Online Pornography: Digital Economy Act 2017

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. It was a deeply saddening case and our thoughts are with Archie Battersbee’s family. We are focusing on doing everything that we can to prevent cases such as Archie’s happening again. That is why the strongest protections in the Online Safety Bill will be for children. It is important that we sort this out as soon as possible, while putting aside or looking at some of the debates on wider issues of freedom of speech. Clearly, free speech is not a defence for not protecting children. That is why we will focus on children. Tech firms will be forced to protect children from dangerous viral stunts and other illegal or harmful content that will cause significant harm. Where content depicting or promoting online challenges risks causing significant harm to a number of children, companies will have to take steps to protect children from this content on their services. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State, who has just been reappointed, is very clear: she wants to bring the Online Safety Bill back as quickly as possible and we aim to do that.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have commissioned research on the prevalence and impact of a wide range of harmful content online, including pornography. Could the Minister indicate when that research will be published, and if a copy will be placed in the Library in your Lordships’ House?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

On that particular piece of research, I will have to check with the department and write to the noble Baroness. We are quite clear that, when we bring back the Online Safety Bill, the focus will mostly be on the protection of children from harm. We can have a debate on some of the other issues—the tension between freedom of speech and what adults should have access to—sensibly and calmly, as noble Lords usually do, but we want to get this right for the protection of children.