Online Safety Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, this is the third time that I have spoken at Second Reading on an online safety Bill brought forward by my noble friend Lady Howe. I salute her for her perseverance and her determination. Perhaps I may also welcome the Minister and say how glad I am that she is where she is with her undoubted experience and understanding of the issues that will be raised.

Like other noble Lords, I do not intend to repeat what I said in the other Second Reading debates because all that has been said comprehensively by my noble friend. However, in line with what the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham, has just said about need and speed, I want to offer the Minister a context in which this might happen.

I am currently a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. Recently, the committee has been trying to persuade the Prime Minister that it is essential that there should be a national security strategy to underpin both the strategic defence and security review and the comprehensive spending review which are promised in the near future.

Traditionally, defence has been conducted in the three elements, land, sea and air, but recently and increasingly, a fourth element has become much more important: cyber. This issue lifts itself into the cyberdefence of the nation and the protection of the citizens, not least the protection of those on whom the future of this nation depends; namely, our children. Rather than seeing this Bill again in a competition for Second Readings on a Friday and possibly getting very little further, I would like to see it lifted out of that and hope that the Minister will take it to the Prime Minister and have it included in the discussions on the national security strategy and therefore put on the plane where it ought to be.