Internet: Regulation

Lord Sugar Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, one of the key features of e-safety and schools is that this will be part of the national curriculum. It will be taught at all four stages. Clearly, it is absolutely essential that teachers are aware and feel comfortable with the teaching of it. It is very important that there is proper training for that.

[Lord Sugar (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the fact that the ISPs are capable of filtering the accessibility of undesirable material in the same way that they are able to stop unauthorised access to people’s accounts. This, of course, is a costly exercise and not part of their business model. Would the noble Lord consider widening the remit of Ofcom and making it a full-blown regulator for the internet—particularly in implementing the aforementioned filtering that I referred to—for the benefit of protecting children and some other disadvantaged consumers?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord is right that Ofcom has a role to play. Indeed, it has been charged with reporting on child internet safety and parental awareness of, and confidence in using, those safety tools. The report will be out next year. We want to see what that brings forward. As I say, the approach is that industry, parents and civil society need to work together to get the right approach because, among other things, things are changing so fast.