Keith Vaz
Main Page: Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East)Department Debates - View all Keith Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). I declare myself a dinosaur where online issues are concerned. I was going to say the same thing about my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), but she is much more modern than I am. Although she, I and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, were elected 26 years ago yesterday, she is thoroughly modern in her approach. She was able to name the Pokémons as one of the groups that children look at online, though Pokémons are perfectly fine as creatures and they probably need protection from the children.
In the short time available to us to speak, let me say that I normally go to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who is a member of the Home Affairs Committee, for advice on these matters, and I listened carefully to what he said about filters. However, I think the real responsibility is on the internet companies and the service providers. They have got away with murder—literally, in some cases—because people have been able to use the internet to groom young girls and children and to behave in an irresponsible way. The internet companies throw up their hands and say that is freedom of speech.
We recently had some of those companies before the Home Affairs Committee during our last inquiry and also during a previous inquiry, so we have questioned them about both the roots of radicalism and e-crime. We will invite them again when we look at this matter again. They are very reluctant to intervene, and a tiny proportion of their profits—a tiny proportion—goes to the Internet Watch Foundation. It is not enough. They cannot sit back complacently and allow these things to go on without intervening and cleaning up the internet.
The Home Secretary has made positive statements, after what happened in Woolwich, about her desire to get things done. I am glad that there is a summit next week. I hope that she will be invited and that this is not just being seen as an issue for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, because when dealing with crime it is important to ensure that the police are fully involved.
Tim Loughton
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the search engines, most of which are based in America, pleading freedom of speech. Does he agree that every search engine could have a simple sign on its home page alerting users to how they can report material they are concerned about, which would cost nothing? That way, there would be no excuse for not knowing what to do. They could also put money into having moderators to ensure a rapid response to unacceptable material.
Keith Vaz
Yes, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all the work he did in that area as Children’s Minister and since then. The internet companies must be proactive. They have to go in and clean up the internet. They cannot just sit back and allow others to do it for them. It is so difficult to get internet companies to appear before Select Committees. It takes an age to find them, and then they always respond by saying that they are based in California or New York and therefore do not come over to the UK. They send us their public relations officers, but they, very nice people though they are, are not the decision makers.
I am full of praise for the work CEOP does. I have visited it, along with members of the Home Affairs Committee, and encourage other right hon. and hon. Members to go—it is just across the Vauxhall Bridge road—and see the fantastic work being done. I pay tribute to Jim Gamble for his work in setting it up in the first place and to Peter Davies, who leads it ably. I say to the Policing Minister—he is now in conversation with the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who has done a great deal of work in these matters, for which we are grateful—that it is very important that we protect CEOP’s budget. The Home Affairs Committee expressed concern that CEOP was being put into the National Crime Agency. We accept what the Government have done and understand the need to rationalise the policing landscape, but it is important to maintain CEOP’s budget and focus. I understand that its budget will be cut by 10% over the next four years. Perhaps the Minister can reassure me that that is not the case and that CEOP, even though it is in the NCA—the Committee thinks that is fine for the moment, but we will revisit the subject—will still retain its focus. Ultimately, it provides terrific expertise that could benefit police forces across the country.
Finally, I recently visited Europol and Interpol. I urge the Policing Minister to visit those organisations, because I gather that no Home Office Minister has visited Europol in recent years. They are doing some fantastic work internationally. I know that the Cabinet Office has funded a project in Interpol specifically dealing with online child exploitation. I think that we can take credit for the work we are doing internationally. To return to my first point, the internet is a marvellous invention and a power for good, but as we have seen, and as we have heard today, it can be used in a different, darker way to exploit children. I hope that internet service providers and others involved in this whole area will understand their responsibilities and act accordingly.