Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I absolutely disagree with that statement, of course, because for a number of years now the Conservative Government have been supporting women and girls to get into sport, with a significant campaign to get more women and girls into sport, and the cross-departmental work with the Department for Education to ensure that young girls have equal access to sport in school. In fact, year on year, we have seen those numbers on participation in sport improve, and we also set up the national physical activity taskforce with the specific aim of getting 1 million more women involved in activity.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to protect and repurpose heritage buildings.

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. One of my colleagues has just said to me that she is stepping down, so I would like to pay tribute to her for the representation she has given to the good people of Halifax.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is responsible for listing buildings of special architectural or historic interest, giving them enhanced protection. The Department and its arm’s length bodies also provide significant financial support for heritage buildings, including through Historic England’s £95 million high streets heritage action zones programme.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and thank her for her kind words. I pay tribute to Halifax Civic Trust, which does so much great work in my constituency and has some amazing heritage buildings, not least the magnificent Piece Hall. However, we have others that developers have bought and sat on, refusing to invest in them, engage or release them to other interested parties. What else might we be able to do to force them to engage and release those buildings if they are not going to invest?

[Julia Lopez]

I spoke to my noble Friend the heritage Minister in preparation for this question and in doing so got to know a bit more about Piece Hall, a fantastic heritage site in the hon. Member’s constituency. I commend the work of all local activists to protect that building and bring it into public use. It is a wonderful example of an 18th century northern cloth hall, which now has a modern purpose. We are very grateful for the work that has gone into it. She may be aware that we also have the cultural development fund, which has allowed communities across the country to retain important public buildings with heritage value, repurpose them and breathe life into the communities that most need them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

We are very sympathetic to that concept, which has worked well in football. We are closely watching the industry discussions about the idea of a levy that would support grassroots music venues which, as we all know, are the talent pipeline for our world-leading music industry. We do not want to see them wither, so we are watching this matter closely and I have had recent discussions with relevant organisations on it.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

Further to that question, and as others have said, brilliant grassroots music venues all over the country are struggling with spiralling costs. The Grayston Unity is one such venue that is crucial in not only ensuring access to music, but developing the skills pipeline for people working in that sector and, we hope, becoming the stars of tomorrow. What is the Minister doing to ensure that she understands, and reassures those venues that she gets, the spiralling costs they face?

[Julia Lopez]

As I have said, we have a number of initiatives under way. Arts Council funding is supporting the Music Venue Trust in relation to owning freeholds of properties and we have our supporting grassroots music fund, which has been topped up recently because of some of the issues cited by the hon. Lady. We want to try to help music venues through these difficult times, because we believe they are so valuable, not only to the talent pipeline, but in giving communities access to local music and performing opportunities. We hope that these venues will continue long into the future.

Online Harms

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered online harms.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am delighted to have secured this debate this afternoon. I know that lots of colleagues are keen to participate, and many of them have much greater expertise in this policy area than I do. I have never been more overwhelmed on securing a debate by offers of briefings, information, research and support from organisations that are dedicated to trying to make a difference in this area. Given the strength of feeling and the depth of the evidence base, it is remarkable that we have not made more progress.

I was approached by the Petitions Committee who asked if four online petitions could be considered as part of this debate. Those petitions are entitled: “Make online abuse a specific criminal offence and create a register of offenders,” “Make online homophobia a specific criminal offence,” “Hold online trolls accountable for their online abuse via their IP address” and “Ban anonymous accounts on social media”. The petitions have collectively been signed by more than half a million people and I am pleased to say that there were 773 signatories from my Halifax constituency.

I had intended to include a list and thank all those who sent briefings, but there were so many, it would take me about 12 hours to read out that list. I would therefore just like to mention the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo’s, the Antisemitism Policy Trust, John Carr OBE, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and my good and honourable Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who has a vast knowledge and expertise in this area, not least in his capacity as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on social media. I will reference others throughout my speech. I thank them all for the information and support in shaping the focus of my efforts.

During lockdown, we have seen how the internet has facilitated digital connection and social media has provided a lifeline to the outside world for so many. None of us in this room is ignorant of the good that social media can do; however, as lawmakers, we are all collectively responsible for the utter failure to regulate it and for the societal damage that that is causing.

The online harms White Paper published last year confirms that nearly nine in 10 UK adults and 99% of 12 to 15-year-olds are online. The NSPCC estimates that in the first three months of 2020, online sex crimes recorded against children surpassed 100 a day—that is roughly one every 14 minutes. Barnardo’s also contacted me about some of the harrowing online experiences it has been supporting children through as part of its new “See, Hear, Respond” campaign over the course of the lockdown—the sorts of experiences that would significantly damage adults, let alone children.

