Online Safety Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

110: Clause 38, page 38, line 24, leave out subsections (2) to (8) and insert—
“(2) Upon receiving the draft code of practice from OFCOM, the Secretary of State must— (a) make a statement confirming they have received the draft code of practice, and(b) lay the draft code of practice before Parliament.(3) Unless the Secretary of State intends to give a direction to OFCOM under section 39(1) in relation to the draft, regulations giving effect to the code of practice may not be laid before Parliament unless the Secretary of State has—(a) consulted each devolved authority on the content of the draft code of practice;(b) produced an impact assessment including, but not limited to, an assessment of the impact of the proposed regulations on—(i) human rights and equalities,(ii) freedom of expression, and(iii) employment and labour; and(c) produced an assessment of the impact of the proposed regulations on children and vulnerable adults.(4) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under this section until any select committee charged by the relevant House of Parliament with scrutinising regulations made under this section has—(a) completed its consideration of the draft code of practice and the impact assessments referred to in subsection (3)(b) and (c), and(b) reported on its deliberation to the relevant House; andthe report of the committee has been debated in that House, or the period of six weeks beginning on the day on which the committee reported has elapsed.(5) The Secretary of State may not lay regulations under this section until they are satisfied that—(a) issues raised by a devolved authority have been resolved, or(b) if they have not been resolved, the Secretary of State has informed Parliament of the steps they intend to take in response to the issues raised.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, which replaces most of the current Clause 38, would require the Secretary of State to publish draft codes of conduct from OFCOM for consideration by relevant committees of both Houses of Parliament.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 110 in my name and thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his support. This is a complex group of amendments but they are about very significant powers that are supposed to be granted to the Secretary of State in this Bill. We believe that this part of the Bill must be significantly amended before it leaves this House, and while we await the Government’s response to the amendments in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, I want to make it clear that if we do not see some significant movement from the Government we will return to these issues on Report. As it looks as though we will be having another long hiatus before Report, there is plenty of time for discussion and agreement.

Two House of Lords committees—the Communications and Digital Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—have called on the Government to remove or amend a number of the clauses engaged by these amendments, and a third, the Constitution Committee, has noted the concerns raised. I think it fair to say that these issues concern all parties and all groups in the House and urgently need addressing. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, in her capacity as chair of the Communications and Digital Committee, has a number of amendments very similar to mine to which I and others have signed up, and which I know she will go through in detail. I support the line she and the committee are taking, although I make some additional suggestions in some areas.

The amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan —who I am sad to see is not in his place and who will not therefore be able to participate in this debate—broadly support the thrust of the amendments in this group. Perhaps they do not go quite as far as ours do, but it is certainly nice to have him on our side—for a change. I do not want to delay the Committee as I know many of us will want to discuss the points which will be raised in detail by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, so I think the best thing is for me to talk more generally about where we think the Government need to change approach, and I hope my remarks will open up the debate.

Before I do that, I thank the Carnegie Trust—I know a number of noble Lords have received documentation from it—for its detailed work in this area in particular, but it has covered the Bill comprehensively. It has been invaluable and we have also received support from the All-Party Digital Regulation Group, which has been pushing information around as well.

We have mentioned in the past the difficulty of amending the Bill because of the structures and the different way it treats the various types of company likely to be in scope. But, in essence, my amendments would ensure that Ofcom is able to operate as an independent regulator, delivering what is required of it under the Bill, and is not subject to instruction or direction by the Secretary of State except in exceptional circumstances. We are told that these will be restricted mainly to national security issues or public safety, though precisely what those issues are going to be needs spelling out in the Bill.

The Secretary of State should not be able to give Ofcom direction. In the broadcasting regime, there are no equivalent powers. Our press is not regulated in that way. We believe that the right approach is that the Secretary of State should, if he or she wishes, write to Ofcom with non-binding observations when it is thought necessary to do so. It would be for Ofcom to have regard to such letters, but there should be no requirement to act, provided that it operates within its powers as set out in the Bill. It follows that the powers taken by the Secretary of State in Clause 156 to issue directions to Ofcom in special circumstances, in Clause 157 to issue detailed tactical guidance to Ofcom in the exercise of its functions, and in Clause 153, which allows the Secretary of State to make a statement of strategic priorities relating to online safety, are significant threats to the independence of Ofcom, and we believe that they should be deleted. In addition, Clauses 38 and 39 need to be revised.

