Digital Economy Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I also want to pay tribute to the work that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin have done on this area. I well remember my noble friend Lady Benjamin almost doorstepping the former Prime Minister David Cameron to get something done on this area. He agreed that action would be taken.

I spoke on this at Second Reading—not in any technical way because I am not a particularly technical person; I spoke as a head teacher of 20-odd years on the harm that pornography potentially does, and is doing, to young people. We are rightly always concerned about the safeguarding of children and young people. We put in place all sorts of safeguarding procedures, yet we seem to find all sorts of reasons why we cannot do anything about pornography. Many young lives, frankly, are being corrupted in the pure innocence of childhood as they follow an older brother or sister, a friend or a mate, who might say, “Oh, have a look at this”. Once they get involved in this, it does immeasurable harm, not only to the child but to their view of women, for example.

A young child of 12 or 13 on the internet, perhaps by accident, perhaps by a dare, perhaps encouraged by another person, watching female rape enacted—this is not something I want to be part of. I do not want a society that allows that to happen. It is important, and my noble friend Lord Paddick is right to say, that we should be effective in what we do. He also said that if children are determined they can access this, no matter what we put in place, but that is not a reason not to do something. The vast majority of children will do something. If somebody is determined to do something, they will always be able to do it. I hope that will not be a reason not to do something. I am relaxed about our having a look at this to get it right. I know it whizzed through the Commons, but even at this late stage I am relaxed about making sure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed in the interests of young people.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke at Second Reading on this aspect of the Bill. I was one of the people who said very clearly that I should much prefer not to have pornography of any sort on any website, because the world would be much better without it. The previous speaker is quite right. The influence that modern communication has on young people is devastating. In some families, it really has been disruptive and led to unfortunate consequences within them.

I welcome the Minister’s statement that they will take this away, think about it and come back again. I reiterate my dismay that again we have another very important Bill from the Commons that really has not been dealt with in the proper manner. I hope that in future the Commons will be allowed more time or will organise itself so that it can do the job it should and can do, and not leave it to this House to be the one saying, “Hang on”.

If you look at the number of amendments tabled to this one Bill, it reinforces the whole position that my noble friend the Minister must deal with, which in many cases should have been dealt with before. I am an old hand here and still feel strongly about this. I do not complain that my right honourable friends at the other end have not had the opportunity to do this—that is how the system works. However, we go on, year after year, saying the same thing and it is high time we got to grips with this. I would like to push a little further on the Minister’s response earlier that the Government will look at this: it is hugely important that they do.

I have slight concerns about Ofcom being perhaps one of those who should undertake this. In some ways, Ofcom is not always as robust as I would like it to be, which is perhaps unfair. Secondly, we certainly need to identify in the Bill before it leaves our House exactly what is to happen: who the enforcer is where there are dual splits within what we seek to do in the Bill. The Bill is hugely important and I hope that the Government will, as they have already indicated, take it away after Committee and think seriously about it. I would hate to think that some of the final detail will come through in secondary legislation, which we cannot alter. We need to get this into primary legislation. I support the comments made by other noble Lords and look forward to the Minister responding and, I hope, being able to take it away and come back, even if that means it happens a little later. It is much better to get it right later than to leave it in its current form.