Digital Inclusion

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

One of the briefs I received in preparing for these questions said that answers should be short, so the noble Lord can be assured that my answer will not be 25 minutes long—it may be 25 words long. He is absolutely right to say that digital inclusion matters particularly for those accessing government benefits and services, as I know from my service in the Commons and from supporting constituents in accessing universal credit. I mentioned access through libraries, but there is also access through job centres, and citizens advice bureaux provide a service to support people who have never been online. Colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions take this very seriously, because there is obviously no point in providing support for people if they find they cannot access it or update their records.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I too welcome the Secretary of State, who has now made more comebacks than Frank Sinatra. I hope she will be there long enough to follow the parallel to the ICO code, which was the work of this House and of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in particular. Will she support my paving Bill for a duty of care on online harms, which will allow Ofcom to get ahead with preparation for such legislation?

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

I thank the noble Lord. He will be pleased to know that since my singing voice is nothing like Frank Sinatra’s, I will not inflict it on your Lordships’ House. I was very interested to read about his Bill. As he will know, the Government have done a significant amount of work on the online harms space, and I hope we will be able to work together. The Government intend to develop legislation, so while I might not support his Bill, I think we can absolutely make common cause on this very important issue.