The independence of media regulators is important and must be preserved as it is at present. That is the norm in most developed democracies. The UK has signed many international statements in this vein, including, as recently as in April 2022 at the Council of Europe, a statement saying that

“media and communication governance should be independent and impartial to avoid undue influence on policy making, discriminatory treatment and preferential treatment of powerful groups, including those with significant political or economic power”.

I hope that when he comes to respond to the debate, the Minister will confirm that he stands by that international agreement that his Government have signed up to.

My second point deals with the other powers given to the Secretary of State in the Online Safety Bill—for example, to specify in regulations the primary priority content harmful to children and priority content harmful to children in Clause 54; to amend the duties on fraudulent advertising in Clause 191; to change the exemption to the regime in Clause 192; and to amend the list of terrorism offences, CSEA offences and other priority offences in Clause 194. Appropriate procedures for the exercise of these powers—ensuring that they are in line with the approach of this group of amendments —need to be set out in the Bill, because the present drafting is, in our view, inadequate. The reliance on conventional secondary legislation approval mechanisms will not be sufficient given the scale and impact of what is in contemplation.

At Second Reading, the Minister said,

“we remain committed to ensuring that Ofcom maintains its regulatory independence, which is vital to the success of this framework … We intend to bring forward two changes to the existing power: first, replacing the ‘public policy’ wording with a defined list of reasons that a direction can be made; and secondly, making it clear that this element of the power can only be used in exceptional circumstances … the framework ensures that Parliament will always have the final say on codes of practice, and that strong safeguards are in place to ensure that the use of this power is transparent and proportionate”.—[Official Report, 1/2/23; cols. 691-2.]

Those are fine words but, unfortunately, we have not yet seen the draft amendments that would give credence to that statement. Can the Minister give us any hint on the timetable?

My third point is that we are also not convinced that the processes currently specified for the approval of the high volume of secondary legislation pursuant to the Bill, including the codes of practice, engage sufficiently with Parliament. As my noble friend Lady Merron said at Second Reading, in our view the Bill suffers from an imbalance around what role Parliament should have in scrutinising the new regime and how changes to the statutory functions will be accommodated in future years. We can all agree that there will certainly be many more such occasions and more legislation in this area in future years.

This is, of course, a skeleton Bill, requiring significant amounts of secondary legislation before it begins to bite. How should Parliament be involved, both in the necessary scrutiny of those codes of practice, which put the regime into practice and define the way in which the regulated companies are to operate, and in anticipating changes that will be required as technology develops? It is to answer this question that I have put down a number of amendments aimed at carving out a role for the Select Committees of the two Houses—or perhaps a new Joint Committee, if that were to be the decision of Parliament. Indeed, that was a recommendation of the pre-legislative scrutiny committee and the Communications and Digital Committee in previous reports.

My Amendment 290, after Clause 197, tries to gather together the instances of powers exercisable by the Secretary of State and provide an additional parliamentary stage each time those powers are exercised. This would require that:

“The Secretary of State may not exercise the powers”


granted under the Bill unless and until

“any select committee charged by the relevant House of Parliament with scrutinising such regulations has … completed its consideration of the draft regulations and … reported on their deliberation to the relevant House”.

I appreciate that this is a major step. Introducing parliamentary scrutiny of this type may mean it takes more time to achieve results in what is already a complex process. Maybe this should be introduced in stages so as not to delay further the measures in the Bill.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am happy to continue to discuss it, and I will say a bit more about the other amendments in this group, but I am not able to say much more at this point. I will happily follow this up in discussion with my noble friend, as I know it is an issue of interest to her and other members of your Lordships’ committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about our international obligations. As noble Lords noted, the Government have recognised the importance of regulatory independence in our work with international partners, such as the Council of Europe’s declaration on the independence of regulators. That is why we are bringing forward the amendments previously announced in another place. Ensuring that powers of direction can be issued only in exceptional circumstances and for a set of reasons defined in the Bill will ensure that the operational independence of Ofcom is not put at risk. That said, we must strike a balance between parliamentary oversight and being able to act quickly where necessary.

