Age Assurance (Minimum Standards) Bill [HL]

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, we are deeply indebted to the noble Baroness for bringing this matter before us in this Bill, and doubly in her debt for the extraordinary speech with which she introduced our proceedings. Indeed, on the strength of that alone, I think we could test the mind of the House, and I think I know what the result would be. Once I sit down, I will be praying hard that the Minister will find within him a way of answering her challenges that will satisfy the mind of the House, and I would not be in his place for all the money in the world.

My interest is as chair of the board of the Central Foundation Schools of London, where our children are aged 11 and over, but faced with the most horrendous range of familiarity with material that is without any doubt harmful and leads to outcomes that are to do with not only sexualisation but violence on the streets. It is a problem of gargantuan proportions. The British Board of Film Classification found that more than half of 11 to 13 year-olds had been exposed to pornography.

What are the by-products of this? We know just what it can lead to, and the noble Baroness has pointed to some of those possible outcomes. She has such a wealth of experience and has given the Government the perfect guide for effective regulation. I see no reason why we should reject any element of the Bill. Indeed, the Secretary of State for DCMS told the Joint Committee on the draft online safety Bill that the Government wanted their digital legislation to be “watertight”. The antithesis of this is an online safety Bill that is void of any semblance of age assurance. I have no doubt that the committee's findings on this matter will bring this to the fore. “Watertight” must include adequate provision for age assurance.

Objectors to age assurance ring a tired bell. The issue of privacy is their central concern. This is not to diminish the value of online privacy and data protection. In my role on the Select Committee on Communications and Digital—I am delighted that others from the committee will be speaking later in this debate—I see the clear and present dangers of giving online companies our data freely and without constraints. The minimum standards within Clause 2 should have assuaged any fears anyone could have about unnecessary data gathering under the guise of age assurance. The clause offers appropriate parameters which would protect our privacy.

Some of our online industries intended for adult consumption seem to be aware of the need to regulate in line with the recommendations in the ICO’s age-appropriate design code. The legally recognised gambling industry continues to do a reasonably good job on age assurance and preventing those who are underage from accessing it. But there are problems, and these go unchecked because of the lack of a government line.

We simply cannot trust the internet and the huge companies that dominate it to regulate themselves. There is a toxic culture of acceptance that, to have a certain level of privacy and freedom online, we must sacrifice our children’s innocence and subject them to harmful media. I hope all noble Lords will join together in understanding that, in the light of the proposals in the Bill, a way can be found to avoid such an outcome. It is, perhaps, icing on the cake that, if we take the Bill’s proposals forward, it will help us to achieve a legislative framework that will show other nations the way to protect children, at a time when the internet is gaining an ever-tightening hold on the societies we live in.

Gosh, I wish we could vote now: I would have my coffee after saying “Content”. I will leave those ideas for the consideration of the House.