ONLINE SAFETY BILL (Third sitting)

Debate between Caroline Ansell and Damian Collins

Committee stage (re-committed clauses and schedules)
Thursday 15th December 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Damian Collins]

Forgive me, Dame Angela.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I rise to recognise the spirit and principle behind new clause 9, while, of course, listening carefully to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. He is right to raise those concerns, but my question is: is there an industry-specific way in which the same responsibility and liability could be delivered?

I recognise too that the Bill is hugely important. It is a good Bill that has child protection at its heart. It also contains far more significant financial penalties than we have previously seen—as I understand it, 10% of qualifying revenue up to £18 million. This will drive some change, but it comes against the backdrop of multi-billion-pound technology companies.

I would be interested to understand whether a double lock around the board-level responsibility might further protect children from some of the harrowing and harmful content we see online. What we need is nothing short of transformation and significant culture change. Even today, The Guardian published an article about TikTok and a study by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which found that teenagers who demonstrated an interest in self-harm and eating disorders were having algorithms pushing that content on to them within minutes. That is most troubling.

We need significant, serious and sustained culture change. There is precedent in other sectors, as has been mentioned, and there was a previous recommendation, so clearly there is merit in this. My understanding is that there is strong public support, because the public recognise that this new responsibility cannot be strengthened by anything other than liability. If there is board-level liability, that will drive priorities and resources, which will broker the kind of change we are looking for. I look forward to what the Minister might share today, as this has been a good opportunity to bring these issues into further consideration, and they might then be carried over into subsequent stages of this excellent Bill.