Regarding the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Stowell, which calls for all codes which have been altered by a direction to go through the affirmative procedure, as drafted, the negative procedure is used only if a direction is made to a code of practice relating to terrorism or child sexual exploitation or abuse, for reasons of national security or public safety. It is important that the parliamentary process be proportionate, particularly in cases involving national security or public safety, where a code might need to be amended quickly to protect people from harm. We therefore think that, in these cases, the negative procedure is more appropriate.

On timing, the Government are committed to ensuring that the framework is implemented quickly, and this includes ensuring that the codes of practice are in force. The threshold of exceptional circumstances for the power to direct can lead to a delay only in situations where there would otherwise be significant consequences for national security or public safety, or for the other reasons outlined today.

My noble friend Lord Moylan was not able to be here for the beginning of the debate on this group, but he is here now. Let me say a little about his Amendment 254. Under Clause 153, the Secretary of State can set out a statement of the Government’s strategic priorities in relation to matters of online safety. This power is necessary, as future technological changes are likely to shape online harms, and the Government must be able to state their strategic priorities in relation to them. My noble friend’s amendment would go beyond the existing precedent for the statement of strategic priorities in relation to telecommunications, management of the radio spectrum, and postal services outlined in the Communications Act. The Secretary of State must consult Ofcom and other appropriate persons when preparing this statement. This provides the opportunity for widespread scrutiny of a draft statement before it can be designated through a negative parliamentary procedure. We consider that the negative procedure is appropriate, in line with comparable existing arrangements.

Amendment 257 from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to remove the Secretary of State’s power to issue guidance to Ofcom about the exercise of its online safety functions. Issuing guidance of this kind, with appropriate safeguards, including consultation and limitations on its frequency, is an important part of future-proofing the regime. New information—for example, resulting from parliamentary scrutiny or technological developments—may require the Government to clarify the intent of the legislation.

Amendments 258 to 260 would require the guidance to be subject to the affirmative procedure in Parliament. Currently, Ofcom must be consulted, and any guidance must be laid before Parliament. The Bill does not subject the guidance to a parliamentary procedure because the guidance does not create any statutory requirements, and Ofcom is required only to have had regard to it. We think that remains the right approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has made clear his intention to question Clause 156, which grants the Secretary of State the power to direct Ofcom’s media literacy activity only in special circumstances. This ensures that the regulatory framework is equipped to respond to significant future threats—for example, to the health or safety of the public, or to national security. I have already set out, in relation to other amendments, why we think it is right that the Secretary of State can direct Ofcom in these circumstances.

The delegated powers in the Bill are crucial to ensuring that the regulatory regime keeps pace with changes in this area. Amendment 290 from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would go beyond the existing legislative process for these powers, by potentially providing for additional committees to be, in effect, inserted into the secondary legislative process. Established committees themselves are able to decide whether to scrutinise parts of a regime in more detail, so I do not think they need a Parkinson rule to do that.

Noble Lords have expressed a common desire to see this legislation implemented as swiftly as possible, so I hope they share our wariness of any amendments which could slow that process down. The process as envisaged in this amendment is an open-ended one, which could delay implementation. Of course, however, it is important that Parliament is able to scrutinise the work of the regulator. Like most other regulators, Ofcom is accountable to Parliament on how it exercises its functions. The Secretary of State is required to present its annual report and accounts before both Houses. Ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must also lay a copy of the report before their respective Parliament or Assembly. Moreover, the officers of Ofcom can be required to appear before Select Committees to answer questions about its operations on an annual basis. Parliament will also have a role in approving a number of aspects of the regulatory framework through its scrutiny of both the primary and secondary legislation. This will include the priority categories for harms and Ofcom’s codes of practice.

