Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing today’s debate and chairing the Joint Committee with such aplomb and expertise. I thank Members from all parties on the Committee—from not just this House, but the other place—for their incredibly hard work. I put on the record my thanks to them; as my hon. Friend said, Baroness Kidron and Lord Gilbert are with us today. I thank them all for their extremely thorough and detailed work. We have been studying their report—all 191 pages—very carefully, and it will definitely have an impact on the legislation as it is updated.

I also thank the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), for its work. I look forward very much to its report, which my hon. Friend said would be published imminently. I encourage the Committee to ensure that it is indeed published as soon as possible, so that we can take account of its recommendations as well. I can confirm that we will be making changes to the Bill in the light of the recommendations of the Joint Committee report and those of the anticipated report from the Select Committee. We understand that there are a number of respects in which the Bill can be improved substantially. The Government certainly have no monopoly on wisdom, and we intend to profit from the huge experience of the members of the Committees, and Members of the House, in making improvements—significant improvements —to the Bill. We intend to produce a revised and updated Bill before the end of the current Session.

We intend this Bill to be a world-leading piece of legislation. We believe that the United Kingdom has an opportunity to set a global example which other countries will follow. As the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) said, the Bill has been some time in gestation, but because this is such a complicated topic, it is important that we get the legislation right.

This is, I think, a good moment to thank previous Secretaries of State and Ministers for the work that they did in laying the foundations on which we are now building—in fact, in building the walls as well; we are just putting the roof on. In particular, I know of the work done in this area by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and also the work done by my hon. Friends the Members for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman). I am sure that the whole House will want to thank them for the fantastic work that they did in taking us to the point where we now stand.

I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed by the Chairman of the Joint Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who said in his opening speech that social media firms had brought this legislation on themselves by the irresponsibility that they have often shown by placing profit ahead of humanity. That was powerfully illustrated by the evidence presented to the Joint Committee, and separately to the United States Senate and The Wall Street Journal, by the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who explained how Facebook’s use of algorithms—mentioned by Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gosport and for Bosworth (Dr Evans)—prioritised profit by promoting content that was harmful or incendiary simply because it made money, with scant, if any, regard to the harm being caused. Our view is that such an attitude is not only inappropriate but wrong.

Two or three Members have referred to the tragic suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell, which followed a huge amount of very troubling suicide-related content being served up to her by Instagram. That sort of thing simply should not be happening. There are all too many other examples of social media firms not promptly handing over identification information to the police—I encountered a constituency case of that kind a couple of years ago—and not taking down content that is illegal, or content that clearly contravenes their terms and conditions.

This state of affairs cannot persist, and it is right for the House to act. I am heartened to note that, broadly speaking, we will be acting on a cross-party basis, because I think that that will make the message we send the world and the action we are taking all the more powerful. However, as Members have said today, even before the Act is passed, social media firms can act. They can edit their algorithms tomorrow, and I urge them to do exactly that. They should not be waiting for us to legislate; they should do the right thing today. We will be watching very closely: the House will be watching, and the public will be watching.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

Very briefly.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will be very brief. My hon. Friend has talked about cross-party working, and there is clearly cross-party consensus that paid-for advertising should be included in the scope of the Bill. Is that something that he intends to do?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. I was about to come on to some of the specifics—very quickly, because time is short.

I am not going to be pre-announcing any firm commitments today because work is still ongoing, including the collective agreement process in Government, but on fraud and paid-for advertising, we have heard the message of the Joint Committee, the Financial Conduct Authority, the financial services sector, campaigners and Members of this House such as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) raised this, as did the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). I was at Revolut’s head office in Canary Wharf earlier today and it raised the issue as well. It is a message that the Government have absolutely heard, and it is something that we very much hope we will be able to address when we bring the Bill forward.

I cannot make any specific commitments because the work is still ongoing, but that message is loudly heard, as is the message communicated by the right hon. Member for Barking, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on the work by the Law Commission on the communications offences, which will really tighten up some of the issues to do with what are essentially malicious or harmful communications, issues such as cyber-flashing and issues to do with epilepsy that we have heard about this afternoon. We are studying those Law Commission proposals very positively and carefully, as the Joint Committee recommended that we do.

We have also heard clearly the messages concerning commercial pornography. We understand the issues presented by the fact that the Bill, as drafted, does not cover that. Again, that is something we are currently working on very hard indeed.

Anonymity is another important issue raised today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), among others. They and the Joint Committee have suggested that users should be given the option to protect themselves from anonymous content. They also addressed the critical question of traceability when law enforcement needs to investigate something. Again, those messages have been heard very clearly and we are working very hard on those.

That brings me to the tragic case raised by the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) of his constituent Olly, who was so appallingly murdered; the murder appears to have been organised online. Under the Bill as drafted, organising an act like that—an illegal act—will be dealt with. I have just mentioned the point about traceability, which we are studying very carefully. The hon. Member said he had some concerns that the social media companies concerned did not provide the police with the identification information required when requested. I had a similar case a couple of years ago with Snapchat. If he could look into the details of that and come back to me with the specifics, I would be very interested to hear those because that would give us additional evidence if further steps need to be taken via the amended Bill. If he could come back to me on that, I would be very grateful.

A number of Members have rightly raised the point about transparency and understanding exactly what these social media firms are doing. The right hon. Member for Barking made that point powerfully, as did the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). Of course, the Bill does give Ofcom extremely wide-ranging powers to require information to be delivered up. It also imposes transparency obligations upon these companies. There are criminal sanctions on individuals if those provisions are broken, and we have heard clearly the suggestion that those be brought forward and commenced much earlier. The Bill will also contain strong protections for free speech. I have not got time to talk about that more, but protecting free speech clearly is very important.

The country demands action, this House demands action and we will take it.