Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and me to discuss our amendment. However, while we were pleased to learn more about the long-awaited online harms Bill, we remained just as baffled after the meeting as we had been before as to why Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act should not be implemented now, as has been mentioned by other speakers. I will cut short what I was going to say because it has been said before.

In Committee I spoke about the evidence from the Government’s own belatedly released reviews that clearly demonstrates a link between pornography use and the beliefs and attitudes of perpetrators of sexual abuse. In truth, there is extensive additional research that should be taken account of. That includes advances in neuroscience that have allowed us to understand that the brain is plastic and changes in response to the environment. Indeed, it is worth noting that the Government’s research looked only at legal pornography use. One would expect the findings of research on illegal pornography use to be even more concerning.

Our environment has changed dramatically since the advent of broadband, which has allowed easy access to limitless amounts of free internet pornography, which is easily accessible to children and young people during a time when their brain is fast developing. When we consider this in the light of the evidence regarding the impact of pornography on adult brains, it is sobering. For instance, researchers at the University of Cambridge have found changes to brain structure and function in compulsive pornography users. Their brains respond to images of pornography in the same way that brains of cocaine addicts respond to cocaine. Moreover, there is evidence—of huge significance to the subject of domestic abuse—that the part of the brain that inhibits violent and impulsive outbursts is impaired when a person has an addiction. However, there is some good news, because that part of the brain can function again after a period of time after they quit the addiction.

It is extremely concerning that a study of adolescents shows that

“intentional exposure to violent x-rated material over time predicted an almost 6-fold increase in the odds of self-reported sexually aggressive behaviour”.

Other research suggests that, for adolescent perpetrators of sexual violence,

“Links between perpetration and violent sexual media are apparent”.


Moreover, we should not forget that the British Board of Film Classification’s 2019 report on young people’s use of pornography found:

“Beyond creating unrealistic expectations of sex, some young people felt pornography had actually affected their expectations of, and behaviour during, sex, particularly in the copying of “rough” or “forceful” sex seen in pornography.”


In this context, the No. 1 priority must be to implement Part 3, as has been mentioned by several speakers. I know Part 3 does not deal with all online harms or address pornography on social media, but when the online harms Bill is eventually law, it will rise to those challenges. Part 3 addresses pornography websites; that is progress that the women and children of our country could benefit from more rapidly than they could from an unpublished online harms Bill. The Government have sought to argue that, notwithstanding the fact that Part 3 is already on the statute book, waiting for the online harms Bill makes sense. However—I say this very gently—that argument is beginning to look rather ridiculous and risks in the current environment making them look rather out of touch.

In the context of the current outpouring of concern about women’s safety, it would be one thing to say, “We will address the challenge through unpublished legislation”, if there was no other legislation to help do the job. Apart from a few new regulations, as has been mentioned, we have already passed primary legislation, which is “oven ready”, to use a term favoured by the Prime Minister, to tackle websites showing extreme pornography. In the interim, the Government should use the oven-ready primary legislation rather than base their entire strategy on legislation that has not even been published, let alone gone through Parliament, and which is consequently far from oven ready. Given the urgency of this, they should redesignate the BBFC as the interim regulator, which would mean these protections could begin within months.

Consideration on Report adjourned.