More broadly, we want to ensure that this ground-breaking legislation has the impact we intend. Ongoing parliamentary scrutiny of it will be crucial to help to ensure that. There is so much expertise in both Houses, and it has already helped to improve this legislation, through the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, the DCMS Select Committee in another place and, of course, your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee.

As my noble friend Lady Stowell said, we must guard against fragmentation and duplication, which we are very mindful of. Although we do not intend to legislate for a new committee—as I set out on previous occasions, including at Second Reading and before the Communications and Digital Committee—we remain happy to discuss possible mechanisms for oversight to ensure that we make best use of the expertise in both Houses of Parliament so that the Bill delivers what we want. With that, I hope that Members of the Committee will be happy to continue the discussions in this area and not press their amendments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comprehensive response and for the welcome change in tone and the openness to further debate and discussions. I thank all those who spoke in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, was right: we are getting into a routine where we know roughly where our places are and, if we have contributions to make, we make them in the right order and make them comprehensive. We did our bit quite well, but I am afraid that the Minister’s response made me a bit confused. As I said, I welcome the change of tone, the sense of engagement with some of the issues and the ability to meet to discuss ways forward in some of those areas. But he then systematically and rather depressingly shut off just about everything that I thought we were going to discuss. I may be overstating that, so I will read Hansard carefully to make sure that there are still chinks of light in his hitherto impenetrable armour. I really must stop using these metaphors— I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, had managed to get me off the hook with her question about whether we were an island of concrete rock, and about whether the boat was going to end up in the stormy sea that we were creating. I decided that I could not follow that, so I will not.

We ought to take forward and address three things, which I will briefly go through in the response. One that we did not nail down was the good point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that we had focused on regulatory structures in the form of set bodies relating—or not relating—to parliamentary procedures and to Ministers and their operations. She pointed out that, actually, the whole system has a possible drag effect that we also need to think about. I note that good point because we probably need a bit of time to think about how that would work in the structures that come forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Allan, said that we are trying to look at the changing of the accountability model. I disagree with the word “changing” because we are not trying to change anything; we have a model that works, but the new factor that we are trying to accommodate is the intensity of interaction and, as we said, the amplification that comes from the internet. I worry that this was not being picked up enough in the Minister’s response, but we will pick it up later and see if we can get through it.

The three points I wanted to make sure of were as follows. Following the line taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, one point is on trying to find a proper balance between the independence of the regulator; the Secretary of State’s right, as an elected leader of this aspect of the Government, to make recommendations and proposals to that regulator on how the system can be better; and Parliament’s ability to find a place in that structure, which is still eluding us a little, so we will need to spend more time on it. There is enough there to be reassured that we will find a way of balancing the independence of the regulator and the role of the Secretary of State. It does not need as many mentions in the legislation as it currently has. There is clearly a need for the Secretary of State to be able to issue direction in cases of national security et cetera—but it is the “et cetera” that I worry about: what are these instances? Until they are nailed down and in the Bill, there has to be a question about that.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, about half an hour ago I decided I would not speak, but as we have now got to this point, I thought I might as well say what I was going to say after all. I reassure noble Lords that in Committee it is perfectly permissible to speak after the winder, so no one is breaking any procedural convention. That said, I will be very brief.

My first purpose in rising is to honour a commitment I made last week when I spoke against the violence against women and girls code. I said that I would none the less be more sympathetic to and supportive of stronger restrictions preventing child access to pornography, so I want to get my support on the record and honour that commitment in this context.

My noble friend Lady Harding spoke on the last group about bringing our previous experiences to bear when contributing to some of these issues. As I may have said in the context of other amendments earlier in Committee, as a former regulator, I know that one of the important guiding principles is to ensure that you regulate for a reason. It is very easy for regulators to have a set of rules. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, referred to rules of the road for the tech companies to follow. It is very easy for regulators to examine whether those rules are being followed and, having decided that they have, to say that they have discharged their responsibility. That is not good enough. There must be a result, an outcome from that. As the noble Lord, Lord Allan, emphasised, this must be about outcomes and intended benefits.

