Digital Safety: Children

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight the importance of the effectiveness of any regime; that is the central focus of what we are trying to do to keep children safe online. We need a regime that can be implemented, that can be navigated well by young people and their parents, and that is able to be communicated. That is one of the reasons we continue to support parents in having conversations with young people. The question about Ofcom’s enforcement powers is very important. We have made clear to Ofcom that it has the backing of the Government to take action. We have funded Ofcom so that it can take action and it has already launched 100 investigations and issued many millions of pounds in fines. That is the kind of regime we need. We need a regime that is effective and enforced.

[Baroness Keeley (Lab)]

My Lords, our debates around the issue of child safety in your Lordships’ House tend to highlight a lack of confidence that the big tech companies will do the right thing. They could make their products safe by design but they do not. If legislation is required after three months, can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that the legislation will be drafted and ready to go if, as many of us suspect, the companies do not act in the way that we want them to?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to highlight the high expectations we have for this to be rolled out. We have made it very clear that, if those high expectations for the rollout at scale of this nudity-detection technology for children’s devices does not happen, we will legislate. The Minister for Online Safety yesterday confirmed to the other place that he is working closely with the Home Office to draw up this legislation in parallel, so that we can act should that be necessary.