Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL]

Baroness Merron Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, every child has a right to a healthy upbringing, and I therefore congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on her Private Member’s Bill and her tenacity and laser-like focus in pursuing this over so many years. The debate today has brought the attention of your Lordships’ House to the clear moral duty of the Government to protect children, irrespective of whether they are living their lives online or offline. I am grateful to noble Lords for the many common-sense contributions that we have heard today.

Great strides have in fact been made in putting children at the heart of digital regulation, with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, at the centre of these efforts, But, in my view, too many children and young people still find themselves exposed to content that is inappropriate or harmful. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said so clearly, hugely damaging online content affects and distorts attitudes to sex and relationships, self-confidence and body image, something also emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. This online content is inappropriate in a powerful yet highly destructive way; it is not what online content should be there to do.

We welcome the entry into force of the age-appropriate design code but there remain a number of outstanding issues around the protection of children and young people, with social media companies themselves acknowledging that some of their systems and safeguards simply do not work. Yet, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and other noble Lords emphasised, internet providers are falling short when it comes to taking responsibility. As my noble friend Lady Kennedy said, putting profit before safety is gross negligence.

Implementing age-assurance systems is an important next step in the fight to keep children and young people safe, and this Private Member’s Bill seeks to ensure that such systems meet a variety of minimum standards. Let us get on, as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, and make age verification something which can be done today. We are all aware that age-assurance technologies are, compared to others, in their infancy, and that the systems of the future will be unrecognisable when we compare them to those available to platforms in 2021. Nevertheless, there is a clear case for implementing such systems as soon as possible, as well as ensuring their appropriate regulation by Ofcom. However, as we have heard in this debate, even with the fairest of winds, if we rely solely on the online safety Bill, we will be waiting three years before any protection—from, for example, pornography—is in place. Three years is a very long time in the life of a child.

It is shocking to hear from the NSPCC that 62% of 11 to 13 year-olds who reported having seen pornography described their viewing as mostly unintentional. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford said, this is entirely preventable. If the Government are sincere about protecting children, they must find a way to fast-track the pornography protection provisions. I would be grateful for the response of the Minister on this point. More generally, if the Government agree with the thrust of the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as we certainly hope they do, can the Minister provide an assurance that it will be passed to the other place in a swift manner and taken forward in government time?

Alternatively, assuming that such a move were to be backed by the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, could these very sensible minimum standards be incorporated into the upcoming online safety Bill, which currently has several large gaps in this area, as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Griffiths? For example, as the NSPCC has outlined, the online safety Bill does not go far enough to protect children, in that it covers only companies with a significant number of children on their apps. This means that high-risk sites, such as Telegram and OnlyFans, could be excluded from needing to protect children from harmful content. This requirement could mean that, instead of tackling harmful content, which is the intent, it will simply displace it to smaller sites. How would the Minister seek to act to guard against this?

We back an overarching duty of care, which would cover legal as well as illegal content. I note that the Bill before us prescribes standards, which is welcome, but does not say that age verification or age assurance should be compulsory. This may be because there is little doubt that they will feature in the upcoming online safety Bill, so it would be helpful to today’s debate if the Minister could confirm that this will be the case.

These issues have been debated over very many years and, as organisations such as the NSPCC, the Samaritans and others stress, the lack of joined-up action is leaving a significant proportion of young people exposed to damaging material, whether pornography or harmful content that promotes suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. We may have moved from denial about the impact of online content but the Government still seem stuck in delay.

The Government’s stated intention of making the UK the safest place to access the internet is undoubtedly an admirable one, but this is ultimately about deeds rather than words. I hope that the Minister will use today to take meaningful action to protect young people and children, rather than just have us talking about it.