Protecting Children Online

Damian Green Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

Protecting children online is of huge and growing importance. I thank all hon. Members for a useful and thought-provoking debate. I join the many tributes rightly paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) for her energy and work. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) was uncharacteristically churlish in her remarks to my hon. Friend. I will not reciprocate in kind by naming the Labour Members who asked me to respond to points at the end of the debate who are not now in their seats.

Along with hon. Members on both sides of the House, I am appalled by the continuing misuse of the internet in the various ways they have discussed. As the debate has shown, we have made significant strides in tackling the problem through collaborative work by the Government, law enforcement, the industry and charities. Of course, there is a great deal more to do. We are fully committed to tackling the creation, sale and possession of child abuse images.

The Government strongly support the work to prevent access to such images. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said in his opening speech, a lot of work has been done, with 98% of domestic broadband lines covered by blocking based on the Internet Watch Foundation list.

We note the findings in the IWF report regarding the difference in the speed of take-down of illegal images between IWF members and ISP hosting providers that are not members. We urge all ISPs and hosting providers to join the IWF and improve their take-down times. We expect all companies to do their utmost to protect our society from such images through implementing blocking using the IWF list and by taking any other action they can take. For example, Google is a member of the IWF, and works to remove child abuse images as soon as it becomes aware of them. The IWF has recommended that as a further deterrent its members return an error page notifying users that they have tried to access indecent images of children.

Let me deal with as many of the individual points that have been made as I can. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre budget has been relatively protected. More importantly, by modernising the structure and processes, and through the effective harnessing of other funding sources from outside the Government, CEOP has increased the number of people who work for it from 85 in November in 2010 to 130 currently. More people currently work in CEOP than at any time in its history. As its recent annual review illustrated, the centre is more productive than ever. Therefore, the line in the motion on the lack of resources available to the police to tackle the problem is simply factually wrong.

In 2012-13, CEOP safeguarded and protected 790 children, an increase of 85% on the previous year, and the highest yearly figure since the centre launched in 2006. That brings the total number of children who have been protected to 2,255 in that seven-year history. Its chief executive, Peter Davies, has said:

“This past year has not only seen increases in the number of reports to the Centre from the public and industry, but also a large increase in the number of children CEOP has been able to protect and safeguard from some of the worst offenders who seek to exploit our children.”

CEOP is doing a good job. It is getting better and better at doing that job, and it will get better still as part of the National Crime Agency. There seems to be some misunderstanding on the Labour Benches. CEOP will retain its identity within the NCA, but being part of the NCA will enable it to become even more effective.

Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North in her winding-up speech, raised the issue of simulated pornographic images depicting rape. It goes without saying that rape is an abhorrent crime and I understand the concern about the availability of such content. We are meeting internet providers to consider what more can be done. The issue will also be looked at by the new national group on sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, which I am now chairing. It is a very serious issue for the Government.

Various hon. Members, including the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), raised the issue of content that is characteristically accessed through mobile devices. Since 2005, mobile network operators have signed up to a voluntary code to apply default filters for pornography via mobile devices that are internet-enabled. I hope that provides her and the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) with some reassurance.

I mentioned the national group on sexual violence against children and vulnerable people. The issues we have been discussing today are part of its work, but only a small part, as consideration of the recent cases of organised predatory child abuse will be a significant part of the group’s activity. In response to whether the Home Office will be at the summit next week, I will be there in my role as chairman of that group.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) asked about online video labelling. Ministers have called on the industry to develop solutions by the end of this year to ensure that online videos, particularly those that are likely to be sought out by children and young people, carry advice on their age suitability and content. I hope that provides him with reassurance. The British Board of Film Classification is on the board of UKCCIS—the UK Council for Child Internet Safety—so it is intimately involved with all our work on this matter. Various Members mentioned the effect on gaming online. All major games consoles have parental controls that allow parents to restrict online gaming by their children.

I am happy to reassure Members who asked whether we were working closely with other EU countries. We are looking at several key areas on an EU-wide basis, including: better notice and take-down of child sex abuse images, better promotion of parental interest controls, better reporting and better privacy settings. As has been said, the UK is a leader not just in Europe but around the world in its response to this difficult matter, and I think other European countries would acknowledge that.

There has been much discussion about parents. Although the majority of parents feel that they have the information they need to help their children stay safe online, 81% say that they talk to their children about their internet use. Again, there is more to be done. There are good private sector initiatives, such as Vodafone’s Digital Parenting magazine and the Parent Portal website, which contains useful online safety information. This September, the ISPs will be launching a campaign to improve parents’ awareness of internet safety.

There has also been much discussion on what happens in our schools. I should emphasise that the Secretary of State’s guidance on teaching sex and relationships in secondary schools will address key issues such as consent within relationships. The discussion of online safety for children, which already takes place in secondary schools, will soon be switched to primary schools too. That should address the point about very young children accessing such material.

I hope the House will see that a huge amount has been done. We part company from the motion over the thought that not much has been done. This is a very difficult area and we are doing a lot, and to suggest that nothing much is happening is simply wrong. I hope, therefore, that having listened to this very serious debate, the Opposition will withdraw their motion, but if they decide not to do so, I urge the House to reject the motion and endorse the effective action taken by the Government on this important matter.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31 (2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.