I support making it clear in the Bill that, as my noble friend Lady Harding said, we are trying to prevent, disproportionately, children accessing pornography. We will do all we can to ensure that it happens, and that should be because of the rules being in place. Ofcom should be clear on that. However, I also support a proportionate approach to age assurance in all other contexts, as has been described. Therefore, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Bethell, and the role my noble friend Lady Harding has played in arriving at a pragmatic solution.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be in your Lordships’ House, and on some occasions it all comes together and we experience a series of debates and discussions that we perhaps would never have otherwise reached, and at a level which I doubt could be echoed anywhere else in the world. This is one of those days. We take for granted that every now and again, we get one of these rapturous occasions when everything comes together, but we forget the cost of that. I pay tribute, as others have, to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. She has worked so hard on this issue and lots of other issues relating to this Bill and has exhausted herself more times than is right for someone of her still youthful age. I am very pleased that she is going off on holiday and will not be with us for a few days; I wish her well. I am joking slightly, but I mean it sincerely when I say that we have had a very high-quality debate. That it has gone on rather later than the Whips would have wanted is tough, because it has been great to hear and be part of. However, I will be brief.

It was such a good debate that I felt a tension, in that everybody wanted to get in and say what they wanted to say be sure they were on the record. That can sometimes be a disaster, because everyone repeats everything, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said, we know our roles, we know what to say and when to say it, and it has come together very nicely. Again, we should congratulate ourselves on that. However, we must be careful about something which we keep saying to each other but sometimes do not do. This is a Bill about systems, not content. The more that we get into the content issues, the more difficult it is to remember what the Bill can do and what the regulator will be able to do if we get the Bill to the right place. We must be sure about that.

I want to say just a few things about where we need to go with this. As most noble Lords have said, we need certainty: if we want to protect our children, we have to be able to identify them. We should not be in any doubt about that; there is no doubt that we must do it, whatever it takes. The noble Lord, Lord Allan, is right to say that we are in the midst of an emerging set of technologies, and there will be other things coming down the line. The Bill must keep open to that; it must not be technology-specific, but we must be certain of what this part is about, and it must drill down to that. I come back to the idea of proportionality: we want everybody who is 18 or under to be identifiable as such, and we want to be absolutely clear about that. I like the idea that this should be focused on the phones and other equipment we use; if we can get to that level, it will be a step forward, although I doubt whether we are there yet.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, set out at the beginning of this debate, the amendments in this group have involved extensive discussions among Members in both Houses of Parliament, who sit on all sides of both Houses. I am very grateful for the way noble Lords and Members in another place have done that. They have had those preliminary discussions so that our discussions in the debate today and in preparation for it could be focused and detailed. I pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friends Lord Bethell and Lady Harding, who have been involved in extensive discussions with others and then with us in government. These have been very helpful indeed; they continue, and I am happy to commit to their continuing.

Age-assurance technologies will play an important role in supporting the child safety duties in this Bill. This is why reference is made to them on the face of the Bill—to make it clear that the Government expect these measures to be used for complying with the duties to protect children from harmful content and activity online. Guidance under Clause 48 will already cover pornographic content. While this is not currently set out in the legislation, the Government intend, as noble Lords know, to designate pornographic content as a category of primary priority content which is harmful to children. As I set out to your Lordships’ House during our debate on harms to children, we will amend the Bill on Report to list the categories of primary and primary priority content on the face of the Bill.

I am very grateful to noble Lords for the engagement we have had on some of the points raised in Amendments 142 and 306 in recent weeks. As we have been saying in those discussions, the Government are confident that the Bill already largely achieves the outcomes sought here, either through existing provisions in it or through duties in other legislation, including data protection legislation, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010. That is why we think that re-stating duties on providers which are already set out in the Bill, or repeating duties set out in other legislation, risks causing uncertainty, and why we need to be careful about imposing specific timelines on Ofcom by which it must produce age-assurance guidance. It is essential that we protect Ofcom’s ability robustly to fulfil its consultation duties for the codes of practice. If Ofcom is given insufficient time to fulfil these duties, the risk of legal challenge being successful is increased.

