Internet (Governance)

Debate between Brian H. Donohoe and Alun Michael

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Alun Michael]

In terms of child abuse images online, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has been successful in pursuing people who are involved in child abuse. In educational terms and in pursuing the bad people, CEOP has been effective. I am a member of the Home Affairs Committee and we are concerned about CEOP being merged with the national police agency. Assurances have been given, but we need to keep our eye on CEOP to ensure that it continues to be effective. We also need to keep up with the technology that the bad people are using.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate. In relation to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), my concern is that when constituents write to me on the same issue, I write to the Minister but the letters are then transferred to the Home Office. Would it not be more sensible for questions such as those from my constituent from Troon, to be answered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport? If the issues are not to be addressed by that Department, is it better for them to be looked at by the Home Office?

[Alun Michael]

My hon. Friend illustrates one of the big problems in dealing with the internet. As I said, the internet is so pervasive that it affects every area of life, including technology and intellectual property, and sometimes leads to the abuse by bad people of the opportunities that it provides. Such issues should be dealt with by the Home Office because law-breaking is involved.

My hon. Friend also illustrates the crucial need for a joined-up approach across Departments and agencies. A couple of years ago I worked on internet-related crime, but I gave up once I had identified nine Departments that had a bit of the action—without even taking account of the different agencies, police bodies and so on that were involved. I believe, however, that co-ordination has improved; we have the central unit based with the Met, and the National Fraud Authority that looks at online fraud. People need greater clarity. Get Safe Online is an enormously important resource that I advise people to consult first when looking for advice on what to do. It requires, however, increased support across industry and by the Government, and it must explain clearly who should look where and for what. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point.

I return to the Internet Governance Forum. As the Minister responsible for industry in 2005, I led the UK delegation to the world summit on the information society in Tunis. Journalists predicted that the talks would collapse because the Chinese, and others, were demanding a new international agency to, “run the internet”, and the US was saying, “Don’t change anything.” Two great public servants, Nick Thorne, then the UK permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, and David Hendon, a senior official at the Department of Trade and Industry, promoted “dynamic coalitions” and “enhanced co-operation” as a better option to bureaucracy. The IGF was born as part of that process and as an annual event for building consensus.

Today, the IGF process no longer depends on one annual event, and countries worldwide have seized the opportunity for co-operation, both between stakeholders and at regional level. This year’s IGF saw governmental proposals from India, Brazil and South Africa to bring the forum under centralised UN control, and Russia, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan called for the General Assembly to establish a UN code of conduct for information security. If such a code were to go through as proposed, it would focus primarily on affirming the sovereignty of national Governments to regulate internet traffic and content. That would exclude the voices of industry and civil society from regulation of the internet, which in turn would stifle the freedom, innovation and creativity that underpins the social, cultural and economic benefits that we all currently enjoy from the online world. There is also a Trojan horse agenda that would empower certain repressive Governments to censor and restrict any online content, discourse or behaviours that they did not like.

Will the Minister affirm his steadfast commitment to the current multi-stakeholder approach exemplified by the current IGF process, and will he join me in rejecting the idea that governance of the internet should be the sole preserve of monolithic and rigid Government negotiations? Will he ensure that the UK continues to provide leadership through the donors group? It is small change, but we must be at the table. Although this year’s IGF saw a welcome spike in levels of industry involvement, does the Minister agree that there is always room for more?

For years the IGF process was nurtured by two superb international diplomats, Nitin Desai as chairman, and Marcus Kummer as secretary. In Nairobi, however, I had to condemn the failure of the UN to appoint successors in either of those posts. That the event was such a success is a tribute to the vitality of its participants, but the UN is not doing its job properly; when I said as much during a high-level ministerial meeting, my comment received the loudest applause of the day.

British parliamentarians have been at the forefront of the IGF since its start, and our engagement is highly valued and respected across the world. Over the years we have worked with parliamentarians from other countries, notably the Kenyans and members of the European Parliament such as Catherine Trautmann and Malcolm Harbour. It is interesting to note, however, that we have not yet managed to properly link the IGF debate across Europe. We have the European dialogue on internet governance— EuroDIG—but that is serviced by the Council of Europe and has a focus on human rights and criminal law, which although an enormously important part of the international debate, is not all of it.

