Online Safety Bill [HL]

Baroness Shields Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Shields) (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her tireless work and determination to protect children from harmful content online and for introducing this most important Bill. I am pleased that she agrees that progress has been made over recent years and we acknowledge that her continued commitment to pressing the Government on online safety has enabled the voice of this House to be heard. I also thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this most important debate.

Online safety is a major priority for the Government. Under the Prime Minister’s leadership over the past five years, the UK has become the world leader in the fight to combat online abuse, exploitation and content that is harmful for children. My appointment as the first Minister for Internet Safety and Security is just one marker of our commitment and urgent intent to continue this vital work to keep children safe as they experience all that the internet has to offer.

The free availability of online pornography is a horrific problem that Governments across the world have sought to tackle—with very limited success. As many noble Lords have said, the internet has no borders and therefore the UK cannot solve these problems alone. International co-operation is vital and the #WePROTECT global alliance, which we created in the previous Government, has shown us what can be achieved when government, industry, law enforcement and NGOs work together. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the #WePROTECT summit held in December last year brought together 50 countries and international organisations in a global statement of action and commitment to build databases and core competencies around the world to identify child sexual abuse material, working with Interpol to ensure that we can better identify victims and track down the criminals who are responsible for these horrific crimes.

I emphasise from the outset how strongly I believe the motivations of the House to be aligned in this area, and state my personal commitment to this work. This was clear throughout today’s debate and, while great progress has been made, we remain acutely aware of the risks and dangers that young people face online. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, mentioned the psychological effects and neuroadaptation, and the potential for sexual addiction. We recognise and note the urgency of this issue. That is why we made a commitment in the Conservative Party manifesto to protect children from harmful content,

“by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material”,

and we are committed to that.

Before I address the various parts of the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I will reiterate that as part of that commitment we are determined to hold the adult industry to account for its business practices which, inadvertently or not, cause distress and harm to children. We entirely agree with the sentiment behind the noble Baroness’s Bill. We are deeply concerned about the ease with which minors can access pornography, and the effect it can have on their sexual development and overall health and well-being. The noble Baroness makes excellent suggestions and we are grateful to her for introducing the Bill. However, much of what it proposes is either already happening or will be the subject of the Government’s own considerations in meeting the manifesto commitment. I assure the noble Baroness, and the House, that the Government are committed to further action to address specifically the issues raised today and that we will bring forward our own proposals.

For further clarity, I will briefly address the three parts of the Bill. The first part would place additional duties on UK internet service providers, mobile phone operators, Ofcom and the Secretary of State in relation to the provision of filters and online safety information. As many noble Lords have mentioned today, we already have a robust filters regime in place in the UK. More than 90% of consumers are offered a choice to configure their internet service easily through family-friendly filters. All mobile operators in the UK now automatically set filters to be default-on and only adults, who must provide proof of age, can turn these off. The major public wi-fi providers have made family-friendly wi-fi available wherever children are likely to be accessing the internet unsupervised. These are significant achievements but we acknowledge that there is much more work to be done, as one child being harmed is one child too many.

The noble Baroness has expressed concerns that children may be able to get around these filters. While no solution will ever be foolproof, three-quarters of parents in the UK are confident that children are unable to bypass these tools. But to mitigate any further risk, as has been said today, ISPs email the main account holder when filter settings are set or changed. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised the concern that households served by smaller, filterless providers must be taken into consideration. It is important to note that these providers state at installation and on their marketing materials that they do not have child safety credentials. However, parents must remain vigilant and engage with children about their internet use.

Your Lordships may have read in the news and heard from other noble Lords today that recent European regulations around net neutrality, which were agreed in June, will restrict ISPs from blocking access to content. This will impact our family-friendly filters regime but I reassure the House that throughout the negotiations, we have made sure that our current world-class child protection measures will remain. We will take all steps necessary to ensure that we are able to protect children from harmful content and that our current regime will stay in place, in line with the new regulations.

Returning to the provisions in the noble Baroness’s Bill, educational information for parents and consumers is today widely available and accessible on providers’ websites and through a range of NGOs and organisations that offer advice. Putting these well-established practices and activities into legislation is therefore unnecessary. While it is not mentioned in the noble Baroness’s Bill, this Government have also recognised the need for a robust education programme in schools. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, feels strongly about this issue. As of September 2014, e-safety is now a compulsory part of the national computing curriculum. In response to the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, my colleagues at the Department for Education are keen to take further action to strengthen online safety education and are exploring options through personal, sexual and health education, the national computing curriculum, cyberbullying and statutory guidance. This will be supported by the work of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety.

We also support wholeheartedly the iRights campaign of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which is gaining traction in the UK and around the world. It seeks to ensure that internet and digital technologies are designed and delivered around the needs of young people.

The second part of the noble Baroness’s Bill would require on-demand programme services in the UK to have specific age verification schemes in place. It would also extend the current regime to cover content classified by the BBFC as equivalent to 18 as well as to R18. The Authority for Television on Demand, ATVOD, already regulates video on demand content that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, and requires robust age verification, such as through credit card checks. Our current regime, with its classification system, stems from the EU audiovisual media services directive, which is now being reviewed in Brussels and will focus on the protection of minors. The Government and key stakeholders will contribute to this review process. At this stage, we would be unwise to pre-empt the review by making any changes to existing legislation.

The third part of the Bill concerns the licensing of foreign pornographic services. As I have said, we are committed to requiring that adult sites introduce age verification control. None of the 10 most popular sites in the UK for pornography access requires robust age controls. This is clearly unacceptable; I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, on this point. Companies delivering content in the UK must make best commercial efforts to ensure that these sites are behind age verification controls. We will make sure that they do.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about a point raised previously by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. In the offline world, DVDs containing explicit pornographic content are subject to age controls in licensed sex shops. I assure my noble friend Lord Framlingham that my department will be consulting on proposals in due course to develop ways to bring online content in line with physical media in this regard. We will consider the noble Baroness’s solution among other options that have been put forward.

We have already solicited feedback and advice from ATVOD, the BBFC, the Digital Policy Alliance and representatives of the adult industry in the UK and abroad. Much work is under way. I am particularly supportive of the idea being pursued by the Digital Policy Alliance and the British Standards Institution, which was mentioned today by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, of a federated approach to age verification. This is particularly promising as it offers us scope to develop a “verify once, use many times” model for adult sites and also for gambling and e-commerce. As my noble friend Lady Newlove mentioned, we must ensure that this applies to all harmful content, not just to pornographic material. The approach put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the Digital Policy Alliance is a very promising development indeed.

No system can be perfect and some minors will always be able to find ways around any measures that we put in place. We must not be naive. We need to give careful thought to what solutions will make the biggest impact in a proportionate manner. While the protection and welfare of children online is our top priority, I want to be clear that the Government have no wish to restrict adults’ access to legal pornographic content. This is about protecting young people from harm.

In my meeting this week with the noble Baroness to discuss the Bill, we confirmed that we are happy to consider the approach that she sets out in her Bill, alongside other options we are considering. Our ambitions in fact exceed the scope of the Bill. We need a multifaceted approach to prevent harm to children and young people in general, grounded in robust evidence, and we are taking action in all the areas addressed by the Bill. We will consider any proposals that are likely to be effective and proportionate to tackle harmful content online and we welcome your Lordships’ suggestions. We will achieve our manifesto commitment, while addressing recent developments in European regulations, and will reach out to children through education and support parents in the crucial role that they must play. I also confirm that the child abuse and exploitation online issue is being considered as part of the strategic defence and security review, and I will come back to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on this point.

There is clearly a shared resolve in this House, as there can be no higher priority than keeping children safe online.