces, for instance, are not out of scope, because manufacturers, importers and distributors are covered. I would be happy to come back to him on some of the other points he raised.

On criticism of our roll-out, we are making substantial progress on our gigabit roll-out. We are now up to 68% coverage, up from 9% in 2019. I am open to any proposal to make roll-out go even faster. I have set out why competition is so important to that dynamic and why I think the amendments on MDUs are not the right way to go and could even slow the roll-out. I note the comments on BT Openreach. Other providers tell me that they have great teams negotiating wayleaves, that this is a straightforward process and that extra help on MDUs of the kind envisaged is simply not needed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for using KCOM as a great example of that, and for highlighting not only some of the good work that Openreach does, but the interesting example of his town deal, which I shall take away with me.

My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) made a typically fruity and passionate speech. We believe our legislation incentivises greater collaboration. I set out in detail earlier why that is the case. We believe that rents were too high. As the need for digital infrastructure increases, we think rents need to become more akin to those for utilities. I should never wish to be accused of seeing property as theft. Indeed, I confess to taking umbrage at my right hon. Friend’s assertion on Second Reading. That is why I have tested his proposition—

Online Safety Bill

Andrew Percy Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I, too, regret the short time we have to debate this important Bill this evening. This is much-needed legislation and I agree with many of the comments already made.

These platforms have been warned over the years to take action yet have failed to do so. Their online platforms have remained a safe space for racism, holocaust denial, homophobia, conspiracy theories and general bullying. One of the best things I ever did for my mental health was to leave Twitter, but for many young people that is not an option as it cuts them off from access to their friends and much of what is their society. So I am proud that the Government are taking action on this but, as the Minister knows from my meetings with him alongside the Antisemitism Policy Trust, there are ways in which I think the Bill can be improved.

First, on small, high-harm platforms, I pay tribute to the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which has been leading the charge. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said, everybody knows Facebook, Twitter and YouTube but few people are aware of a lot of the smaller platforms such as BitChute, 8kun—previously 8chan—or Minds. These small platforms are a haven for white supremacists, incels, conspiracy theorists and antisemites; it is where they gather, converse and share and spew their hate.

An example of that is a post from the so-called anti-Jewish meme repository on the platform Gab which showed a picture of goblins, in this instance the usual grotesque representation of those age-old Jewish physical stereotypes, alongside the phrase, “Are you ready to die in another Jewish war, Goyim?” That is the sort of stuff that is on these small platforms, and it is not rare; we see it all over. Indeed, many of these small platforms exist purely to spew such hate, but at present, despite the many measures in the Bill that I support, these sites will be sifted by Ofcom into two major categories based on their size and functionality. I met the Minister to discuss this point recently.

The Government have not so far been enthusiastic about risk being a determinant factor for fear that too many of the small platforms would be drawn into scope. That is why I hope that as this Bill progresses the Minister will consider a small amendment to enable Ofcom to have powers to draw the small but high-harm platforms, based on its assessments—the so-called super-complaints that we have heard about or other means— into the category 1 status. That would add a regulatory oversight and burden on those platforms. This is all about putting pressure on them—requiring them to go through more hurdles to frustrate their business model of hate, and making it as uncomfortable as possible for them. I hope the Minister will look at that as the Bill progresses.

I am very short of time but I also want to raise the issue of search, which the Minister knows I have raised previously. We in the all-party group against antisemitism found examples in Alexa and other voice-activated search platforms where the responses that come back are deeply offensive and racist. I understand that the relationship with the user in entering into a search is different from having an account with a particular social media platform, but these search engines are providing access to all sorts of grotesque racist and misogynistic content and I hope we can look at that as the Bill progresses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

As I have said previously, we are making very good progress towards 19 July. Given that the evidence is suggesting that despite rising infections, we are breaking the linkage to hospitalisations and deaths, I really do hope and expect that we will be able to have that full reopening from 19 July. We have always said that we would clarify and confirm that at least a week in advance, which would be by 12 July. Festivals have benefited from millions of pounds of wider support through the culture recovery fund, and, of course, at least one of our events research programme pilots is in relation to a festival.

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

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, may I ask the Secretary of State how the shared rural network and other measures are finally going to get us the improvements in mobile phone coverage across north Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire that we so desperately still need?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)]

The shared rural network will eliminate the partial notspots across huge swathes of the country, particularly in Yorkshire and the Humber; it will take the region from 95% to 99% coverage from at least one operator, and from 81% to 90% coverage from all four operators. I know how hard my hon. Friend has been working on this issue, and I look forward to working with him to continue that progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I share the hon. Lady’s desire to get sports fans back in stadiums as quickly as we can, as has been highlighted by my colleagues on the Government Benches. We have already set out a road map, and I think it is important to people that we stick to that road map, which would see fans returning socially distanced from 17 May.

We have already set out a pilot for the FA cup final. It is important to understand what these pilots are about. They are about testing fans coming into and out of stadiums; they are not windows to allow extra events to happen. We will of course keep this under review, and if there were a possibility, of course I would grab it.