That work of the IGF goes wider than the European Union, which is its strength, but it also leaves a gap. In Nairobi we talked to colleagues from the European Parliament about the need for MPs and members of national Parliaments to be connected within the European Union. We do not have a European IGF that uses the same model as that developed in east Africa and other places.

The European Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, set out her approach, but without joined-up action by parliamentarians, industry and Governments in Europe, we will not get our point across. I suspect that hon. Members across the Chamber would agree on the need to avoid the domination of bureaucracy and rules in the European approach to the internet and internet-related issues. We need joined-up working by Team UK.

This year at the IGF, Monday was set aside for a high-level, ministerial event. Such occasions can become stodgy, with long speeches from Ministers, but this one was different. After Ministers—including our Minister—had spoken, formalities segued smoothly into a discussion, with authoritative figures such as Vint Cerf responding on some of the extremely important points under discussion. It was an excellent launch for the four days of the IGF, but I made a proposal that I believe should be incorporated in next year’s event. My suggestion is for Tuesday morning to be given over to statements of concern or other relevant issues, so that Members of Parliament can set out problems that have arisen in their Parliament or constituency. That would enable parliamentarians to be the voice of the people, rather than a second rank of techies, and would provide an opportunity for multi-stakeholder partners to respond to those concerns during the following few days, in parallel with other issues raised in advance. That suggestion received a positive response from industry representatives, who described it as an opportunity to complete the circle of policy development and accountability to the public.

The basic principle of the IGF is to bring together the four partners—Governments, parliamentarians, industry and civil society, including academics and others—to identify issues that need resolving, and seek solutions without requiring or mandating them, or limiting the debates in any significant way. It does not, therefore, lead to resolutions or treaties. The principle has been taken up by individual countries and on a regional level, particularly in east Africa, so it was appropriate that this year’s IGF was hosted there. As a result, the IGF is now a process rather than just an event, although the event remains important.

Great progress is being made in the Commonwealth IGF with its emphasis on child protection—the issue raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe)—and access.

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[Alun Michael]

Indeed. This is about good legislation, rather than the internet. I take great pride in certain legislation with which I was associated, such as the Ragwort Control Act 2003, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, because properly framed legislation will stand the test of time. In the examples that I have given, it was a case of using capacity that already existed and simply providing underpinning legislation that would allow the real mischief to be tackled. The real mischief is the behaviour, rather than the technology.

On the issue of parliamentary representation and how we bring people together, Mr Speaker kindly hosted an event last year for representatives of different parliamentary groups engaged with internet-related issues, along with those concerned with international issues, particularly the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and those who serve the House through PICT—Parliamentary Information and Communications Technology—and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. That gave us the impetus to link the informal work undertaken by parliamentarians in partnership with industry to the mainstream and formal work of the House, so we have merged the long-standing Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, or PITCOM, and a relative youngster, the all-party group on the digital economy, to form the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum, which is an associate parliamentary group.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk for the work that he has done to ensure that Parliament has a well-informed and vibrant all-party group that benefits from the solid and senior engagement of both MPs and representatives of business and industry. We are delighted that Mr Speaker has agreed to be the president of the new group to signal the importance of that development. We are adopting a new and innovative model, with parliamentarians in the lead. Individual officers of the new group, across parties, some of whom are present, are taking responsibility for different parts of the work, which will include ordinary meetings, as held in the past by PITCOM. Lively discussions have been brought into the new group by members of the former group. We have continued the successful primary schools competition, “Make IT Happy”, with which many parliamentarians have become increasingly engaged and which was endorsed by the Minister in the House only last week.

We have a CEO forum, at which a strong representation of chief executives—no representatives or delegations are allowed—and of parliamentarians debate big issues with experts. For instance, on Monday, we were joined by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and by Professor Ian Hargreaves, whose work will be familiar to the Minister and whose recent report deals with intellectual property, which is important to our economy. Past discussions focused on a range of important issues, from cloud computing and cyber-security to the growth agenda and the boosting of UK technology skills; I know that the Minister has taken part in one of the discussions.

[Mr Donohoe]

While this question is not necessarily for my right hon. Friend to answer, has he secured, as a right, attendance by a Minister at least twice a year to that body? Would that not make all the difference?

