Online Safety: Children and Young People

Jeremy Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) not just on securing this debate but on the way in which she made her case. I want to focus on a couple of the more technical aspects of the Online Safety Act, which are important in fulfilling the objectives that we all share this afternoon, which, as she rightly said, are to make sure that the vehicle that we now have in the OSA delivers the right outcomes for the safety of children online.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage); she is right that I had ministerial responsibility for the Act. I think, frankly, it is harder to find Conservative Ministers who did not have responsibility for it at some point or another, but what we all tried to do was make sure that the structure of the Act would support the objectives that, again, we all share.

I will mention two specific things, which I should be grateful if the Minister would consider. I do not expect her to respond to them this afternoon, but if she would consider them and write to me, I should be very grateful.

It seems to me that we need to make sure that as responsibility for implementing the Act moves from us as legislators to Ofcom as the regulator, Government and Parliament and the regulator are on the same page. There are two areas where I am concerned that that might not be the case. The first is the question whether harm to children is all about content. I do not think it is. We have heard this afternoon that many aspects of risk and harm to children online have nothing to do with the specific nature of an individual piece of content.

The Act is important, and I believe it does support Ofcom’s ability to act in relation to harms beyond specific matters of content. For the Minister’s benefit, I have in mind section 11 of the Act on risk assessment—as she will know, because she knows it off by heart. For everybody else here, section 11 deals with risk assessment, and on that a great deal hangs. If we do a risk assessment, the obligation is to do something about risks, and that hangs on what risks are identified in the assessment. So the risk assessment matters.

As I read the Act, section 11 says that, yes, we must risk-assess for individual harmful pieces of content, but under section 11(6)(f) we also must risk-assess for the different ways that the service is used, including functionalities or other features of the service that affect how much children use the service—which goes back to a point made earlier. Those are the sorts of things it is important to underline that we expect Ofcom to attend to.

I am grateful for the Government’s statement of strategic priorities, but the point made about this being a fast-moving landscape is fundamental. Again in the Act, the codes of practice are vital, because they set out the things that platforms ought to do to keep children safe. If the platforms do the things set out in the codes, they are broadly invulnerable from further regulatory intervention. We need to act urgently to ensure that the codes of practice say what we want them to say. At the moment my concern is that Ofcom may simply talk about current good practice and not urge advancements in good practice to be maintained by the platforms. Those are the two areas that I hope the Minister will think about in relation to the draft codes and the need for an ongoing relationship between us in Parliament and Government and Ofcom to ensure that the Act continues to deliver as we want it to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Feryal Clark]

I thank the hon. Member for making that point and I absolutely welcome that intervention by internet providers. As I will go on to say, internet providers do not have to wait for the Act to be enacted; they can start making such changes now. I absolutely agree with him.

Many colleagues have raised the issue of the adequacy of the Online Safety Act. It is a landmark Act, but it is also imperfect. Ofcom’s need to consult means a long lead-in time; although it is important to get these matters right, that can often feel frustrating. None the less, we are clear that the Government’s priority is Ofcom’s effective implementation of the Act, so that those who use social media, especially children, can benefit from the Act’s wider reach and protections as soon as possible. To that end, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology became the first Secretary of State to set out a draft statement of strategic priorities to ensure that safety cannot be an afterthought but must be baked in from the start.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised the issue of suicide and self-harm. Ofcom is in the process of bringing the Online Safety Act’s provisions into effect. Earlier this year, it conducted a consultation on the draft illegal content, with one of the most harmful types being content about suicide. Child safety codes of practice were also consulted on. We expect the draft illegal content codes to be in effect by spring 2025, with child safety codes following in the summer.

Under the Act, user-to-user and search services will need to assess the risk that they might facilitate illegal content and must put in place measures to manage and mitigate any such risk. In addition, in-scope services likely to be accessed by children will need to protect children from content that is legal but none the less harmful to children, including pornography, bullying and violent content. The Act is clear that user-to-user services that allow the most harmful types of content must use highly effective age-assurance technology to prevent children from accessing it.

Ofcom will be able to use robust enforcement powers against companies that fail to fulfil their duties. Ofcom’s draft codes set out what steps services can take to meet those duties. The proposals mean that user-to-user services that do not ban harmful content should introduce highly effective age checks to prevent children from accessing the entire site or app, or age-restrict those parts of the service that host harmful content. The codes also tackle algorithms that amplify harm and feed harmful material to children, which have been discussed today. Under Ofcom’s proposal, services will have to configure their algorithms to filter out the most harmful types of content from children’s feeds, and reduce the visibility and prominence of other harmful content.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and others discussed strengthening the codes. Ofcom has been very clear that it will look to strengthen the codes in future iterations. The Government will encourage it to do so as harmful online technology and the evidence base about such technology evolves.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

Will the Minister give way?

[Feryal Clark]

I am short of time, so I will have to proceed.

For example, Ofcom recently announced plans to launch a further consultation on the illegal content duties once the first iteration of those duties is set out in spring next year. That iterative approach enables Ofcom to prioritise getting its initial codes in place as soon as possible while it builds on the foundations set out in that first set of codes.

My hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North raised the issue of violence against girls and women. In line with our safer streets mission, platforms will have new duties to create safer spaces for women and girls. It is a priority of the Online Safety Act for platforms proactively to tackle the most harmful illegal content, which includes offences such as harassment, sexual exploitation, extreme pornography, internet image abuse, stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour, much of which disproportionately affects women and girls. All services in scope of the Act need to understand the risks facing women and girls from illegal content online and take action to mitigate that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) set out powerfully the issues around child sexual exploitation and abuse. Child sexual abuse is a vile crime that inflicts long-lasting trauma on victims. UK law is crystal clear: the creation, possession and distribution of child sexual abuse images is illegal. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are against child sexual abuse and exploitation. Ofcom will have strong powers to direct online platforms and messaging and search services to combat that kind of abuse. It will be able to require platforms to use accredited, proactive technology to tackle CSEA and will have powers to hold senior managers criminally liable if they fail to protect children.

I am running short of time, so I shall make some final remarks. While we remain resolute in our commitment to implementing the Online Safety Act as quickly and effectively as possible, we recognise the importance of these ongoing conversations, and I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to today’s debate. I am grateful to the brave parents who continue to fight for protections for children online and shine a light on these important issues. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), asked a host of questions. I will respond to him in writing, because I do not have time to do so today, and I will place a copy in the Library.