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

  Despite warm words from mobile phone operators and promises to Government, communities such as Broughton in my constituency are still waiting for companies such as O2 to make good on their promises to give us halfway decent mobile phone coverage. What more can the Government do to push the mobile phone companies to make sure that we get the service we are paying for up here?

[Oliver Dowden]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the need for speed. As he will know, the shared rural network will see the Government and industry jointly investing over £1 billion to increase 4G coverage throughout the UK. On 5G, over 200 towns and cities already have 5G, and our ambition is for the vast majority to have it by 2027. In addition, as my hon. Friend has outlined, building on today’s welcome announcement from Ofcom, I will shortly be providing further details on our plans to make the UK giga-fit.

Online Harms

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), a fellow Yorkshire MP, for securing the debate and for the content of her speech.

I will primarily focus on antisemitism online, particularly in my role as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on antisemitism. Before I do that, I want to raise the issue of financial scams, which many of us have been lobbied on. I had a very sad case of a constituent who was recently affected by such a scam. They are truly shocking and harmful scams that take place online. I hope that as the Government move forward in this space and introduce legislation, they will have scams in mind too.

We all know the history of the rise of antisemitism in recent years, both on the far left and on the far right in this country, and across Europe and the wider world. It is sad that antisemitism has continued to grow and to find space online during this period of coronavirus. We have seen a fall in the number of physical incidents, probably because of the lockdown, but sadly we have seen all too much of a continuation online. Between the start of this year and June the Community Security Trust recorded 344 online incidents. There would have been many more were it not for the narrow reporting parameters. We could easily be up into the millions if we could measure antisemitism under the broadest scope. Those examples are as shocking as what we all know. There are many Members present who are members of the all-party parliamentary group on antisemitism and who have taken a stand on the issue.

During the period in question there has been Zoombombing of Jewish events with vile racist antisemitic commentary. Sadly, there have been covid conspiracy theories growing online. It is disappointing, first, that there is an anti-mask movement—sadly that is across the world; but often that moves closely to antisemitism. A constituent recently contacted me about that, with some barking mad idea about masks and how terrible they are, to which I replied, “Next thing you will be telling me it is all the fault of the Rothschilds,” to which—no word of a lie—I received a response saying “Actually, the Rothschilds knew this was going to happen.” That is how this stuff spreads. It is a simple step from one to the other.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some crucial points. Does he share my disgust, and is he appalled, that YouTube at the start of this debate is providing links to a notorious antisemitic radio station called Radio Aryan and, indeed, a whole channel dedicated to antisemitic material? I will not read the name out. The content is there right now, as we are having this debate. YouTube has not removed it.

[Andrew Percy]

It is absolutely shocking. It should not take legislation to deal with it; it is obvious that the content should not be there. We need the Government to legislate, as I shall come on to in a moment, but it takes no brain surgeon to figure this stuff out. Sadly, too many platforms do not do enough.

Then of course there was the shocking Wiley incident, when he was tweeting on average every 87 seconds, which is incredible. There were 600 tweets, on a conservative estimate, which were seen online by more than 47 million people, of vile antisemitic abuse. Let us just consider some examples of it. He tweeted:

“If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in anyway of course you will get fired.”

Another one was:

“Infact there are 2 sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge #Jewish & #KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to undestand why:”

Then—something completely disgusting:

“Jewish people you think you are too important I am sick of you”

and

“Jewish people you make me sick and I will not budge”.

It took days. As I said, it took, at a conservative estimate, 600 tweets before anything was done about it. Instagram videos were posted. When one platform closed it down it ended up elsewhere. That is despite all the terms and conditions in place.

Enforcement is, sadly, all too invisible, as the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has highlighted, with regard to Radio Aryan. I was pleased that Wiley was stripped of his honour, but he should never have been able to get into the position of being able to spout that bile for so long. The best we have been able to do is strip him of an honour. It is completely and utterly unacceptable.

There is a similar problem with other platforms. I want to talk briefly about BitChute. It is an alternative platform, but we see the same old tropes there. Videos get millions of views there. It is a nastier version of YouTube—let us be honest—with videos in the name of the proscribed group National Action, a channel, for example, with the name “Good Night Jewish Parasite”, livestreaming of terrorist content, racist videos about Black Lives Matter protesters and much more; but it is a UK-based platform with UK directors, and while action is taken against individual videos there is, sadly, not enough recourse. Given the time limits, I shall quickly ask two questions and make two comments on legislation and where we are heading.

The online harms White Paper suggested a number of codes of practice, and that seems to have been rowed away from somewhat in recent weeks and months, so that there will be reliance, instead, on the terms and conditions. I do not think that that is enough. I hope that the Minister will confirm that enforceable codes of action will flow. I hope that also if she has some time she will perhaps meet me, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust and other partners, to discuss the matter in more detail.

