Online Safety Bill (Tenth sitting)

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[John Nicolson]

New clause 36 seeks to criminalise the encouragement or assistance of a suicide. Before I move on to the details of the new clause, I would like to share the experience of a Samaritans supporter, who said:

“I know that every attempt my brother considered at ending his life, from his early 20s to when he died in April, aged 40, was based on extensive online research. It was all too easy for him to find step-by-step instructions so he could evaluate the effectiveness and potential impact of various approaches and, most recently, given that he had no medical background, it was purely his ability to work out the quantities of various drugs and likely impact of taking them in combination that equipped him to end his life.”

It is so easy when discussing the minutiae of the Bill to forget its real-world impact. I have worked with Samaritans on the new clause, and I use that quote with permission. It is the leading charity in trying to create a suicide-safer internet. It is axiomatic to say that suicide and self-harm have a devastating impact on people’s lives. The Bill must ensure that the online space does not aid the spreading of content that would promote this behaviour in any way.

There has rightly been much talk about how children are affected by self-harm content online. However, it should be stressed they do not exclusively suffer because of that content. Between 2011 and 2015, 151 patients who died by suicide were known to have visited websites that encouraged suicide or shared information about methods of harm, and 82% of those patients were aged over 25. It is likely that, as the Bill stands, suicide-promoting content will be covered in category 1 services, as it will be designated as harmful. Unless this amendment is passed, that content will not be covered on smaller sites, which is crucial. As Samaritans has identified, it is precisely in these smaller fora and websites that harm proliferates. The 151 patients who took their own life after visiting harmful websites may have been part of a handful of people using those sites, which would not fall under the definition of category 1, as I am sure the Minister will confirm.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, which comes to the nub of a lot of the issues we face with the Bill: the issue of volume versus risk. Does he agree that one life lost to suicide is one life too many? We must do everything that we can in the Bill to prevent every single life being lost through suicide, which is the aim of his amendment.

[John Nicolson]

I do, of course, agree. As anyone who has suffered with someone in their family committing suicide knows, it has a lifelong family effect. It is yet another amendment where I feel we should depart from the pantomime of so much parliamentary procedure, where both sides fundamentally agree on things but Ministers go through the torturous process of trying to tell us that every single amendment that any outside body or any Opposition Member, whether from the SNP or the Labour party, comes up with has been considered by the ministerial team and is already incorporated or covered by the Bill. They would not be human if that were the case. Would it not be refreshing if there were a slight change in tactic, and just occasionally the Minister said, “Do you know what? That is a very good point. I think I will incorporate it into the Bill”?

None of us on the Opposition Benches seeks to make political capital out of any of the things we propose. All of us, on both sides of the House, are here with the best of intentions, to try to ensure that we get the best possible Bill. We all want to be able to vote for the Bill at the end of the day. Indeed, as I said, I have worked with two friends on the Conservative Benches—with the hon. Member for Watford on the Joint Committee on the draft Bill and with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East on the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—and, as we know, they have both voted for various proposals. It is perhaps part of the frustration of the party system here that people are forced to go through the hoops and pretend that they do not really agree with things that they actually do agree with.

Let us try to move on with this, in a way that we have not done hitherto, and see if we can agree on amendments. We will withdraw amendments if we are genuinely convinced that they have already been considered by the Government. On the Government side, let them try to accept some of our amendments—just begin to accept some—if, as with this one, they think they have some merit.

I was talking about Samaritans, and exactly what it wants to do with the Bill. It is concerned about harmful content after the Bill is passed. This feeds into potentially the most important aspect of the Bill: it does not mandate risk assessments based exclusively on risk. By adding in the qualifications of size and scope, the Bill wilfully lets some of the most harmful content slip through its fingers—wilfully, but I am sure not deliberately. Categorisation will be covered by a later amendment, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North, so I shall not dwell on it now.

In July 2021, the Law Commission for England and Wales recommended the creation of a new narrow offence of the “encouragement or assistance” of serious self-harm with “malicious intent”. The commission identified that there is

“currently no offence that adequately addresses the encouragement of serious self-harm.”

