Online Safety Bill

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for that intervention.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House that, as we are on Report, interventions on current speakers should be for direct questions or points of elucidation.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I am sure my noble friend with 30 years’ experience stands duly corrected. He has reminded us that we have 20 years’ experience of something being on the statute book without really cranking up the powers and duties that are on it or giving Ofcom appropriate resources in the media literacy area. If that was about offline—the original 2003 duty—we know that it is even more important online to have these media literacy duties in place. I very much hope that the Minister can give us, in a sense, a token of earnest—that it is not just about putting these duties on the statute book but about giving Ofcom the resources to follow this up. Of course, it is also relevant to other regulators, which was partly the reason for having a duty of co-operation. Perhaps he will also, at the same time, describe how regulators such as Ofsted will have a role in media literacy.

I shall briefly talk about Amendment 269AA to Clause 141, which is the clause in the Bill setting up the advisory committee on misinformation and disinformation. I heard very clearly what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, had to say, and I absolutely agree—there is no silver bullet in all this. Establishing provenance is but one way in which to get greater transparency and authentication and exercise judgment; it is not the complete answer, but it is one way of getting to grips more with some of the information coming through online. She may have seen that this is an “and” rather than an “or”, which is why the amendment is phrased as it is.

Of course, it is really important that there are initiatives. The one that I want to mention today about provenance is the Content Authenticity Initiative, which I mentioned in Committee. We need to use the power of such initiatives; it is a global coalition working to increase transparency in digital content through open industry standards, and it was founded four years ago and has more than 1,500 members, with some major companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Arm, Intel—I could go on. I very much hope that Ofcom will engage with the Content Authenticity Initiative, whatever the content of the Bill. In a sense, I am raising the issue for the Minister to give us assurances that this is within the scope of what the committee will be doing—that it is not just a question of doing what is in the Bill, and this will be included in the scope of the advisory committee’s work.

Thea AI has been an industry-led initiative that has developed content credentials which encode important metadata into pieces of content. Those pieces of information reside indefinitely in the content, wherever it is used, published or stored, and, as a result, viewers are able to make more informed decisions about whether or not to trust the content. The advisory committee really should consider the role of provenance tools such as content credentials to enable users to have the relevant information to decide what is real and what is disinformation or misinformation online. That would entirely fit the strategy of this Bill to empower adult users.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 236B agreed.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I beg to move that further consideration on Report be adjourned and that the House be adjourned during pleasure until 10.15 pm.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, has the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, seen paragraph 3.1 of the Companion? In case he has not—I know he is very new to this House—it states:

“It is a firm convention”—


not any old convention, but a firm convention—

“that the House normally rises by about 10pm on Mondays to Wednesdays”.

Can he explain why today is so different?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I take the noble Lord’s points on board. I think that my noble friend the Chief Whip answered those points at the Dispatch Box earlier today.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

I appreciate that the noble Lord is put in a difficult position, but all the Chief Whip said was that this is usual. When was the last occasion that this had to happen in the way that it is happening tonight?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

Perhaps this is something to discuss with my noble friend the Chief Whip while the House adjourns during pleasure.