Online Harms White Paper

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

As a parent, I of course want my children to be safe on the web, but as a civil libertarian, I want to ensure free speech. The Secretary of State spoke about the need to be sceptical and about challenging the perceived truth. People do not trust Governments, for very good reasons. With 194 other jurisdictions around the world, how does he envisage that important balance being struck through this White Paper?

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is indeed the balance to be struck. I hope that I can reassure him that it is our intention to do so and that we believe that free speech and safety online are not mutually exclusive. We can do both; we must do both. That is what the White Paper intends to do. As he says, it simply would not be right for Government to seek to determine the answers to the questions that we are concerned with. There must be an independent regulator to do so. It must be properly funded and must be properly robust in the opportunities that it has to hold online companies to account.