Pornography

Baroness Shields Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for introducing this most important and timely debate on the impact of pornography on both children and adults. Before I begin, I should say that the Government’s focus is of course on children because of the obvious need to protect them from exploitation, abuse and violence. However, what has been said today regarding the impact of pornography on sexual relationships, with a potential increase in violence and addiction, will be taken into consideration, and by no means do I want to minimise that in my comments.

As is abundantly clear from the debate, these are issues that we all care deeply about. I thank all participants for their valued contributions, bringing to bear the wealth of expertise and knowledge for which this House is renowned.

I shall start with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, which I thought were particularly prescient. He spoke about the ocean of technological change breaking through society. I think that that is the best way to put it, as the very nature of sexuality is evolving at an unprecedented pace. My noble friend Lord Cormack, rightly, said that this is an old problem but it is one that has been transformed by technology.

Many noble Lords have made it clear that an evidence-based approach is essential. That highlights the need to seek out more conversations like the one that we have had today. I therefore recommend that noble Lords bring forward any additional evidence that they come across in their research.

My noble friend Lord McColl spoke very eloquently about the brain activity of healthy people when exposed to prolonged incidents of pornography. It is very important that, in addition to the study he cited, we get evidence to add to the debate so that we understand the impact perfectly well and can make informed policy decisions.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has been a pioneer in this area and I thank her for her counsel. I have worked very closely with her and appreciate all the work that she has done in this area. Rightly, she pointed out that the filter regime often leaves children able to access unsuitable content. In the last couple of weeks we have seen evidence that young people know a lot more about technology than we do. The TalkTalk hacking incident and the arrest and questioning of young people illustrates just how behind the curve many adults are and the fact that children are way ahead of us. Before we say that one solution or the other is going to solve a problem, it is important that we recognise that, whatever solutions are in place, they will fail at times. Young people are smarter with technology than we are. They will find a way around filters, and they will find their way to this material. Therefore, we must be realistic and put together a policy package that makes sense and can achieve the aims in the best possible way in most cases, although we will never be able to solve this problem completely.

Many powerful and emotive examples of the potential harms from pornography have been raised today. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said that human relationships are redefined by technology. The very nature of adolescence is changing beyond recognition. Some of the more extreme examples were raised by my noble friend Lord Farmer, who asked about causal linkages between the use of violent porn and sexual crime. We are of course aware of tragic cases where an individual’s use of extreme pornography has been linked to them committing serious offences. The Ministry of Justice introduced provisions in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 making it an offence to possess pornography depicting rape or sexual assault. However, we are not aware of robust and conclusive evidence showing a causal link between increased access to pornography and sexual/violent crime. End Violence Against Women has noted:

“Neither research nor practice-based evidence can effectively demonstrate a causal connection between pornography and violence against women”.

That, again, illustrates the importance of gathering more information and creating an evidence base with which to move forward. However, pornography and an increasingly sexualised culture more generally are noted as a “conducive context”, perpetrating certain stereotypes, particularly about men dominating women. The Government are committed to challenging stereotypes around sexual violence to ensure that people properly understand consent and to encourage the reporting of abuse. Since 2010, the Home Office has been running a successful relationship abuse and rape prevention campaign called This is Abuse.

I confirm that around the time we publish the consultation on age verification—it is upcoming and I will speak about it a bit more—we will publish independent research in this area. We look forward to noble Lords’ comments on that.

My noble friend Lord Farmer asked about injuries related to certain types of sexual activity. I confirm that I will take up this matter with the Department of Health and get back to him. He also talked about the amount dedicated to relationship support and asked whether it was enough. The Government will shortly be publishing their spending review and will go into detail in this area.

Regarding questions on porn addiction, the relationship counselling service Relate considers that porn addiction is a form of sex addiction. Support is available. It may not be enough but anyone who is concerned that they may be suffering from addiction to pornography can speak to their GP.

In response to the request from my noble friend Lord McColl, I will speak to colleagues at the Department of Health about meeting recovering addicts so that we can learn from their experiences.