As MPs, we all know what it is like to be in the public eye and to be on the receiving end of online abuse, but I started to ramp up my work in this area when I was approached by a brilliant woman, Nicky Chance-Thompson, who is the chief exec of the magnificent Piece Hall in my constituency, which everyone should come and visit when they have the opportunity. She is a deputy lieutenant and the Yorkshire Choice Awards Business Woman of the Year 2019. She is also on Northern Power Women’s power list.

When Caroline Flack tragically died in February this year, Nicky bravely approached me and others to share her own experiences of women in the public eye and to call on all of us to get a grip of online abuse before any further lives are lost. Nicky published an article with the Yorkshire Evening Post describing how she was a victim and survivor of online abuse, which rides high on social media. She said:

“Cowards hiding behind fake profiles can say anything they like about anyone, and there appears to be no consequences for them nor recourse for the victims…Misogyny is unpalatably frequent. Many women in high profile or public positions cop it simply for doing their jobs or being successful.”

She urged everyone involved to speak up and take action because “silence is killing people.”

Nicky’s article was published by the Yorkshire Evening Post as part of their “Call It Out” campaign, which has been spearheaded by editor, Laura Collins. It proved to be the catalyst for a broader initiative between Nicky, myself, editors of the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post, James Mitchinson and Laura Collins, Stop Funding Hate, the Conscious Advertising Network and the Journalism Trust Initiative, led by Reporters Without Borders. We came together to agree a constructive way forward to make progress on cleaning up the internet. We interrogated the online harms White Paper; its joint ministerial statement bears the names of two former Cabinet Members who both left Government over a year ago, which hardly screams urgency, but it does state:

“While some companies have taken steps to improve safety on their platforms, progress has been too slow and inconsistent overall.”

I am afraid that, in itself, is a reflection of the Government’s inaction.

We talk a great deal about public health right now, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said in a discussion I had with her about her Petitions Committee investigation into online abuse, we will look back on this period in history with disbelief and shame that we did nothing in the face of what can only be described as a public health ticking time bomb. She compared unregulated online abuse and hate to smoking, and that analogy is entirely right.

Until a landmark study in the 1950s, whether a person chose to smoke was nothing to do with Government, and even when the body of research provided evidence for the link between tobacco use and lung cancer and other chronic diseases, Governments were slow to involve themselves in efforts to stop people smoking, or to get them to smoke less or not to start in the first place. If we think about where we are now on smoking, although smoking cessation budgets have been slashed in recent years, we proactively fund stop smoking services, have school education programmes and heavily regulate what is available to purchase and how it is advertised.

We do that because we recognised that smoking was having a detrimental impact on physical health. We invested, not only because it was the right thing to do, but because it was more cost-effective to intervene than to allow so many people to become so unwell as a consequence. Compare that with online abuse and hate and the impact we know it is having on the wellbeing and mental health of society, particularly young people.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. She mentioned the importance of regulation, and as she was speaking I was reflecting on the regulation that is in place to govern the BBC and broadcast media, because it was felt that, if communication was going straight into the living room of every home in this country, it needed to have a firm regulatory footing. Does she not think that a similar approach to this sector could have prevented some of the harms that she is talking about today?

[Holly Lynch]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point. I am about to come on to some of the different ways that we need to extend the regulation that is already there. She makes the point that that information was going straight into homes; information online is coming straight into somebody’s hand in front of their face, so why do we not extend the same types of regulation to it? I will come on to that in more detail, but I thank her for that point.

As I said, 99% of 12 to 15-year-olds are online, and seven in 10 young people have experienced cyber-bullying, with nearly 40% of young people saying they experienced cyber-bullying on a high-frequency basis, according to the Royal Society for Public Health’s “#StatusofMind” report. Those of us in this Chamber know better than anyone the impact that social media is having on public discourse and on the ability to have safe spaces for the exchange of different opinions, which are vital in any democracy.

One of the reasons the Yorkshire Evening Post was so motivated to launch the Call It Out campaign was realising the impact of the barrage of online abuse directed predominantly, but not exclusively, towards their its female journalists. Editor Laura Collins, who I commend for her leadership on this issue, told me this week that the sentiment of one comment on Facebook responding to an article about the local restrictions in Leeds was not uncommon: it said, “Whoever is publishing these articles needs executing by firing squad”. The newspaper reported it to Facebook on 28 September and nine days later is yet to receive a response.

Our “Clean Up The Internet” initiative, somewhat underwhelmed by the White Paper, feared that the Government did not have the will to truly transform the way the internet is used, so we considered what else would need to happen. Online social media platforms have said far too often that they just provide the platform and can only do so much to oversee the content shared on it, but that holds no water at all where paid ads are concerned. It is a glaring omission from the White Paper that it does not consider misinformation and disinformation, which can be not only shared widely for free, but promoted through online advertising.

