Online Safety Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and I rise to speak primarily to that. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and agree with every word she has just said. I will draw on two elements of my personal history that she reminded me of. As a journalist in country Australia in the early 1990s—pre-internet days—I worked the night shift, and at least once a week we would get a frantic phone call from a parent calling on behalf of a child along the lines of, “Do you know anything about dolphins?” A school project had just been discovered that needed to be done by the next morning, and the source of information that the parent thought of was, “The local newspaper—they might be able to tell us something!” I am slightly ashamed to say that we had a newspaper to get out and we very quickly told them to go away, so we were not a good source of information in that case. Most people in your Lordships’ House will remember—but most young people will have no recollection of—a time when there was little access to information outside the hours when the library was open or you could go to a bookshop. There were literally no other sources available. We have to consider this amendment in the light of that.

I also want to slightly disagree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, on the previous group. He suggested that it was only with the arrival of phones that the internet became primarily or significantly a children’s thing. The best I can date it is that either in 1979 or 1980 I was playing “Lemonade Stand” on one of the early Apples. This might have been considered to be a harmful game from some political perspectives, given that it very much encouraged a capitalist mindset, profit taking and indeed the Americanisation of culture—but none the less that was back in 1980, if not 1979, and children were there. If we look back over the history of the internet, we see that some of the companies started out with young people, under the age of 18 in some cases, who have been at the forefront of innovation and development of what we now think of as our social media or internet world. This is the children’s world as much as it is the adults’ world, and that is the reality.

I will pick up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, who suggested that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was only a guide to government and not law. It is a great pity that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is not in her place, because she is far better equipped to deal with this angle than I am. But I will give it a go. Children’s rights are humans’ rights. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most backed and most ratified rights convention—

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

I appreciate what the noble Baroness is saying, but I made a slightly different point. I am suggesting not that what is there was not meant to be law but that it was not written in a form which should be simply directly put in as legislation. It was not drafted in that format on that basis, which is why a direct graft on to a domestic piece of legislation is not quite the way to do it. It is about using that as guidance as to what should be in the law, rather than simply a direct incorporation.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for his clarification, although, speaking not as a lawyer, my understanding is that a human right is a legal right; it is a law—a most fundamental right. In addition, every country in the world has ratified this except for the United States—which is another issue. I also point out that it is particularly important that we include reference to children’s rights in this Bill, given the fact that we as a country currently treat our children very badly. There is a huge range of issues, and we should have a demonstration in this and every Bill that the rights of children are respected across all aspects of British society.

I will not get diverted into a whole range of those, but I point noble Lords to a report to the United Nations from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in February this year that highlighted a number of ways in which children’s rights are not being lived up to in the UK. The most relevant part of this letter that the EHRC sent to the UN stresses that it is crucial to preserve children’s rights to accessible information and digital connectivity. That comes from our EHRC.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who referred to the fact that we live in a global environment, and of course our social media and the internet is very much a global world. I urge everyone who has not done so to look at a big report done by UNICEF in 2019, Global Kids Online, which, crucially, involved a huge amount of surveys, consultation and consideration by young people. Later we will get to an amendment of mine which says that we should have the direct voice of young people overseeing the implementation of the Bill. I am talking not about the NGOs that represent them but specifically about children: we need to listen to the children and young people.

The UNICEF report said that it was quite easy to defend access to information and to reputable sources, but showed that accessing entertainment activities—some of the things that perhaps some grandparents in this Chamber might have trouble with—was associated with the positive development of digital skills. Furthermore, the report says:

“When parents restrict children’s internet use”—


of course, this could also apply to the Government restricting their internet use—

“this has a negative effect on children’s information-seeking and privacy skills”.

So, if you do not give children the chance to develop these skills to learn how to navigate the internet, and they suddenly go to it at age 18 and a whole lot of stuff is out there that they have not developed any skills to deal with, you are setting yourself up for a real problem. So UNICEF stresses the real need to have children’s access.

Interestingly, this report—which was a global report from UNICEF—said that

“fewer than one third of children had been exposed to”

something they had found uncomfortable or upsetting in the preceding year. That is on the global scale. Perhaps that is an important balance to some of the other debates we have had in your Lordships’ House on the Bill.

Other figures from this report that I think are worth noting—this is from 2019, so these figures will undoubtedly have gone up—include the finding that

“one in three children globally is … an internet user and …. one in three internet users is a child”.

We have been talking about this as though the internet is “the grown-ups’ thing”, but that is not the global reality. It was co-created, established and in some cases invented by people under the age of 18. I am afraid to say that your Lordships’ House is not particularly well equipped to deal with this, but we need to understand this as best we possibly can. I note that the report also said, looking at the sustainable development goals on quality of education, good jobs and reducing inequality, that internet access for children was crucial.

I will make one final point. I apologise; I am aware that I have been speaking for a while, but I am passionate about these issues. Children and young people have agency and the ability to act and engage in politics. In several nations on these islands, 16 and 17 year-olds have the vote. I very much hope that that will soon also be the case in England, and indeed I hope that soon children even younger than that that will have the vote. I was talking about that with a great audience of year nines at the Queen’s School in Bushey on Friday with Learn with the Lords. Those children would have a great opportunity—

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, we have a very full order of business to get through, so I encourage the noble Baroness to remain on topic.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I think that is on topic. If 16 and 17 year-olds are voting, they have a right to access internet information about voting. I suggest that that is on topic.

My final point—for the pleasure of the noble Lord—is that historically we have seen examples where blocks and filters have denied children and young people who identify as LGBTQI+ access to crucial information for them. That is an example of the risk if we do not allow them right of access. On the most basic children’s right of all, we have also seen examples of blocks and filters that have stopped access to breastfeeding information on the internet. Access is a crucial issue, and what could be a more obvious way to allow it than by writing in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The quip works, but political rights are not quips. Political rights have responsibilities, and so on. If we gave children rights, they would not be dependent on adults and adult society. Therefore, it is a debate; it is a row about what our rights are. Guess what. It is a philosophical row that has been going on all around the world. I am just suggesting that this is not the place—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I am sorry, but I must point out that 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland and Wales have the vote. That is a political right.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

And it has been highly contentious whether the right to vote gives them independence. For example, you would still be accused of child exploitation if you did anything to a person under 18 in Scotland or Wales. In fact, if you were to tap someone and it was seen as slapping in Scotland and they were 17, you would be in trouble. Anyway, it should not be in this Bill. That is my point.