The recommendation followed acknowledgement that

“self-harm content online is a worrying phenomenon”

and should have a

“robust fault element that targets deliberate encouragement of serious self-harm”.

Currently, there are no provisions of the Bill to create a new offence of assisting or encouraging self- harm.

In conclusion, I urge the Minister to listen not just to us but to the expert charities, including Samaritans, to help people who have lived experience of self-harm and suicide who are calling for regulation of these dangerous sites.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

It is, as always, a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire made an observation in passing about the Government’s willingness to listen and respond to parliamentarians about the Bill. We listened carefully to the extensive prelegislative scrutiny that the Bill received, including from the Joint Committee on which he served. As a result, we have adopted 66 of the changes that that Committee recommended, including on significant things such as commercial pornography and fraudulent advertising.

If Members have been listening to me carefully, they will know that the Government are doing further work or are carefully listening in a few areas. We may have more to say on those topics as the Bill progresses; it is always important to get the drafting of the provisions exactly right. I hope that that has indicated to the hon. Gentleman our willingness to listen, which I think we have already demonstrated well.

On new clause 36, it is important to mention that there is already a criminal offence of inciting suicide. It is a schedule 7 priority offence, so the Bill already requires companies to tackle content that amounts to the existing offence of inciting suicide. That is important. We would expect the promotion of material that encourages children to self-harm to be listed as a primary priority harm relating to children, where, again, there is a proactive duty to protect them. We have not yet published that primary priority harm list, but it would be reasonable to expect that material promoting children to self-harm would be on it. Again, although we have not yet published the list of content that will be on the adult priority harm list—obviously, I cannot pre-empt the publication of that list—one might certainly wish for content that promotes adults to self-harm to appear on it too.

The hon. Gentleman made the point that duties relating to adults would apply only to category 1 companies. Of course, the ones that apply to children would apply to all companies where there was significant risk, but he is right that were that priority harm added to the adult legal but harmful list, it would apply only to category 1 companies.

[Kim Leadbeater]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

In a second, but I may be about to answer the hon. Lady’s question.

Those category 1 companies are likely to be small in number, as I think the shadow Minister said, but I would imagine—I do not have the exact number—that they cover well over 90% of all traffic. However, as I hinted on the Floor of the House on Second Reading—we may well discuss this later—we are thinking about including platforms that may not meet the category 1 size threshold but none the less pose high-level risks of harm. If that is done—I stress “if”—it will address the point raised by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. That may answer the point that the hon. Member for Batley and Spen was going to raise, but if not, I happily give way.

[Kim Leadbeater]

It kind of does, but the Minister has raised some interesting points about children and adults and the risk of harm. To go back to the work of Samaritans, it is really important to talk about the fact that suicide is the biggest killer of young people aged 16 to 24, so it transcends the barrier between children and adults. With the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, we have rightly talked a lot about women, but it is really important to talk about the fact that men account for three quarters of all suicide. Men aged between 45 and 49 are most at risk of suicide—the rate among that group has been persistently high for years. It is important that we bring men into the discussion about suicide.

[Chris Philp]

I am grateful for the element of gender balance that the hon. Member has introduced, and she is right to highlight the suicide risk. Inciting suicide is already a criminal offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 and we have named it a priority offence. Indeed, it is the first priority offence listed under schedule 7—it appears a third of the way down page 183—for exactly the reason she cited, and a proactive duty is imposed on companies by paragraph 1 of schedule 7.

On amendment 142 and the attendant new clause 36, the Government agree with the sentiment behind them—namely, the creation of a new offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. We agree with the substance of the proposal from the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. As he acknowledged, the matter is under final consideration by the Law Commission and our colleagues in the Ministry of Justice. The offence initially proposed by the Law Commission was wider in scope than that proposed under new clause 36. The commission’s proposed offence covered the offline world, as well as the online one. For example, the new clause as drafted would not cover assisting a person to self-harm by providing them with a bladed article because that is not an online communication. The offence that the Law Commission is looking at is broader in scope.

