Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the Online Safety Act 2023's age assurance duties on (a) LGBTQIA+ and (b) other minority (i) community websites and (ii) support services; and what steps she is taking to ensure such services are not disproportionately affected relative to the risks they present.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Implementing a fair age assurance process is crucial to ensure that users are not unfairly excluded from online spaces to which they have legitimate access.
Providers in-scope of the OSA must consider the extent to which its chosen method avoids or minimises bias and discriminatory outcomes. As part of this, Ofcom recommends services consider a variety of age assurance methods to support accessibility.
We will continue to work with Ofcom to support solutions that protect children online while ensuring users from minority backgrounds are not unfairly excluded from accessing lawful content and services.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of using device or operating-system-level age signalling to reduce the need for individual websites to collect identity documents or biometric data for the purposes of age verification under the Online Safety Act 2023; and what discussions she has had with device manufacturers on this matter.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
We recognise the potential merits of safety protections at device-level, including age assurance. The Government is engaging with operating system providers and device manufacturers to make their products safer for children, including through technology to prevent children from taking, sharing or viewing nude imagery.
Ofcom’s guidance on highly effective age assurance recognises that services can use system-level age assurance approaches. However, responsibility for compliance with the Online Safety Act remains with regulated services.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of making additional funding available to support the work of the Institute of Cancer Research.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department funds research through the National Institute of Health and Care (NIHR). This includes investment through NIHR infrastructure, programmes, and the NIHR Academy. The Institute of Cancer Research receives funding through its participation in NIHR-funded research infrastructure, its involvement in NIHR-funded research, and through NIHR training and career development awards held by its researchers. For example, the Institute of Cancer Research is a partner in the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Cancer Research, which receives over £32 million for the period 2022 to 2028 to support cancer research. The Government keeps the funding of all agencies and institutions under regular review.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with Ofcom on providing small service providers with a mechanism to obtain a specific, binding assessment of whether an individual proposed feature would bring their service into a higher risk category under the Online Safety Act 2023, in addition to Ofcom's general published guidance.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government and Ofcom regularly engage on implementation of the Online Safety Act. The Act requires Ofcom to publish codes of practice, guidance and risk assessment resources that enable services of different sizes to understand what is expected of them under their duties. Ofcom has published material to help providers assess how the design and functionality of their services may affect risk and compliance
Ofcom is the independent regulator for online safety. Operational decisions about whether to provide any additional case-specific compliance support or advisory mechanisms to service providers are matters for Ofcom.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has considered the merits of launching a investigation into chemical exposure from plastics during a baby's first 1000 days.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes the safety of baby products seriously and has robust regulations in place requiring that all products placed on the UK market are safe. Specific rules exist under product safety regulations to address chemical exposure from baby products, and these are kept under review.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data her department has gathered on babies' exposure to bisphenols and phthalates from feeding bottles, dummies and teethers in their first 1,000 days.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes the safety of baby products seriously and has robust regulations in place requiring that all products placed on the UK market are safe. Specific rules exist under product safety regulations to address chemical exposure from baby products, and these are kept under review.