Local Newspapers

Debate between Louise Mensch and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vaizey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which reminds me that I was remiss in not addressing the point put to me by the hon. Member for Wigan. I have called the managing director of Johnston Press and hope to have a meeting with him, simply to engage with him and hear his strategy. As a matter of principle, it is not the job of Government to tell a commercial business how it should be run or what its requirements are.

Ashley Highfield, the new managing director of Johnston Press—I knew him at the BBC when he was putting together the iPlayer, and he was then at Microsoft—has been hired because of an explicit recognition that we are moving into a digital age. Members will say that not everyone has an iPad yet, and it is still important to maintain the traditional format of a local newspaper, on which so many of our constituents still depend to get their local news.

[Louise Mensch]

Not only does not everyone have an iPad at this stage, but residents in my constituency of Corby were unbelievably insulted to be told that the Corby Evening Telegraph would be replaced by an iPad app, which excludes both people on low incomes and elderly people who are not familiar with the internet. I firmly agree with the Minister that a Facebook campaign is no substitute. He is, like me, a great lover of social media. Does he not recognise, as I do, that we will lose much photojournalism and in-depth coverage if we switch from true local stories to a couple of tweets?

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes. I should say that I often get myself into trouble making offers to Members; but, as and when I am able to set up a meeting with the managing director of Johnston Press, I will issue an open invitation to that meeting to all Members who may or may not have had the opportunity to meet him, so that they can put their points to him. It would be useful for him to hear from the grassroots. We Members of Parliament can forget that we are the grassroots of our communities.

Internet Pornography

Debate between Louise Mensch and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I am coming to self-regulation, which is what I understand my hon. Friend to be calling for on the part of our internet service providers, to prevent access to inappropriate content. It is obviously not for this country to change the obscenity or pornographic laws in other jurisdictions, but it is important to recognise that we are dealing with content from beyond our own jurisdiction. Let me press on. I shall make my argument before accepting further interventions, so that hon. Members will be in a position to see the argument in the round.

On 26 January last year, Parliament further strengthened controls in the UK by making unlawful extreme pornographic material, including pornographic material containing explicit sexual violence that is life-threatening or likely to result in serious injury or bestiality. The Government also increased the maximum penalty for offences under the Obscene Publications Act from three to five years’ imprisonment. Under the Protection of Children Act 1978, as amended, the UK has an absolute prohibition on the taking, making, circulation and possession with a view to distribution of any indecent photograph of a child under 18. Such offences carry a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.

There is also a law against the distribution of indecent images of children. Section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 makes the simple possession of indecent photographs of children an offence, and it carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. In this context I am delighted to be able to welcome the appointment of Peter Davies, the new chief executive of CEOP—the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. I want to pay tribute to the work of his predecessor, Jim Gamble, as well as to the outstanding work of CEOP in tackling the sexual exploitation of children.

My hon. Friend also referred to the work of the Internet Watch Foundation, which I am due to meet shortly to discuss self-regulation of the internet. As she pointed out, the IWF was set up in 1996 by UK ISPs to enable members of the public to report child abuse content in newsgroups or websites hosted anywhere in the world, as well as obscene content hosted in the UK. If that content is considered potentially illegal, the IWF passes the details to the UK police to start action against the originators, and will seek to get the material taken down at source or ask ISPs to deny access to the websites concerned.

I am very interested in the work of the Internet Watch Foundation, because I believe that it provides a model that is now well established and working effectively. The issue I particularly want to discuss with the IWF is whether its work, which has hitherto focused on child abuse content, can be widened to cover some of the other issues that my hon. Friend has raised this evening.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, access to online pornography is not a problem for the UK alone. We have to recognise that the internet is a global network. This brings with it real challenges to the effective regulation of access to pornography. The overwhelming bulk of obscene material published on the internet originates abroad, sometimes in countries that do not share our approach to such material. It is simply the case, and has been for many years, that much pornographic material that it would be illegal to publish in the UK remains legal to publish in many other European countries, and even in the United States.

The UK ISPs take a responsible approach to the content that they host, both of their own volition and in co-operation with law enforcement and Government agencies. Where they are advised that content that they host in the UK contravenes UK legislation, they will readily remove it.

My hon. Friend talked about an age-verified opt-in procedure for internet access to pornography hosted in the UK. This is already the case, although my hon. Friend made her own forceful argument that it might not be effective enough. The managers of websites featuring mature content have a legal responsibility to indicate clearly on their front page that those sites are unsuitable for anybody under the age of 18. Additionally, when websites charge for access, they must place their adult content behind a credit card barrier, to reduce further the risk of children and young people accessing it. We will continue to consider how that protection might be made more effective.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

Is the Minister aware of the private Member’s Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), which is designed to remove the anonymity of prepaid credit cards for purchases under £100, whereby such material can be anonymously purchased by under-age people—or by anybody else? That is important, because it is what drives the child pornography industry.

[Mr Vaizey]

That is a very interesting point, and I suspect that the consumer credit Minister is aware of it. I will certainly sit down with him and discuss whether there is a read-across into the issue we are discussing this evening.

As I said earlier, a UK-based website was recently forced to take down its front page because it hosted adult content that was accessed by under-18s. That shows that there are some examples where this is working.