The Government have agreed in principle to create an offence based on the Law Commission recommendation in separate legislation, and once that is done the scope of the new offence will be wider than that proposed in the new clause. Rather than adding the new clause and the proposed limited new offence to this Bill, I ask that we implement the offence recommended by the Law Commission, the wider scope of which covers the offline world as well as the online world, in separate legislation. I would be happy to make representations to my colleagues in Government, particularly in the MOJ, to seek clarification about the relevant timing, because it is reasonable to expect it to be implemented sooner rather than later. Rather than rushing to introduce that offence with limited scope under the Bill, I ask that we do it properly as per the Law Commission recommendation.

Once the Law Commission recommendation is enacted in separate legislation, to which the Government have already agreed in principle, it will immediately flow through automatically to be incorporated into clause 52(4)(d), which relates to illegal content, and under clause 176, the Secretary of State may, subject to parliamentary approval, designate the new offence as a priority offence under schedule 7 via a statutory instrument. The purpose of amendment 142 can therefore be achieved through a SI.

The Government publicly entirely agree with the intention behind the proposed new clause 36, but I think the way to do this is to implement the full Law Commission offence as soon as we can and then, if appropriate, add it to schedule 7 by SI. The Government agree with the spirit of the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, but I believe that the Government already have a plan to do a more complete job to create the new offence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

It is absolutely right that the Government have included a commitment to children in the form of defining primary priority content that is harmful. We all know of the dangerous harms that exist online for children, and while the Opposition support the overarching aims of the Bill, we feel the current definitions do not go far enough—that is a running theme with this Bill.

The Bill does not adequately address the risks caused by the design—the functionalities and features of services themselves—or those created by malign contact with other users, which we know to be an immense problem. Research has found that online grooming of young girls has soared by 60% in the last three years—and four in five victims are girls. We also know that games increasingly have addictive gambling-style features. Those without user-to-user functionalities, such as Subway Surfers, which aggressively promotes in-app purchases, are currently out of scope of the Bill.

Lastly, research by Parent Zone found that 91% of children say that loot boxes are available in the games they play and 40% have paid to open one. That is not good enough. I urge the Minister to consider his approach to tackling harmful content and the impact that it can have in all its forms. When considering how children will be kept safe under the new regime, we should consider concerns flagged by some of the civil society organisations that work with them. Organisations such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, The Mix, YoungMinds and the Mental Health Foundation have all been instrumental in their calls for the Government to do more. While welcoming the intention to protect children, they note that it is not clear at present how some categories of harm, including material that damages people’s body image, will be regulated—or whether it will be regulated at all.

While the Bill does take steps to tackle some of the most egregious, universally damaging material that children currently see, it does not recognise the harm that can be done through the algorithmic serving of material that, through accretion, will cause harm to children with particular mental health vulnerabilities. For example, beauty or fitness-related content could be psychologically dangerous to a child recovering from an eating disorder. Research from the Mental Health Foundation shows how damaging regular exposure to material that shows conventionally perfect images of bodies, often edited digitally and unattainable, are to children and young people.

This is something that matters to children, with 84% of those questioned in a recent survey by charity The Mix saying the algorithmic serving of content was a key issue that the Bill should address. Yet in its current form it does not give children full control over the content they see. Charities also tell us about the need to ensure that children are exposed to useful content. We suggest that the Government consider a requirement for providers to push material on social media literacy to users and to provide the option to receive content that can help with recovery where it is available, curated by social media companies with the assistance of trusted non-governmental organisations and public health bodies. We also hope that the Government can clarify that material damaging to people’s body image will be considered a form of harm.

Additionally, beyond the issue of the content itself that is served to children, organisations including YoungMinds and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have raised the potential dangers to mental health inherent in the way services can be designed to be addictive.

[Kim Leadbeater]

My hon Friend raises an important point about media literacy, which we have touched on a few times during this debate. We have another opportunity here to talk about that and to say how important it is to think about media literacy within the scope of the Bill. It has been removed, and I think we need to put it back into the Bill at every opportunity—I am talking about media literacy obligations for platforms to help to responsibly educate children and adults about the risks online. We need to not lose sight of that.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She is right to talk about the lack of a social and digital media strategy within the Bill, and the need to educate children and adults about the harmful content that we see online. How to stay safe online in all its capacities is absolutely fundamental to the Bill. We cannot have an Online Safety Bill without teaching people how to be safe online. That is important for how children and young people interact online. We know that they chase likes and the self-esteem buzz they get from notifications popping up on their phone or device. That can be addictive, as has been highlighted by mental health and young persons’ charities.

