Earl of Listowel
Main Page: Earl of Listowel (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend for bringing the Bill back for Second Reading for a second time, and for her diligence in pursuing this matter. It is a privilege to follow all the eloquent, passionate and well-informed speakers, all of whom were in favour of what my noble friend proposes, albeit they may wish to alter a couple of details here and there. I wholly support my noble friend’s Bill and hope that the Government will accept it.
I remember first hearing about this matter about 10 years ago from the child and adolescent psychotherapist Dr Peter Wilson, the founder of the mental health charity for young people, Young Minds, and a graduate of the Anna Freud Centre. He made a speech about his concerns for young people, particularly with regard to the impact of pornography on them. A few years later, about five years ago, at the Young Minds annual general meeting we heard from Dr Tanya Byron as she reported on the information she had gathered from the previous Government on children and the internet. Ten years on, although much good work seems to be taking place, we do not seem to have got much further. In fact, things seem to be getting increasingly worse. Therefore, my noble friend’s Bill is very timely. As many others have said, including my noble friend, I wish that the Bill could have been taken forward last year. Still, it is better late than never.
I thank the internet service providers for their co-operation so far and for setting aside £25 million to help children who are adversely affected by adult content material on the internet, or who are at risk of being so affected. I also thank them for the wonderful contribution that they certainly make to my family. My sister lives in Australia and, although I have not been reading them, she has been pinging e-mails to me throughout this debate. We can keep in touch, and if someone in the family is unwell we can keep in communication and support that person. Therefore, I thank the ISPs for the way in which they touch the whole of humanity in such a positive way. However, more action needs to be taken on this matter. I would like to concentrate my remarks on vulnerable young people.
I suggest that we should look at raising the age for protecting young people from 18 to 21, because children and young people develop at different rates. Those who are expert in this area often talk about “stage not age”. For example, we take extra precautions as regards vulnerable young people leaving care—precautions which last into their early adulthood—as we recognise their vulnerability which stems from the trauma that they experienced earlier in their lives. Therefore, I think that there is a very strong case for taking this forward from 18 to 21 on the precautionary principle.
I am a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children and Young People in Care and Leaving Care and a trustee of the child welfare charity, the Michael Sieff Foundation. I am particularly interested in young people at the edge of care and who are taken into care and care leavers. Their history is very often one of profound abuse, neglect within the family and family trauma. To give an indication of the processes that take place in these children, many of them feel a deep sense of guilt. My noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, who is not in her place, recently attended an event at which a young child talked about her parents’ break-up. She said she was sure that her parents had separated because she did not keep her room tidy. Children take all the blame upon themselves if they are unloved by their parents, are attacked by them or if their parents split up. They often have an overwhelming sense of guilt and blame. This came up in the debate about young people feeling extremely guilty about accessing pornography on the internet and fearing that the police would come to take them away.
Another process is attention: children who have been neglected will often have an overwhelming need to gain the attention of adults. Girls and young women may access the internet to see what is available and then realise that they can gain attention through it. They may also be led into interaction with others on the internet and posting naked images of themselves. This can come back on them in a very adverse way. I am probably jumping the gun there, but because of their family experience there is a real desperate need in many of these young people for attention from anyone. Finally, the third process that comes into play is profound difficulty in making and keeping intimate relationships, because the people who they trusted most in their lives have disappointed them.
As this Bill applies to pornography and access by children to pornography, this guilt that they experience perhaps means that they feel worthless and that when they access pornography they cannot have proper relationships with others. Once they start accessing it, they feel guilty because they have seen the stuff; and then they feel worse because they access more. It can be a vicious downwards spiral. If they find it difficult to have close relationships with other people they can find a sort of false closeness in pornography. They may become increasingly engaged with and addicted to it. As they become more ensconced and as they grow up it becomes even harder for them to relate to other people, girls and women. I have mentioned the issue of attention, and girls wishing to be filmed and posting that on the internet.
There are real issues there that I hope will come to the consideration of the House when we are in Committee. I am sorry that I am going on for so long, and will conclude as soon as possible. Meg Munn MP, the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Child Protection, is producing a report, one aspect of which is looking at children who sexually harm other children. The group held a meeting this week on this matter. Dr Eileen Vizard attended that meeting; she has worked for many years at the NSPCC, treating young children who sexually harm other children. She lamented the fact that the strategy that she developed 13 years ago for treating children who had harmed other children had not been properly implemented and was not properly funded. I hope that we can look at this aspect as we go through the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will be prepared to meet some of the concerned parties and consider how we are helping children who sexually harm other children. I am sure that access to pornography on the internet is not only drawing more children into this behaviour, as we have heard, but making it harder for them to move on from it. I also hope that the internet service providers will think of providing more money for services for children who sexually harm other children; this is desperately needed because the risk is that they will become adults who sexually harm children if they are not treated at a young age.
As has been said, a society that does not care for its children is not a society at all. I again applaud my noble friend Lady Howe for bringing the Bill forward. I hope that the Minister will come forward with a sympathetic response to her concerns.