Online Safety Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest, very briefly, that we look at this amendment in a slightly different way. Understandably, we have a tendency in Parliament to look at things through our own lens, and perhaps some of us are viewing this amendment as a reminder of what the Bill is about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, made a very good point about clarity. I suggest we imagine that we are one of the companies that the Bill is designed to try to better manage. Imagine you are in the boardroom, or on the executive management team, and you are either already doing business in the United Kingdom or are considering entering the UK market. You know there is an enormous piece of legislation that is designed to try to bring some order to the area your business is in. At the moment, without this amendment, the Bill is a lawyer’s paradise, because it can be looked at in a multitude of ways. I put it to the Minister and the Bill team that it would be extremely helpful to have something in the Bill that makes it completely clear, to any business thinking of engaging in any online activities in the United Kingdom, what this legislation is about.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am one of those who found the Bill extremely complicated, but I do not find this amendment extremely complicated. It is precise, simple, articulate and to the point, and I think it gives us a good beginning for debating what is an extremely complex Bill.

I support this amendment because I believe, and have done so for a very long time, that social media has done a great deal more harm than good, even though it is capable of doing great good. Whether advertently or inadvertently, the worst of all things it has done is to destroy childhood innocence. We are often reminded in this House that the prime duty of any Government is to protect the realm, and of course it is. But that is a very broad statement. We can protect the realm only if we protect those within it. Our greatest obligation is to protect children—to allow them to grow up, so far as possible, uncorrupted by the wicked ways of a wicked world and with standards and beliefs that they can measure actions against. Complex as it is, the Bill is a good beginning, and its prime purpose must be the protection and safeguarding of childhood innocence.

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, spoke a few moments ago about the instructions he was given as a young preacher. I remember when I was training to be a lay reader in the Church of England, 60 or more years ago, being told that if you had been speaking for eight minutes and had not struck oil, stop boring. I think that too is a good maxim.

We have got to try to make the Bill comprehensible to those around the country whom it will affect. The worst thing we do, and I have mentioned this in connection with other Bills, is to produce laws that are unintelligible to the people in the country; that is why I was very sympathetic to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Inglewood. This amendment is a very good beginning. It is clear and precise. I think nearly all of us who have spoken so far would like to see it in the Bill. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, rising—does she wish to intervene?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I want to explain more broadly that I am all for clarifying what the law is about and for simplicity, but that ship has sailed. We have all read the Bill. It is not simple. I do not want this amendment to somehow console us, so that we can say to the public, “This is what the Bill is about”, because it is not what the Bill is about. It is about a range of things that are not contained within the amendment—I would wish them to be removed from the Bill. I am concerned that we think this amendment will resolve a far deeper and greater problem of a complicated Bill that very few of us can grasp in its entirety. We should not con the public that it is a simple Bill; it is not.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Of course we should not. What I am saying is that this amendment is simple. If it is in the Bill, it should then be what we are aiming to create as the Bill goes through this House, with our hours of scrutiny. I shall not take part in many parts of this Bill, as I am not equipped to do so, but there are many in this House who are. Having been set the benchmark of this amendment, they can seek to make the Bill comprehensible to those of us—and that seems to include the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—who at the moment find it incomprehensible.

In a way, we are dealing with the most important subject of all: the protection of childhood innocence. We have got to err in that direction. Although I yield to no one in my passionate belief in the freedom of speech, it must have respect for the decencies of life and not be propagator of the profanities of life.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I think we need to move now to closing speeches, if that seems appropriate—