Social Media and Health

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. These social media platforms must be made to take responsibility for the harm caused by the dangerous fake news they host, because they are helping to fuel a public health crisis. He talks about the actions that platforms such as Instagram have taken since February, but I have just searched on Instagram and found images and videos of graphic self-harm; there are 8 million posts with the hashtag #suicide—from a quick glance, many are distressing—226,000 posts with the hashtag #killmyself, and 249,000 posts with the hashtag #selfinjury. I found similar pro-anorexia posts and the normalisation of eating disorders. I am sorry to have to share those examples with the House, but I think that we have to understand the scale of the challenge we face. As the father of two beautiful daughters, aged seven and five, I would be devastated if they saw such posts as they grow up.

Dangerous content should be blocked and taken down. I look forward to the Samaritans’ recommendations, so can the Secretary of State update us on the timescale? He talked about the online harms White Paper, but we need action immediately, so can he tell us when the proposed legislation will come before the House? When will the new regulator and duty of care be enforced? Can he guarantee that there will be criminal sentences for executives for serious breaches? In what circumstances would the maximum fine of 4% of global turnover be applied? If, God forbid, something similar to what happened to Molly Russell—I am sure that the whole House will want to praise her father for his brave campaigning—should happen to another child, what action would be taken against the social media companies?

I have also been able to find dangerous anti-vaccination propaganda on platforms such as Facebook, at a time when measles outbreaks are on the increase across Europe and the United States and in parts of the United Kingdom. Unvaccinated children are being turned away from schools in parts of Italy and banned from public areas in parts of New York. I would hate to see that happen here. UNICEF has warned that more than half a million children have missed their measles vaccination, which means the UK now has the third-worst ranking of all high-income countries. As the Secretary of State said, take-up of the MMR vaccine has now declined for the fourth year in a row, making coverage for the vaccine the lowest it has been since 2011-12.

I know that the Secretary of State said on the radio last week that he was considering banning unvaccinated children from schools in England, but we urgently need a clear vaccination action plan from the Government. This cannot be about penalising families. Yes, we need intervention with social media platforms when the legislation is in place, but while we wait for the legislation will he consider instructing Public Health England to launch an online social media campaign, on the platforms that are currently sharing anti-vaccination propaganda, to challenge those dangerous myths?

Will the Secretary of State also accept that our falling vaccination rates are not just about online activity? Public health services have been cut by £800 million. Our health visitors have been cut by 8% in recent years, and our school nurses by 24%. General practice has faced a funding squeeze, and GP numbers are down by 1,000 since 2015. At the same time, 2018-19 marks the first year that we have seen a reversal in the percentage of children receiving vital health check-ups on time since the measurement of these figures began: 14.5% of children are not receiving a six to eight-week review on time; 24% are not receiving a 12-month review on time; and the number of mothers over 28 weeks pregnant receiving their first face-to-face antenatal contact with a health visitor has fallen for the second year in a row. Will he therefore commit today to reversing public health cuts and restoring health visitor numbers, and will he invest in general practice so that we can meet the 95% national vaccination coverage rate, as recommended by the World Health Organisation? When does he expect us to meet that 95% rate?

Children are 20% of our population but 100% of our future. We must always put their health and wellbeing first. Yes, there has been some progress, but we need further action from the Government today.

[Matt Hancock]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who has provided leadership on this agenda from his position as shadow Secretary of State. I am glad, listening to his response, that we agree very broadly on the direction we need to take. The agreement across the House is valuable in demonstrating to social media companies the clear consensus on the need for them to act, and to every parent in the land the importance of vaccination. That cross-party support is very, very valuable.

I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, whom the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), the Minister for suicide prevention, met this morning. He has been brave and eloquent in bringing these issues to light. I pay tribute to him and thank him for how he has spoken about what needs to be done. I know he is as determined as we are to ensure that action translates into saving more lives.

We agreed, after the meeting yesterday, to reconvene in two months’ time, by which time I expect further action from the social media companies. As I said in my statement, we have already seen some progress. I am glad that some of the global algorithms and global terms and conditions have been changed as a result of action taken by the UK Government. It is very important that we keep the pace up. In two months’ time, we expect to see further action from the social media companies and progress by the Samaritans on being able to define more clearly the boundary between harmful and non-harmful content. In each area of removing harms online, the challenge is to create the right boundary in the appropriate place. It is the challenge when tackling terrorist and child abuse material online, so that social media companies do not have to define what is and is not socially acceptable, but we as society do. I am delighted that the Samaritans will formally play that role on material relating to suicide prevention and self-harm, and that Beat will do so on material relating to eating disorders.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the online harms White Paper. We are currently in the middle of a 12-week consultation. I hope he and everybody listening to this who has an interest will respond to it. We are clear that we will have a regulator, but we also genuinely want to consult widely. This is not really an issue of party politics, but of getting it right so that society decides on how we should govern the internet, rather than the big internet companies making those decisions for themselves. I have to say that the tone from the social media companies has changed in recent months and years, but they still need to do an awful lot. I look forward to working with him and others across the House to ensure we can deliver on this agenda.