I welcome Ofcom’s recent letter to your Lordships, outlining its implementation road map, which I hope provides some reassurance directly from the regulator on this point. Ofcom will prioritise protecting children from pornography and other harmful content. It intends to publish, this autumn, draft guidance for Part 5 pornography duties and draft codes of practice for Part 3 illegal content duties, including for child sexual exploitation and abuse content. Draft codes of practice for children’s safety duties will follow next summer. These elements of the regime are being prioritised ahead of others, such as the category 1 duties, to reflect the critical importance of protecting children.

Although we believe that the Bill already largely achieves the outcomes sought, we acknowledge the importance of ensuring that there are clear principles for Ofcom to apply when recommending or requiring the use of age-assurance technologies. I am happy to reassure noble Lords that the Government will continue to consider this further and are happy to continue our engagement on this issue, although any amendment must be made in a way that sits alongside existing legislation and within the framework of the Bill.

I turn to Amendments 161 and 183. First, I will take the opportunity to address some confusion about the requirements in Parts 3 and 5 of the Bill. The Bill ensures that companies must prevent children accessing online pornography, regardless of whether it is regulated in Part 3 or Part 5. The Government are absolutely clear on this point; anything less would be unacceptable. The most effective approach to achieving this is to focus on the outcome of preventing children accessing harmful content, which is what the Bill does. If providers do not prevent children accessing harmful content, Ofcom will be able to bring enforcement action against them.

I will address the point raised by my noble friend Lord Bethell about introducing a standard of “beyond reasonable doubt” for age verification for pornography. As my noble friend knows, we think this a legally unsuitable test which would require Ofcom to determine the state of mind of the provider, which would be extremely hard to prove and would therefore risk allowing providers to evade their duties. A clear, objective duty is the best way to ensure that Ofcom can enforce compliance effectively. The Bill sets clear outcomes which Ofcom will be able to take action on if these are not achieved by providers. A provider will be compliant only if it puts in place systems and processes which meet the objective requirements of the child safety duties.

The provisions in the Bill on proportionality are important to ensure that the requirements in the child safety duties are tailored to the size and capacity of providers. Smaller providers or providers with less capacity are still required to meet the child safety duties where their services pose a risk to children. They will need to put in place sufficiently stringent systems and processes that reflect the level of risk on their services and will need to make sure these systems and processes achieve the required outcomes of the child safety duties.

The Government expect companies to use age-verification technologies to prevent children accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. However, companies may use another approach if it is proportionate to the findings of the child safety risk assessment and a provider’s size and capacity. This is an important element to ensure that the regulatory framework remains risk-based and proportionate.

Age verification may not always be the most appropriate or effective approach for user-to-user companies to comply with their duties. For example, if a user-to-user service such as a social medium does not allow—

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt. The Minister said that he would bear in mind proportionality in relation to size and capacity. Is that not exactly the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, was trying to make? In relation to children, why will that be proportionate? A single child being damaged in this way is too much.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The issue was in relation to a provider’s size and capacity; it is an issue of making sure it is effective and enforceable, and proportionate to the size of the service in question. It may also not be the most effective approach for companies to follow to comply with their duties. If there is a company such as a user-to-user service in social media that says it does not allow pornography under its terms of service, measures such as content moderation and user reporting might be more appropriate and effective for protecting children than age verification in those settings. That would allow content to be better detected and taken down, while—

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I understand that, but it is an important point to try to get on the record. It is an outcome-based solution that we are looking for, is it not? We are looking for zero activity where risks to children are there. Clearly, if the risk assessment is that there is no risk that children can be on that site, age verification may not be required— I am extending it to make a point—but, if there is a risk, we need to know that the outcome of that process will be zero. That is my point, and I think we should reflect on that.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very happy to, and the noble Lord is right that we must be focused on the outcomes here. I am very sympathetic to the desire to make sure that providers are held to the highest standards, to keep children protected from harmful content online.