I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for his question on the objectification of women. Clearly, none of wants a society in which women in particular may be objectified or subject to negative stereotypes. The Government have, this year, published guidance for teachers on teaching about body image and consent, and they have produced the PSHE Association guidelines.

While it is not for the Government to dictate to consenting adults what sort of content they may legally access, we must remain mindful of the potential harms that pornography can exert on society, and particularly on the young and the vulnerable. In that context, we have learned about offences from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, who has been unable to take part in today’s debate. We would like to explore the matter further and will come back to her on that. It is important that this issue has been put on the record today and, having consulted the Department of Health, I can confirm that the Care Act statutory guidance is very clear that exposing or subjecting vulnerable people to pornography, whether online or offline, is sexual abuse. It must not be tolerated and it must be dealt with. The Government are committed to preventing and reducing the risk of abuse of vulnerable adults and the example which was given clearly illustrates the importance of protecting the handicapped and vulnerable in our society.

Long-term, extensive use of pornography has been shown, in some studies, to have damaging effects, particularly in terms of addiction. We must therefore harness our collective talents and expertise, here and in the other place, to ensure the best outcomes for UK citizens. We agree with noble Lords who have spoken today that pornography should be considered as another category of potential addiction. As with other addictions to activities and products such as smoking, alcohol and gambling, we must ensure that people are supported and that children especially are protected. In response to the question from my noble friend Lord Farmer, many schools choose to teach about the impact of pornography as part of their PSHE curriculum. The non-statutory PSHE programme of study, produced by the PSHE Association, includes teaching about the role of sex in the media and its impact on sexuality, including pornography and related sexual ethics such as consent, negotiation, boundaries, respect, gender norms, and sexual norms. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol said, depictions of sexuality in porn are often aggressive and we need to help teachers educate young people to understand that these depictions do not reflect reality or healthy sexual relationships.

We also support and invest in schools to develop qualities such as confidence, leadership, self-discipline and motivation in their pupils; in other words, to ensure that young people are prepared for adult life. Furthermore, we should not ignore the important resources made available to schools and families through partnerships between government, industry and charities, which I will mention in greater detail in due course. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, reminded us, we must never forget the crucial role of parents and education in preparing children for life in modern Britain.

Invariably, any debate about pornography and its impact on society must address the internet. As UK digital citizens, we enjoy vital freedoms, particularly freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and access to all the information and opportunities the internet offers. However, it is equally clear that such freedoms bring with them risks, many of which have been outlined today, as well as responsibilities.

The younger generation is far more technologically aware than we are: they are connected to each other, and the wider world, through devices which did not even exist five years ago. We must always ensure that the safety, health and well-being of our children and young people are sacrosanct, and be mindful of the potential harms to impressionable, still developing minds. I trust that noble Lords here today will rest assured that these matters are taken extremely seriously by this Government, and will join me in recognising the huge progress that has been made to protect children online. The UK is leading the world in the fight to address the most heinous crimes against children online, as well as being at the bridge-head of ensuring that a child’s experience on the internet can be safe and positive. Internet service providers and mobile operators have taken important steps by introducing parental control filters to their internet services, and industry and charity partners continue to develop new, creative campaigns that educate and support parents, teachers, and children themselves, to safely navigate online risks. We need only look at the examples of recent initiatives to see how much has been achieved through working together: Parent Info, provided by CEOP and Parent Zone, is a free source of expert information for schools on how children can stay safe online; Internet Matters is aimed at parents and corrals the considerable heft of the four main ISPs—BT, Virgin, TalkTalk and Sky—to provide parents with valuable insight on online safety; Google’s Good to Know school roadshows, which are now taking place across the country, are taking digital citizenship lessons for teenagers straight into school assemblies; and the exemplary partnership between the NSPCC and O2 also delivers workshops, staff training, and online support.