As we have heard, advertising in print or on broadcast platforms is regulated through Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority, and it must be pre-approved by a number of relevant bodies. There are clear rules, powers and consequences. The internet, however, to quote the NSPCC campaign, is the “wild west”. We must therefore extend that regulation to online advertising as a matter of urgency.

The urgency is twofold. The spread of misinformation and disinformation relating to the pandemic, whether it is conspiracy theories about its origins or even its existence, fake cures or promoting the sale of personal protective equipment by bogus companies, when we are trying to combat a virus, can have fatal consequences. So-called clickbait advertising and the monetisation of items dressed up as news, with the most outrageous and sensational teasers inevitably receiving the most clicks and generating the most income, means that credible news from real journalists with integrity to both their conduct and their content, like those at the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post, is being driven out of that space. The online business model does not work for those who play by the rules, because there simply are not any.

Let us move on to what else would make a difference. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer a number of questions today about the progress of legislation and regulation. We have had the initial response to the White Paper, but when can we expect to see the Bill published? If we consider that the process began when the Green Paper was published in October 2017 and that the Government have suggested it may be 2023 before new legislation comes into effect, that will be six years, which is an incredibly long time in the life of a child—almost an entire generation.

Opportunities to strengthen protections for children online have been continually missed. During lockdown, large numbers of children have been harmed by entirely avoidable online experiences. If the Government had acted sooner, those consequences may not have been as severe or widespread.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and thank her for her tribute to me. I pay tribute to her for the work she does in her constituency and across Yorkshire on this issue.

In terms of protection of children, one of the most concerning things I have seen during the pandemic is about the Internet Watch Foundation, which is Government- funded and reports to the police and central Government about the number of URLs focusing on paedophilia and child exploitation images. Takedown has reduced by some 80% since the pandemic started. I have raised that with Ministers in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Does she agree that the Government need to take that far more seriously and put funding in place to ensure such things can be taken down and that children are protected from the most extreme online harms?

[Holly Lynch]

My hon. Friend, who has vast experience in this area, references some of the most extreme and harrowing online experiences, which our children are now becoming exposed to on a regular basis. We absolutely must re-resource this area to get a grip of it and prevent children from becoming victims, which happens every day that we do not tighten up the rules and regulations surrounding the use of the internet.

I also ask the Minister whether legislation will include— it should—regulation of, or rather the removal of, misinformation and disinformation online. Will it seek to regulate much more of what is harmful and hateful but is not necessarily criminal from a public health perspective, if nothing else? Will the proposed duty of care be properly underpinned by a statutory framework? Just how significant will the consequences be for those who do not adhere to it?

The Government announced the suspension of the implementation of an age-verification regime for commercial pornography sites on 16 October 2019, despite the fact that it only needed a commencement date. It is not at all clear why that was or when it will be reintroduced. I hope that the Minister can enlighten is about when the regime will come into effect.

The Local Government Association has raised important concerns. Local authorities have statutory safeguarding responsibilities on issues such as child exploitation, as we have just heard, suicide prevention and tackling addiction, all of which become incredibly difficult when a child or young person—or an adult, for that matter—goes online. It had to produce the “Councillors’ guide to handling intimidation”, which recognises the growing need among councillors for support related to predominantly online intimidation. That is another damning indication of just how bad things have become.

I have worked with these groups on this issue and have been overwhelmed with suggestions for what more could be done. First, no one should be able to set up an entirely anonymous profile on social media platforms. The rise in bots and people hiding behind anonymous profiles who push hate and abuse should simply no longer be allowed. People would not necessarily have to put all their information in the public domain, but they would need to provide accurate information in order to be able to set up an account or a profile. The approach is explicitly called for in two of the public petitions attached to the debate, demonstrating that there is public support for such an approach. That would allow us to hold both the platform and the individuals responsible to account for any breaches in conduct.

Imagine if being held to account for posting something that is predetermined to be abusive through the online harms Bill, such as hateful antisemitic content, meant that an appropriate agency—be it Ofcom, the police or the enforcement arm of a new regulator— could effectively issue on-the-spot fines to the perpetrator. If we can identify the perpetrator, we can also work with police to determine whether a hate crime has occurred and bring charges wherever possible. The increased resources that are necessary for such an approach would be covered by the revenue generated by those fines. That type of approach would be transformative. Can the Minister respond to that point—not necessarily to me, but to all those who have signed the petitions before us, which ask for that kind of thinking?

Fearing that the Government lack the will to adopt the radical approach that is required, the working group that I spoke about will look to get more and more advertisers on board that are prepared to pull their advertising from social media platforms if the sorts of transformations that we are calling for are not forthcoming. I put everyone on notice that that work is well under way.

