Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

We are all looking forward enormously—I certainly am—to the Commonwealth games 2022, which will form part of a wonderful year of celebrations in 2022 alongside the festival of the United Kingdom and, of course, Her Majesty the Queen’s platinum jubilee. There are exciting plans for the Commonwealth games, but those will coincide with festival UK 2022, and those plans are progressing well, most recently with the launch of a research and development competition earlier this month. We really want to bring together the greatest minds and the brightest talents from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics to apply to find the 10 most creative and innovative ideas. I encourage my hon. Friend and, indeed, Members from both sides of the House to encourage people from their constituencies to apply for it.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Eighteen months ago, the Government promised world-leading legislation to finally tackle online harms, promising that Britain would be the safest place in the world to be online. Last week, I met again with Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who—as the Secretary of State will know—took her own life at the age of 14 after accessing and receiving more and more curated online content about suicide methods and self-harm online. Mr Russell and many other stakeholders told me they have real concerns, not just about the absence of the promised legislation, but that it is being watered down and will not include regulation relating to legal but harmful content like that which led to Molly’s death. Can the Secretary of State reassure them and the House that legal but harmful content will be within the scope of the Bill when it eventually appears?

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes. The short answer is that it will; it will be covered by the duty of care. We continue to work on our full response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation and we will be publishing that this year, with a view to having the legislation at the beginning of next year. Indeed, shortly after this session in the House I will be meeting victims to discuss those proposals further.

[Jo Stevens]

I thank the Secretary of State for that welcome answer. Another area of legal but harmful content online is covid misinformation; conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers continue to flood social media platforms, 24/7. This morning, a University College London study reports that more than one in five of the public are unlikely to accept a vaccine, amid widespread misinformation about side effects and profiteering. With increased infection rates, new restrictions and winter approaching, people are going to be spending more time online, exposed to this harmful misinformation. His Department leads the counter-disinformation unit, but there is no information available about its resourcing, performance or impact. The public see a Government who have lost control of the virus and of public health communication, so what is he doing to reverse that?

[Oliver Dowden]

Clearly, I do not accept the hon. Lady’s characterisation, which is a little overblown, but she rightly raises the point about the risks associated with disinformation should we succeed in achieving the vaccine, which of course all parts of government are working tirelessly towards. I am well aware of the challenge of misinformation about the vaccine and I have discussed it with the Health Secretary. The Minister for Digital and Culture, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), is working intensively at ministerial level and is engaging with social media companies to ensure we have the necessary measures in place to deal with any misinformation, should it arise at the time of a vaccine.