I urge the Minister to address those issues and to consider how the Government can go further, whether through this legislation or further initiatives, to help to combat some of those issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

We all know that managing harmful content, unlike illegal content, is more about implementing systems that prevent people from encountering it rather than removing it entirely. At the moment, there are no duties on the Secretary of State to consult anyone other than Ofcom ahead of making regulations under clauses 53 and 54. We have discussed at length the importance of transparency, and surely the Minister can agree that the process should be widened, as we have heard from those on the Government Back Benches.

Labour has said time and again that it should not be for the Secretary of State of the day to determine what constitutes harmful content for children or adults. Without the important consultation process outlined in amendment 62, there are genuine concerns that that could lead to a damaging precedent whereby a Secretary of State, not Parliament, has the ability to determine what information is harmful. We all know that the world is watching as we seek to work together on this important Bill, and Labour has genuine concerns that without a responsible consultation process, as outlined in amendment 62, we could inadvertently be suggesting to the world that this fairly dogmatic approach is the best way forward.

Amendment 62 would require the Secretary of State to consult other stakeholders before making regulations under clauses 53 and 54. As has been mentioned, we risk a potentially dangerous course of events if there is no statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult others when determining the definition of harmful content. Let me draw the Minister’s attention to the overarching concerns of stakeholders across the board. Many are concerned that harmful content for adults requires the least oversight, although there are potential gaps that mean that certain content—such as animal abuse content—could completely slip through the net. The amendment is designed to ensure that sufficient consultation takes place before the Secretary of State makes important decisions in directing Ofcom.

[Kim Leadbeater]

On that point, I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. It is important that the Secretary of State consults campaign organisations that have expertise in the relevant areas. Much as we might want the Secretary of State to be informed on every single policy issue, that is unrealistic. It is also important to acknowledge the process that we have been through with the Bill: the expertise of organisations has been vital in some of the decisions that we have had to make. My hon. Friend gave a very good example, and I am grateful to animal welfare groups for their expertise in highlighting the issue of online abuse of animals.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. As parliamentarians we are seen as experts in an array of fields. I do not purport to be an expert in all things, as it is more a jack of all trades role, and it would be impossible for one Secretary of State to be an expert in everything from animal abuse to online scam ads, from fraud to CSAM and terrorism. That is why it is fundamental that the Secretary of State consults with experts and stakeholders in those fields, for whom these things are their bread and butter—their day job every day. I hope the Minister can see that regulation of the online space is a huge task to take on for us all. It is Labour’s view that any Secretary of State would benefit from the input of experts in specific fields. I urge him to support the amendment, especially given the wider concerns we have about transparency and power sharing in the Bill.

It is welcome that clause 56 will force Ofcom, as the regulator, to carry out important reviews that will assess the extent to which content is harmful to children and adults when broadly appearing on user-to-user services. As we have repeatedly said, transparency must be at the heart of our approach. While Labour does not formally oppose the clause, we have concerns about subsection (5), which states:

“The reports must be published not more than three years apart.”

The Minister knows that the Bill has been long awaited, and we need to see real, meaningful change and updates now. Will he tell us why it contains a three-year provision?

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

The duties on regulated services set out in the clause are welcome. Transparency reports will be a vital tool to hold platforms to account for understanding the true drivers of online harm. However, asking platforms to submit transparency reports once a year does not reflect how rapidly we know the online world changes. As we have seen time and again, the online environment can shift significantly in a matter of months, if not weeks. We have seen that in the rise of disinformation about covid, which we have talked about, and in the accelerated growth of platforms such as TikTok.

