Children: Adult Material Online

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Benjamin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to protect children from easily accessing pornography and other adult material online.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)]

My Lords, through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, jointly chaired by three government Ministers, the Government have gained commitment from the five main internet service providers actively to encourage new and existing customers to switch on parental internet controls if children are in the household. Public wifi providers are now filtering pornography in public places, and there is work under way with device manufacturers and retailers to encourage greater availability of parental controls.

[Baroness Benjamin]

I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Unfortunately there are many vulnerable children without parents, or who have uninterested parents, so no amount of awareness education will do anything for these kids. Many are already re-enacting pornographic behaviour on other children, as highlighted by the NSPCC. So will the Minister tell the House, as the service providers are working on filtering for new customers, why the Government do not insist that they offer filtering for their existing customers, and block porn and adult material by default as part of the solution to protect all children before they end up in a moral wasteland?

[Lord Nash]

We have asked the ISPs actively to encourage people to switch on parental controls if there are children in the household, whether they are new or existing customers. The ISPs regularly contact existing customers through e-mails and on their bills. We also want the ISPs to put in place measures to check that the person setting up the parental controls is over the age of 18. The five main domestic ISPs, which cover 90% of households in the UK, have committed to ensure that these measures are in place for existing as well as new customers by the end of this year.