On securing the debate, I was approached by colleagues from all parties, and I am pleased that so many are able to take part. Given just how broad this topic is, I have not said anything about extremist and radical content online, gang violence, cyber-bullying, self-harm, explicit and extreme content, sexual content, grooming, gaming and gambling, and the promotion of eating disorders. I am sure others will say more about such things, but I fear the Government will say that there is so much to regulate that they are struggling to see the way forward. There is so much there that it is a dereliction of duty every day that we fail to regulate this space and keep damaging content from our young people and adults alike.

We know that this is an international issue, and Plan International has just released the results of its largest ever global survey on online violence after speaking to 14,000 girls aged 15 to 25 across 22 countries. The data reveal that nearly 60% have been harassed or abused online, and that one in five girls have left a social media platform or significantly reduced their use of it after being harassed. This plea goes to the social media companies as well: if they want to have users in the future who can enjoy what they provide, they must create a safe space. Currently, they simply do not. It is an international issue, but we are the mother of Parliaments, are we not?

The Government seem so overwhelmed by the prospect of doing everything that they are not doing anything. I urge the Minister to start that process. Take those first steps, because each one will make some difference in bringing about the change that we have a moral obligation to deliver.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that the convention still applies: if you wish to speak, you should be present at the beginning. There are quite a large number of people on the call list, so please restrict your comments to about four minutes; otherwise, I will have to impose a time limit. I will call Members as on the call list, starting with Andrew Percy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part in this important debate, and not least to the Labour shadow spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), for her important contribution. She again made use of her expertise in the powerful position she took.

I am also grateful to the Minister for her response. She gave what I felt was quite a personal commitment to get a grip of this. However, while we asked a lot of specific questions, we heard phrases like “range of tools”, “terms and conditions”, “misinformation and disinformation” and “is in hand”. It was not necessarily the absolute clarity we were asking for. Will social media companies have heard that response and realised that the transformation that we ask for is on its way? I am not sure they will, so I politely put it to the Minister that we very much hope that her personal contribution and the commitments she made are forthcoming, and that where she is afforded more time in the future, she will be able to share more with us.

I will end with a personal plea, echoing the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and the hon. Members for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) and for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart). As a mother of a two-year-old boy, the clock is ticking, and I need assurances that, by the time he is old enough to use the internet, we will have got a grip of this. Others shared experiences of their children using it here and now, and they are witnessing the impact that it has on them. We also have responsibilities beyond that, as Members of Parliament and lawmakers.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

Having spoken to victims of crime and to police officers, I feel it would be hugely beneficial for the promotion of engagement and understanding of the CPS if it had the ability to explain charging decisions directly to the victims of crime. Does the Solicitor General agree, and how are we resourcing the CPS to do that work?

[The Solicitor General]

It is absolutely vital that the CPS talks to victims and understands both them and local communities. In fact, the CPS produced an inclusion and community engagement strategy in May 2018, which has been widely recommended. Hate crime and violence against women and girls strategy boards can discuss such issues locally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to tackle problem gambling.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Hancock)]

We take problem gambling very seriously. In the gambling review, we consulted on measures to strengthen protection against problem gambling. We are considering all the responses.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful for that response. In addition to that, I have been approached by concerned lone workers who are working in betting shops on high streets in my constituency. There has been a series of incidents of serious sexual assault and violent acts committed against those lone workers. What is the Secretary of State doing to engage with the industry to reduce lone working in betting shops and improve the safety of those staff?

[Matt Hancock]

There is full consideration of these issues in the gambling review. It is important that all evidence is brought to bear. The Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who apologises for not being able to be here, has been working on the review very closely. I am sure that we should take this evidence into account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I am happy to give that assurance and that is reflected in the bilateral work of government, where there is continuing dialogue at official and ministerial level. This is all about mutual respect and getting the best outcome, not only for Britain, but for all its constituent parts.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

5. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service has adequate resources to tackle social media hate crime.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

The CPS prosecutes cases where they meet the test for prosecution. It allocates its resources accordingly, and will continue to do so, and I welcome its commitment to treat hate crimes on social media as seriously as other sorts of hate crime.

[Holly Lynch]

I am grateful for that response, but will the Solicitor General go further and outline what steps are being taken to address the significant variations in conviction rates across different regions, with particular reference to the 4.7% fall in successful convictions for religiously aggravated hate crime in 2015-16?

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Lady is right to look in detail at regional variations. Overall, progress is still encouraging: the conviction rate for all strands of hate crime increased slightly again last year, and the number of hate-crime prosecutions has now reached record levels—it is in excess of 15,000. The answer to her question lies in the sharing of best practice among different regions. Earlier, I talked about engagement with the trans community in the north-east, and there are examples from other regions of how, if we work closely with the communities, we can increase conviction rates. In the hon. Lady’s area, work with disability communities has resulted in improved disability hate-crime prosecutions.