Pornography

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for his extremely concise speech and the very relevant questions that he asked at the end of it.

We are all very much in debt to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, not only for bringing this somewhat awkward and emotive subject to our attention, but also for the very moderate, balanced and thoughtful way in which he approached it. We have already seen certain divergence of opinion, although I think there is one strand that unites everyone who has spoken so far: a concern for children and their exposure. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, nodding vigorously at that point.

We have to recognise that this is an old problem that has been totally transformed by technology. We also have to acknowledge that, to a degree, pornography is in the eye of the beholder and how the beholder is taught to look at things. I do not think that there is anyone in your Lordships’ House who would say that the Warren Cup in the British Museum is pornographic. Only last year, or maybe it was the year before, the British Museum had an extraordinary exhibition of Japanese erotic prints, which were held up as being great examples of the art of their time—many of them dating back to the 17th century. There are many other examples that one could give: Rowlandson, who is well known for his vigorous cartoons certainly strayed into the realms of what today we would call pornography. Even that absolute model of Victorian rectitude, Archdeacon Grantly, had books that he looked at only when he had locked the key of his study.

What we are dealing with today is something remarkably different. It is for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has indicated. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has also sought to tackle this. How glad we are to see her back in her place and speaking with her accustomed vigour. We hope that she will be able to do so for a very long time.

I am very exercised, as a grandparent with four grandchildren, about the uninhibited and unlimited effect that pornography on the internet has. I believe that there is an absolute moral duty resting upon all of us to seek to come up with a solution that will indeed protect the young—protect them, as much as anything else, from their own curiosity and desires in an age which is so different from that in which any of us in this Chamber grew up. When I was elected to the other place—I make no value judgement but merely state a fact—the vast majority of children lived with two parents who were married to each other and were of opposite sex and who conformed to certain norms, as they were then regarded. Now some people will greatly regret—I do myself in many ways—the passage of that stable society. It is no longer what we can regard as something we can take for granted. We have to recognise that society has changed. For those of us who believe in the value of the sort of norm that used to be taken for granted, and to which I have just referred, there is a real obligation to recognise the changes that have taken place. How do we do that? How do we tackle the problem which has been created by the fact that countless young people, by the use of a mobile device, or by locking themselves in their bedrooms for hours on end, could indulge not only in questionable, socially isolating video games but in an uninhibited way indulge in things of which they cannot have a proper knowledge, and for which they have no moral compass. When the moral compass of society itself has to a degree been eroded, that problem is compounded.

I am not one of those who believes in severe censorship and prohibition. I am not a libertarian Tory, but I am sufficient of one to recognise that as much freedom of choice that is possible should be encouraged, but—and there is a very big but here—those who purvey sadistic images, sex without love for commercial gain, caring not whom they damage in the process should be regarded as pariahs. We need to devise a proper structure and scheme to ensure that the penalties that those people face are enormous and potentially deterrent. To pollute the minds of the young is as damaging and despicable as to pollute the oceans. If some company by design or inadvertently does the latter, we expect them to bear a very heavy responsibility and price.

We have to devise a scheme, and I look to my noble friend the Minister to give some encouragement, to translate the Prime Minister’s pledges into action, by making it a very severe offence—the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, touched on this in his speech—to purvey pornography. It is not just a question of locks and checks and balances and voluntary agreements. It is a case of dealing with those who are guilty of a very real offence. I hope we can progress from this debate not only to define the offence in more detail but to come up with punishments that really punish.