Will the Minister consider introducing senior management liability for social media companies? The German model for fines is often talked about, but it has not worked. The maximum fine so far issued in Germany is, I think, two million dollars or pounds, which is nothing for Facebook. It can afford to build that into its programme.

There is plenty more I could have said—I am conscious of the time—but I hope the Minister will commit to meet with us and respond to those two points.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that unless we keep to four minutes, we will not get everybody in.

Shared Rural Network

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is right that having good broadband and good mobile connectivity is important for all of us, but particularly for our small and medium-sized businesses, many of which are run from rural, even residential, premises and need that connectivity to be fast and reliable, and not, as he says, to fade in and out. I hope he will welcome the fact that at the moment the coverage of all four operators is 78% in Northern Ireland, but once the shared rural network programme has taken effect, which we very much hope it will and as it is expected to, it will reach 91% of Northern Ireland.

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

I regularly survey my constituents in Brigg and Goole and the Isle of Axholme on this and produce a network by network, geographically located report. EE has been very good in responding to those surveys. A new mast in Broughton will come online on 5 November as a result of that, and changes are also being made to a mast in Reedness, so there is some good news. However, it is clear from my surveying of constituents that the maps provided by the networks do not have a great deal of reality compared with what my constituents are experiencing. May I urge the Secretary of State to look at that? Will she also look at local authorities offering up their facilities? One of my local authorities, North Lincolnshire Council, did that, but not a single one of the networks took it up on that offer.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about maps. That is really important. Now that the mobile network operators are working together, it will hopefully be easier to get that information so that our constituents will be able to see the progress that is being made. He talks encouragingly about the two masts and the changes already happening in his constituency. In relation to local authorities, we are working with the Cabinet Office and having conversations to make sure that local authority infrastructure such as hospitals and schools can also be used to increase and improve connectivity in these communities.

Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) (Amendment) Bill (First sitting)

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 27th February 2019 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Like the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire, I rise briefly to offer my full support for this Bill and to the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet.

On a day when, sadly, the reputation of this House has once again been brought into disrepute by offensive comments about the Jewish community, we are reminded again of the horrors of the holocaust and its devastating consequences. It is estimated that 20% of Europe’s cultural treasures were stolen by the Nazis, most notably from Jewish families, and that over 100,000 of those works are still lost, presumed to be in both private and public collections.

Even though many of the survivors are now passing away, their children and heirs still want the transparency, accountability and justice that was promised, and the restitution of what was taken and never returned. I welcome the fact that Her Majesty’s Government and the House have recommitted to this issue, and I am pleased to support the Bill that is before the Committee. I wish it a speedy passage.

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

I will make a small contribution to, of course, support the legislation, but also to pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet for her work on this issue.

As the hon. Member for West Ham referenced, the Bill offers us an opportunity for further education. At a time when the scale of holocaust denial is rising, both in this country and across Europe and the world, we have an opportunity to once again explain the full horrors of the holocaust, including, of course, the concentration camps and the dehumanisation of people, but also the dispossession of people in such an inhumane way.

While we are on that subject, I pay particular tribute to the Czech Memorial Scrolls Museum at Westminster synagogue—the synagogue that I attend—which demonstrates what that theft of property resulted in. It contains 1,100 scrolls that were stolen by the Nazis and recovered after the war. Those scrolls were preserved for one reason only: so that once the Nazis had concluded their murder and killing of the Jewish community, they could create a sick museum to a wiped-out and eradicated race of people.

That decision by the Nazis was totally disgusting, but those scrolls are now in the possession of the Czech Memorial Scrolls Museum, and they are used for educational purposes. They could not be returned to their communities, because those communities do not exist anymore. Those scrolls are used in services all around the world, and now act as a reminder of the horror, hate and theft undertaken by the Nazis. I encourage all right hon. and hon. Members to visit that museum and to encourage that educational work to continue. This legislation is limited and narrow, but it is so important, and it offers us another opportunity for education.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to rise, albeit briefly, to support this important Bill and to once again thank the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet for having brought it forward. She has been assiduous in doing so, and in all the other work she does in the House against antisemitism. The strength of support across parties for her Bill, and also against antisemitism, is a credit to her.

I support the Bill legally, morally and in terms of justice. Justice cannot be time-barred, and remembering the holocaust cannot be time-barred either. It is important that we pass that on to future generations, and that future generations also have the opportunity of restitution. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole just said, it is unfortunate that so many people seek to deny the holocaust. It is therefore important that we work together to put in place measures such as this and, collectively, to do all we can, and all that is right, to ensure that it does not happen.

Antisemitism is on the rise in society and in politics, from the left and the right. I have experienced it myself. All party leaders must act—I have said that before, and I say it again. As parliamentarians, it is important that we act. Today, we act together and send out a strong signal that there is collective cross-party support for the Bill, not just in the UK Parliament in Westminster, but in our Scottish Parliament. I wholeheartedly thank everybody who has been involved.