Online Harms

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, with regard to disinformation connected with democracy and those essential questions, the White Paper deals with disinformation generally. With regard to electoral reform and how elections can be affected by the use of the internet, as I said, the Cabinet Office is bringing out a report soon to deal with that. It is right that constitutional affairs are dealt with there.

On disinformation, we have listed in the White Paper some of the areas we expect the regulator to include, such as:

“Promoting diverse news content … Improving the transparency of political advertising”—


noble Lords can read it themselves; there are other things. That is how we are trying to do it across government. As I said, there are other areas that we deliberately do not cover in the White Paper, but that should not be taken to mean that work is not going on. However, I accept the noble Lord’s suggestion that it is important and needs to be done soon. I take that on board.

As far as time is concerned, we are having a consultation, as the noble Lord said, which will end on 1 July. Obviously, it is not possible for me to say today when legislation will come before the House. That is a decision for the Government and the Leaders of both Houses. Judging by the discussions we have had today, and the feeling I get from across the House, all noble Lords think that this is an important issue. The Government think that this is an important issue. We are aware that we have taken time over the consultation. As far as the Home Office and DCMS are concerned, we want to get on with it.

We have just announced a review of advertising that will report in due course.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I too welcome the White Paper. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for being open to discussions during the process, and for indicating that there will be more discussions. I feel that more discussions are required because it is a little lacking in detail, and I share others’ concerns about the definition of harms. I was particularly upset to not see a little more work done on the everyday harms: the gaming, the gambling and the addictive loops that drive such unhealthy behaviours online. There are a lot of questions in the paper and I look forward to us all getting together to answer them—I hope quickly and soon. I really welcome the Minister’s words about the anxiety of the Government and both Houses to bring a Bill forward, because that is the litmus test of this White Paper: how quickly we get something on the books.

I feel encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, to mention that on Monday next week we have the launch of the final stage of the age-appropriate design code, which takes a safety-by-design approach. That is what I most welcome in the White Paper, in the Government’s attitude and in the work that we have in front of us: what we want to do is drive good behaviour. We want to drive corporate responsibility. We want to drive shareholders to take responsibility for those massive profits and to make sure that we do not allow the tech sector its exceptionality. It is a business like any other and it must do no harm. In relation to that I mention Will Perrin and Lorna Woods, who brought it forth and did so much work.

Finally, I am really grateful for what the Minister said about the international community. It is worth saying that these problems are in all parts of the world —we are not alone—and they wait and look at what we are doing. I congratulate the Government on acting first.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Obviously, there are details that need to be ironed out, and that is partly what the consultation is about. I expect there to be a lot of detail, which we will go over when a Bill finally comes to this House. In the past we have dealt with things like the Data Protection Act and have shown that we can do that well. The list in the White Paper of legal harms and everyday harms, as the noble Baroness calls them, is indicative. I completely agree with her that the White Paper is attempting to drive good behaviour. The difference it will make is that companies cannot now say, “It’s not my problem”. If we incorporate this safety by design, they will have to do that, because they will have a duty of care right from the word go. They cannot say, “It’s not my responsibility”, because we have given them the responsibility, and if they do not exercise it there will be serious consequences.