Consumer Rights Bill

Baroness King of Bow Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for coming back to this matter and for bringing forward the amendment. The question, “What is more important than our children?”, has already been asked in this debate. The answer to that is surely that nothing is more important. If that is the case, it seems logical that we should adopt the amendment. I implore the Government to consider the amendment carefully and I urge them to adopt it. As far as our children in particular are concerned, safety cannot be overdone. Today, there are many pressures on children and parents. I believe that one day every parent will rise up and thank the Government for including this amendment in the Bill. I thoroughly commend it to the Committee.

[Baroness King of Bow (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government clearly believe that default-on internet filtering is the best approach to protect children. Common sense tells us that they are right but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, pointed out in her powerful speech, if they are right on this point then they are wrong to take a non-statutory approach. Such an approach leaves possibly 1 million children unprotected and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, it boils down to the question, “Do the 10% matter or not?”. Do those children matter or not?

The background context to this is well rehearsed: the digital age gives our children more opportunities than they have ever had before, but on occasion it also puts them at grave risk. The NSPCC says that 24% of nine to 16 year-olds in the UK saw sexual images in 2012-13 online or offline. Some 80% of those were worried by what they saw. A recent survey by the Asda Mumdex found that 82% of mums in this country want the Government to tackle child protection online. On top of that, Ofcom reports that over half of parents with children at home do not use parental controls, and I am sure that we are convinced that in the other half of those households the kids would be able to get around those controls in any case.

On a related issue, the blacklisting of child abuse terms by Google and Microsoft was indeed a step in the right direction, but the Government must ensure that police are resourced to deal with child abuse imagery. This cannot be only a voluntary approach when child safety is at risk. It is not only about child safety today; it is about adult behaviour tomorrow. We do not want a generation brought up to think that violent pornography is the norm. That is why we on these Benches support this amendment to require all internet service providers to provide default-on internet filters. Those filters should use British Board of Film Classification standards to define age-inappropriate material. This was the substance of Labour’s Opposition Day debate last summer in the other place.

We recognise that the online world shifts daily, but one thing is for sure: young people today spend more and more time online. Ironically, though, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and one of the other speakers pointed out, the protection that they receive online is less than the protection that they receive offline in the real world. While it would be quite hard for a 12 year-old, say, to buy a pornographic DVD from a shop, it would be relatively easy for that same 12 year-old to buy or download it online, and that is what the average 12 year-old would prefer to do these days. Why are we helping them to damage themselves?

We seem to have a protection regime that is a bit of a nonsense. It has been set up by digital dinosaurs such as ourselves and it provides digital natives—our children—with less protection online than offline. The result is clear. Unfortunately, the Government have been too slow to tackle internet child safety. Their rhetoric, however, particularly that of the Prime Minister, has been off the scale in its attempts to pacify parents. I cannot help but quote the PM’s words that we heard earlier from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe; he said that it was about “protecting childhood itself”. He went on to say:

“That is what is at stake, and I will do whatever it takes to keep our children safe”.

No, he will not. He will not even make default internet filtering a statutory duty. Come on; that is what it takes. It is not asking the earth. As we have heard, in this country everything under the sun can be a statutory duty, but not, it seems, the critical issue of online protection for our children.

Moreover, the protection that the Government have sought to put in place via the ISPs makes digital natives laugh out loud. A 12 year-old trying to access pornography on their parents’ computer will be delighted to find that they do not have to verify that they are over 18 before secretly accessing adult content. This is because the self-regulatory approach championed by the Government has not forced ISPs to introduce proper age verification for those wishing to disable default filters. I should add that there are many areas where I agree with the self-regulatory approach; it is just that online protection for children is not one of them. The risks are too great and the dangers too apparent.

I admit that I remain baffled by the Government’s approach on this issue. I trust that they will not be baffled if and when they lose a vote on this amendment on Report. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for tabling this important amendment and I look forward to supporting her on Report.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that the Government remain committed to improving the safety of children online and have a strong track record of working with the internet industry to drive progress. I thank her for her continued interest in this area. I am aware that this amendment is drawn from a Private Member’s Bill and that similar provisions were debated earlier this year as part of the Children and Families Bill. Speaking as a parent and grandparent, this issue is close to my heart. I know that many noble Lords will feel similarly and I am pleased to update the Committee on recent progress in this area.

The Prime Minister’s speech in July last year set out a series of measures, to which he asked the industry to commit, to help parents to limit their children’s access to age-inappropriate and potentially harmful material. We have seen excellent progress in all these. As the noble Baroness said, the four major ISPs, which cover almost 90% of the UK’s broadband market—BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media—have delivered on their commitment to provide parents with the ability to easily filter content. They all now present new customers with an unavoidable choice about whether to use free, family-friendly network-level filters. Existing companies are making good headway with the rollout of these provisions. Smaller providers are also stepping up: for example, KC launched a free parental control service for its broadband customers last month. This has been a huge and complex undertaking, but it has seen results.

The noble Baroness might be interested in public wi-fi providers. The six major providers, covering more than 90% of the market, now provide family-friendly public wi-fi wherever children are likely to be. This summer, the Registered Digital Institute launched the Friendly WiFi logo, giving parents the assurance that a particular business, retailer or public space is filtering out inappropriate material.

Three of the UK’s four major mobile network operators already automatically provide adult content filters for pay-as-you-go and contract customers, with the remaining provider, Three, committed to doing so by July 2015. This means that the great majority of mobile customers are already covered by default-on filters. The Government have also been working with mobile virtual network operators to ensure that they are doing the same. These measures could not have been achieved as quickly through legislation, given the pace of change in this complex environment.

I thank the noble Baroness for setting out the reasons why she feels that further action is needed. The Government are of course open to considering different options and it would be appropriate if we had a meeting between now and Report.