Increasing the frequency of transparency reports from annual to biannual will ensure that platforms stay on the pulse of emergent risks, allowing Ofcom to do the same in turn. The amendment would also mean that companies focus on safety, rather than just profit. As has been touched on repeatedly, that is the culture change that we want to bring about. It would go some way towards preventing complacency about reporting harms, perhaps forcing companies to revisit the nature of harm analysis, management and reduction. In order for this regime to be world-leading and ambitious—I keep hearing the Minister using those words about the Bill—we must demand the most that we can from the highest-risk services, including on the important duty of transparency reporting.

Moving to clauses 64 and 65 stand part, transparency reporting by companies and Ofcom is important for analysing emerging harms, as we have discussed. However, charities have pointed out that platforms have a track record of burying documents and research that point to risk of harm in their systems and processes. As with other risk assessments and reports, such documents should be made public, so that platforms cannot continue to hide behind a veil of secrecy. As I will come to when I speak to amendment 55, the Bill must be ambitious and bold in what information platforms are to provide as part of the clause 64 duty.

Clause 64(3) states that, once issued with a notice by Ofcom, companies will have to produce a transparency report, which must

“be published in the manner and by the date specified in the notice.”

Can the Minister confirm that that means regulated services will have to publish transparency reports publicly, not just to Ofcom? Can he clarify that that will be done in a way that is accessible to users, similarly to the requirements on services to make their terms of service and other statements clear and accessible? Some very important information will be included in those reports that will be critical for researchers and civil society when analysing trends and harms. It is important that the data points outlined in schedule 8 capture the information needed for those organisations to make an accurate analysis.

[Kim Leadbeater]

The evidence we heard from Frances Haugen set out how important transparency is. If internet and service providers have nothing to hide, transparency is surely in their interests as well. From my perspective, there is little incentive for the Government not to support the amendment, if they want to help civil society, researchers, academics and so on in improving a more regulated approach to transparency generally on the internet, which I am sure we all agree is a good thing.

[Barbara Keeley]

I very much agree. We cannot emphasis that enough, and it is useful that my hon. Friend has set that out, adding to what I was saying.

Amendment 55 sets out the details of the information that Ofcom must request to be provided in a transparency report in new paragraph 31A. First, transparency disclosures required by the Bill should include how large companies allocate resources to tackling harm in different languages —an issue that was rightly raised by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. As we heard from Frances Haugen, many safety systems at Meta have only a subset of detection systems for languages other than English. Languages such as Welsh have almost no safety systems live on Facebook. It is neither fair nor safe.

When we consider that more than 250 languages are spoken in London alone, the inconsistency of safety systems becomes very concerning. Charities have warned that people accessing Facebook in different languages are being exposed to very different levels of risk, with some versions of Facebook having few or none of the safety systems that protect other versions of the site in different languages.

When giving evidence to the Committee last month, Richard Earley disclosed that Meta regulated only 70 languages. Given that around 3 billion people use Facebook on a monthly basis across the world, that is clearly inadequate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I agree with the hon. Member and welcome her intervention. We will be discussing these issues time and again during our proceedings. What is becoming even more apparent is the need to include women and girls in the Bill, call out violence against women and girls online for what it is, and demand that the Government go further to protect women and girls. This is yet another example of where action needs to happen. I hope the Minister is hearing our pleas and that this will happen at some point as we make progress through the Bill.

More needs to be done to tackle this problem. Pornography websites need to verify that every individual in pornographic videos published on their site is an adult and gave their permission for the video to be published, and enable individuals to withdraw their consent for pornography of them to remain on the site. These are rock-bottom safety measures for preventing the most appalling abuses on pornography websites.

[Kim Leadbeater]

I add my voice to the arguments made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North. Violence against women and girls is a fundamental issue that the Bill needs to address. We keep coming back to that, and I too hope that the Minister hears that point. My hon. Friend has described some of the most horrific harms. Surely, this is one area where we have to be really clear. If we are to achieve anything with the Bill, this is an area that we should be working on.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. As I have said, the amendments would put in place rock-bottom safety measures that could prevent the most appalling abuses on pornography websites, and it is a scandal that, hitherto, they have not been implemented. We have the opportunity to change that today by voting for the amendments and ensuring that these measures are in place. I urge the Minister and Conservative Members to do the right thing.