Online Safety Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, this debate has attracted a lot of attention: some 60 speakers, nearly all of whom have run over their time. I will just make one or two observations. First, it is a long time that we have been waiting for this Bill, so we had better make a good job of it, because I doubt that the Government will let legislation through again for a good five or six years. The second point—I pick up something that my noble friend Lord Inglewood said—is that we need more flexibility in the law. The speed at which the internet has developed is not appropriate for the procedures that we have. It is no good saying that you can have a Henry VIII power, give it to a Minister and then forget it; we need to devise a method of reviewing laws on a regular rolling basis, such as they have in the United States, because the law will be out of date whatever we do.

I am fully behind the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Bethell. I think that they are excellent amendments, and I look forward to us discussing them. We do not need to do that now.

I would add into the procedures that we need to give careful thought to the idea of anonymity on the internet. I am against it, personally. I am a member of the Conservative Home page and I am there as “Richard Balfe”. Some people are there with very odd names, such as “Brussels Hater” and other handles which do not reveal who they are. I notice that the more obscure the name is, the more violent the contribution is. We need to look very carefully at anonymity; the people who need to hide behind anonymity are probably not the sort of people that we, in considering this Bill, would see as the best people to do things.

My next point is about penalties. The penalties look fine—for example, 10% of world turnover—but of course these are not penalties on the firms; they are business expenses, and that is how they will be seen. I am not a great admirer of the American system but I will say one thing that came out of a visit I paid to Washington. I talked to legislators about how they enforced legislation—in this case it was against financial firms—and the Congressman I was speaking to said, “It is very simple: you imprison them”. He said that if a Bill has a possibility of imprisonment, it puts the fear of God into directors in a way that no fine, however big, does, because that is a business expense and can be planned for. We need to look carefully at whether there should a custodial element in the Bill for severe breaches. I think that would help to get it implemented. Otherwise, the danger I see is that we are in competition with lawyers based in Hollywood rather than with people based in London.

I look forward to the Bill passing; I hope we will do it carefully and considerately—I am sure we will—and take onboard the amendments of my noble friend Lord Bethell and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the other improvements which have been mentioned.