I must inform the House that, following the telecoms single market negotiations in Europe, filters on home broadband, mobiles and public wi-fi have recently been called into question and last week the Prime Minister said in the other place that this may necessitate legislative action. We must be absolutely clear: the Government would never accept a position which diminished our ability to protect children online, and family-friendly filters are a key pillar of our efforts. As such, we can legislate in order to safeguard the existing arrangements with the UK’s main internet service providers and mobile network operators. The UK leads the world in the protection of children online and, should it be necessary to do so, we will enshrine in law the ability to provide family-friendly filters, which are a vital tool for parents. We recognise the excellent progress made by industry on this and the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about age verification and smaller providers. We will consider these points and develop an approach in consultation with her and others.

However, the global nature of the internet means that the UK cannot solve these problems on our own. My work with the #We Protect global alliance, which was established by the UK Government, demonstrates that progress is achievable. For instance, working closely with government, Google and Microsoft have recently made significant progress in removing and eliminating pathways to child sexual abuse images and videos in their search results. As a result of these changes, Google has seen an eightfold reduction in people searching for this material. Both companies have also introduced technology to find and remove images of child abuse online, working in partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation. I will be using my experience to tackle further the issue that we have been discussing today: the effects of pornography on society.

There is deep concern about the ease with which minors can access online pornography and the effect it can have on their sexual development and overall health and well-being. The teenage brain has become a subject of much research recently. The University of Pennsylvania neurologist Francis Jensen says that teenage brains are hungry for stimulation yet the development of the frontal lobes is not yet complete. The repeated viewing of pornography can result in neuro-adaptation: literally rewiring the brain. The recent meta-analysis by Gert Martin Hald et al strongly supports the correlation with regard to pornography inducing violent attitudes against women and young people. The teenage brain adapts to pornography and changes occur in its internal circuitry, particularly in the pleasure and reward pathways. As my noble friend said, in time, the brain seeks more and more extreme pornography to get the same effect, with terrifying implications, potentially including the normalisation of sexual violence.

Children clearly do not necessarily have the tools required, or the life experience, that an adult would have, to deal with the same circumstance, so we must deal with the context. Although we are not aware of robust evidence suggesting there are causal links between sexual abuse of young people and pornography, I can confirm that we are taking action on a range of fronts to tackle the viewing, downloading and sharing of abuse imagery online. The Government have established the Child Abuse Image Database, or CAID, which became operational in December 2014. All UK police forces and the NCA will connect to it by the end of this year. This database provides tools to search seized devices for indecent images of children. It helps increase our ability to identify images and prosecute perpetrators.

The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, mentioned revenge porn and her valuable work in this area. In the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, the Government created a new offence to tackle this. Alongside this, the Government Equalities Office launched a dedicated helpline in February. Since then, it has taken over 2,300 calls and supported over 370 victims. As my noble friend Lord Cormack said, we must consider the relative ease with which young people can access hardcore pornographic content online, as opposed to the offline world. We would not expect a minor to be able to wander into a sex shop on the high street and buy a DVD containing such material. However, the Government’s contention is that the online world needs to be brought into line with the physical world. The potential harms to children and young people of online pornography mean that the most responsible approach is to ensure that, while online freedoms should be protected, they should not jeopardise or come at the expense of the rights of children to a safe internet experience. Children should be able to enjoy the huge benefits the online world has to offer, but they must have the right to experience a happy and healthy childhood.

The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, made some very valuable points, and I welcome her considered and questioning contribution. I assure her that the Government are determined to base their approach on evidence. We are engaging academics to ensure that what we do has the impact that we intend it to have.

Turning to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, we believe it is critical to maintain the balance between individual rights and protections for the young and vulnerable. We are persuaded of the harms for children and young people, hence our focus on under-18s.

Finally, even in the face of some of the horrific examples that we have heard today, I contend that there is great cause for optimism here. We can address the harms caused by pornography, and we can have rational, reasoned debate and discussion about what we can do and how society, and the lives of young people, can be improved. As always, noble Lords have been invaluable in supporting and challenging the Government to do more, and I will continue to seek your thoughts going forward.