[Alun Michael]

We have not needed to. We have had three Ministers this year by mutual agreement, and I am pleased by that response. Ministers have been prepared to come to meet us and industry representatives. The fact that Ministers and parliamentarians are at the table brings chief executives there, and the fact that chief executives come complements the other meetings that we have, in which people with more technical or detailed knowledge are able to take part. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire prompts me to note that I had missed out a reference to the British-American Parliamentary Group, another of the distinguished band of organisations that are important in the work.

I have already referred to the fact that the arrangements are already working in relation to our communications with the Home Secretary. In response to the request for comment, we have received responses from a number of parliamentarians, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon), and others who were more frequently involved in the all-party group’s work. Key points were made that the riots were not a breakdown of society as a whole, but isolated incidents of unrest followed relentlessly by the 24-hour media, and that the internet and online social networks were a channel for a widespread outpouring of positivity and reconstructive effort after the riots. That must be considered in balance with the use of the internet by some people to organise some of the activity. In the case of the police in Manchester, when people tweeted to say where the next activity was going to take place, the police tweeted back to say, “Thanks for telling us. We will be there too.” Therefore, it is not all one way.

Part of PICTFOR’s role is to raise our game at the international level, persuading more parliamentarians to engage with the IGF, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the IPU, and directly with members of overseas Parliaments, particularly the Americans, whom we are engaging through an annual internet event in Congress. The most important aspects are to use the partnership between MPs and industry representatives to inform Parliament in the mainstream rather than at the periphery, to ensure that we continue to punch above our weight in protecting the concept of an open, co-operative and multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance, and to fight off attempts to impose a centralised and bureaucratic approach to managing the internet, whether in terms of critical infrastructure, online behaviour or the exploitation—in a positive sense—of the internet’s potential.

We are bringing together opinions from industry and Parliament. I wish I had some time to enumerate the comments that have come in. We had hoped for a longer debate, but we are grateful for the opportunity today to raise these issues. We intend to summarise all the issues and provide them to both the Minister and MPs to inform future debates.

Just to pick up one point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, there will be one debate a year to look at the overarching issues with the internet. The internet touches on so many issues that there are bound to be debates on Bills and on the Adjournment regarding specific issues, including those that have been raised by some hon. Members in their interventions on me.

My message to parliamentarians and to business is that, although good governance may sound boring, it is essential. Banking governance was boring, until the failure of governance in the world’s banks brought the international financial structures to collapse. Let us avoid such a debacle online by fighting for good co-operative governance of the internet now.

At a time of massive constraints on the public purse—I will not go into the discussion about whether they need to come so fast or cut so deep—it is not just tempting to use the efficiency of the net to deliver public services, but right and essential. However, that would involve a massive improvement in the quality of public procurement, of which I had some experience as a Minister. It is vital to recognise that some 40% of those who are not online at the moment were shown in recent research to be so resistant to going online that they would not do so even if they were provided with free broadband and a free computer. Some may be resistant or even perversely reluctant; others may simply be unable to cope. That latter group includes some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It follows that the exploitation of online delivery options by the Government needs to be costed in a way that ensures the availability of services to those who do not go online, which might involve paying for facilitation, perhaps at local libraries or in post offices. However, if it is not built into the Government’s model, it will bring online delivery into disrepute and widen the digital divide into a chasm, ultimately creating a problem that will involve even more expense to solve than building in the solution at the design stage.

Cloud computing is often highlighted as a challenge to public services, but in many ways, it is already with us. The challenge, in my view, is good management, including good data management, rather than major issues of principle. Security of infrastructure and our national security are enormously important, and they are given considerable emphasis by the Government. However, it is also important to deal with the low-level crime and nuisance activity that face people every day. I am pleading for a broken windows approach to the internet. Having succeeded in local crime reduction, that approach would be able to help us in the online world.

I am also a little concerned about the language that is creeping into the discussion. I challenged some police officers who talked about “cyber” as if it were a term of art to describe a discrete chunk of reality. They responded by saying that the police were merely reflecting the language of Ministers. If that is the case—I am not sure that it is—we need to change the language. Internet-related crime is not entirely about technology; indeed it is mainly about human behaviour and criminal activity. The use of the internet is relevant only in the same way that a burglar uses a motorway or footpath to reach someone’s house to break in.