Digital Economy Act 2017 (Commencement of Part 3) Bill [HL]

Lord Browne of Belmont Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Morrow for bringing this Bill before the House. It is disappointing that due to government inaction, my noble friend has been forced to move this Bill today. This is an issue that everyone across the House believed to be settled in 2017, when Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act was passed.

The Government tell us that this matter will finally be dealt with through the online safety Bill, but that Bill will not become law for at least 18 months, and provisions relating to age verification and pornography will not be in force until potentially a further two years after that. Indeed, it could be another four years before provisions agreed in 2017 come into force.

Even if the online safety Bill is enacted, there is no guarantee that the provisions or even the spirit of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act will be implemented. The draft online safety Bill does not extend to all commercial pornography websites and, unlike in Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, pornography is not listed as an online harm. There is no guarantee that the online safety Bill will come anywhere close to providing the protection afforded under Part 3 of the DEA. That is why the Bill before the House today in the name of my noble friend Lord Morrow is critical.

It is clear that this protection is needed now. In 2016, prior to the introduction of the then Digital Economy Bill, the Government said:

“Pornography has never been more easily accessible online, and material that would previously have been considered extreme has become part of mainstream online pornography. When young people access this material it risks normalising behaviour that might be harmful to their future emotional and psychological development.”


That is why the DEA was enacted, and those risks have not receded. Young people are still at risk from online harm.

There is a substantial body of evidence which suggests that exposure to pornography is harmful to children and young people. Many have spoken in this debate already about the harm carried into adult life, which has a damaging impact on young people’s view of sex and relationships. For many young men, addiction to pornography which starts in the teenage years can often lead to the belief that women are dehumanised and to be treated as objects.

Evidence published by the Government in January 2021 which reported the experiences of front-line professionals working with clients who had either exhibited harmful sexual behaviours towards women or were at risk of doing so said that for young people, pornography is seen as

“providing a template for what sex and sexual relationships should look like”.

One worker is quoted as saying:

“‘Porn comes up in probably eighty or ninety percent of my cases … what they’ve done is influenced by what they’ve seen … For them, the internet is fact.’”


Pornography is becoming a young person’s main reference point for sex, and there is no conversation about issues such as consent. That is why Part 3 of the DEA was enacted.

Part 3 of the DEA was not just about protecting children. It also reflected the concerns of Parliament that women and girls should be protected from violence. Too often, pornography is a contributing factor in violence against women. In 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee reported on pornography’s impact on women and girls in public places and concluded that:

“There is significant research suggesting that there is a relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexist attitudes and sexually aggressive behaviours, including violence.”


The Government’s 2020 literature review into the use of legal pornography and its influence on harmful behaviours and attitudes towards women and girls reports that

“there is substantial evidence of an association between the use of pornography and harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours towards women.”

While the report recognises that pornography is one among several potential factors associated with these attitudes and behaviours,

“it is clear that a relationship does exist and this is especially true for the use of violent pornography.”

The Government’s 2021 Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy reported that most respondents to the representative survey agreed that an increase in violent pornography has led to more people being asked to agree to violent sex and to a rise in sexual assaults.

It is clear that Part 3 of the DEA is needed today as much as it was in 2017. Children, young people, women and girls should not have to wait until the online safety Bill becomes law before they are protected from online harm. Indeed, there is no guarantee that the online safety Bill will be as far-reaching as Part 3 of the DEA. It is time for the Government to meet their obligations and to bring these provisions into force. I support the Bill.