Online Harms Consultation

Felicity Buchan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Several other hon. Members have raised the point about future-proofing, and I apologise for not addressing it in my answers so far. Ofcom will be given the discretion to deal with emerging threats, through codes of conduct and so on, but we will also use secondary legislation and identification of priority harms. We are not including those in primary legislation to enable us, over time, to update those priority harms as new threats emerge.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that senior managers of social media companies must be held responsible if they fail to protect children and vulnerable people?

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes, I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for her question. These kinds of financial penalties we are proposing will cause all senior executives to sit up and think. The last thing one would want to do in a senior management position in such a company is to expose it to such a high level of fine, but we will still, ultimately, reserve the criminal sanction as well, in the way I have set out.