Football Governance Bill

Luke Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am sure that over the course of this debate many Members will raise issues of concern to them and their constituents. I emphasise that the Bill is about financial regulation, although I am very pleased that the Premier League has taken action on gambling advertising on the front of shirts, which is something we looked at very closely, and that the Government are taking action on vaping and smoking more broadly. The Bill is tightly defined and addresses financial regulation, and I am very pleased that we have introduced this legislation.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

The Secretary of State is exactly right about the financial aspects of this Bill, but we have to make sure that we get the balance right. We do not want to kill the golden goose that is the Premier League, and we want to make sure that we have growth in the sport, through the championship and the EFL. We have to consider the crowded calendar of European matches, too. Does she believe that the regulator will have the ability to chart that very fine line between UEFA, FIFA and her proposal? That is going to be pretty tough.

[Lucy Frazer]

We do not want to do anything that damages the world-leading Premier League, which is worth £7 billion. People across the world look to the Premier League, and we have worked very closely with the Premier League, the EFL and others to try to get the balance right. I have met the executives extensively during this period, and I have met all the clubs in the Premier League and the EFL to try to get the balance right. We are trying to get a light-touch regime that allows the leagues to do what they are already doing, but with a regulator. The Bill is all about financial regulation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I will press on, as I have now answered five times on parachute payments.

We will achieve our goal through the new licensing regime, under which all clubs in the top five tiers of English men’s football will need a licence to operate as professional football clubs. The regulator will have powers to monitor and enforce requirements on financial regulation, club ownership, fan engagement and club heritage protection, as well as setting a corporate governance code of practice and having the power to prohibit clubs from joining breakaway competitions.

[Dr Luke Evans]

It is fantastic that the top five leagues will have to have a licence. Will the Secretary of State comment on the resources that will be necessary to put that in place for the season? This is a big undertaking, and considerable resources will be needed to monitor what is going on.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I know that some colleagues who are intervening might not be seeking to catch my eye later. I remind colleagues that if they do intervene, it is customary for them to stay for the entire speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Like other colleagues, he is so knowledgeable about the detail of this Bill. I urge the Government to consider what has been said in a constructive spirit. Everybody present wants to get to the bottom of this confusion. We want to make sure that football and the regulator have the tools they need to grow sustainability—a key word which the Government have themselves used. The confusion about parachute payments is worthy of further attention, because there is so much money involved. They also have the distorting effect that the Government’s White Paper rightly identified.

If we do not look at this issue, we risk distorted competition in the championship by encouraging greater financial risk taking by the clubs that do not receive those payments. We know that that can result in an over-reliance on owner funding, which again is simply not always sustainable. As my hon. Friends have mentioned, clause 55(2) excludes parachute payments from any order by the regulator on revenue distribution. I gently say to the Government that, as there seems to be some contradiction or possible confusion, we would like that cleared up. I would be grateful if the Minister could say more in his summing up about how the money currently used for parachute payments could make more impact and perhaps be shared more widely, whether he has examined that in detail and to what extent he feels the current terms of the Bill are satisfactory.

[Dr Evans]

Part of the problem is that football is inherently risky; the very nature of what a club does is in order to get promoted. If, in trying to engineer some sustainability from the point of view of people investing in a club, Derby County had been promoted, the model would have been deemed to have worked, but it failed and so did the club. How would Labour facilitate individuals from across the globe investing in the best leagues in the world, while making sure that clubs such as Derby County were protected?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I gently point the hon. Gentleman to his Government’s White Paper, because the Bill comes from there. Yes, of course the game is inherently risky—that is part of what makes it thrilling—but we need to be thinking about whether that is a calculated risk that is part of the thrill of the game, or an unintended consequence of a possible market failure. We really need to look at whether there is distorted competition. I gently suggest that, if the hon. Gentleman has not read his Government’s White Paper, he should.

[Dr Evans]

I have.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Then we really need further discussion in Committee on this issue; it is worthy of such consideration. On calculated risk taking, we need to be clear about when we are taking unnecessary risks and when there are unintended consequences of the way finance is distributed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

It is great to be able to contribute to this debate, because although they say the Black Country was built on coal and metal, we were also built on football. I straddle the two clubs at the heart of the Black Country derby—namely, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

This is a pertinent Bill and a pertinent debate for my communities in the Black Country. We went through absolute hell with the financially precarious situation surrounding West Bromwich Albion. At one point, the club was having to borrow £20 million just to keep the lights on. An independent regulator stepping in to ensure ultimately that fans of football clubs—cherished parts of the community—can keep that club and that entity there, can enable that sustainability and can put these people, who are often behind the scenes, under the cosh and under scrutiny is absolutely the right way forward.

I commend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), for his work on the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch), who has been an absolute champion in this space. She should be so proud of what she has achieved; the Bill is a real testament to her work.

We have covered a plethora of issues in the debate, not least the football pyramid. What I perceive at times is the inequity of the system we have got. I deal a lot with fantastic grassroots football clubs, which many Members have talked about. Sometimes the narrative and discourse about the need for regulation involves a top-down approach, and of course we must highlight the important work that our premier league clubs do, but let us not forget that the pipeline to many of those clubs is first and foremost through grassroots football, which a lot of the players we talk about—those stars and talents—come through. My fantastic local football clubs, such as Tipton Town football club in my constituency, constantly share their frustration that they are ignored, left out or put under ridiculous burdens that they often have to meet without resources.

Everyone has touched on the replay issue. I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it is a complete kick in the teeth, particularly for clubs that are further down the pyramid and rely on the revenue from getting people through the gate. Again, it just seems that the FA is only listening in its echo chamber, quite frankly.

[Dr Luke Evans]

The Government have a tricky line to tread in ensuring that football is independent and adheres to UEFA and FIFA rules on Government interference. On FA cup replays, does my hon. Friend believe that there is a role for a reconsideration mechanism, so that Government can bounce the decision back to the regulator and ask, “Have you potentially got this wrong, and will you think again?”

[Shaun Bailey]

My hon. Friend is almost asking for a replay of the replay—that is sort of where the question is. I get the point that he is trying to make about balance and the fine-line argument on Government interference. The point has been made quite strongly, as we have all seen—the FA’s own survey found that 70% of fans wanted to retain replays—and with that level of public pressure, there is a role for the Government in facilitating the pressure on the FA. I think that that is the point that he is hammering down on, although obviously the FA must ultimately be independent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Evans Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

We share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about grassroots music venues, which is why we have a specific fund set aside to help save some of the most treasured community venues. We also have the Localism Act 2011, which allows communities to designate a particular community asset of value, giving communities time to raise funds to save those kinds of assets. It is something that we are talking about a lot with music venue groups, and we are also looking at giving them help to buy the freeholds of properties so that those kinds of assets can stay within communities and remain a talent pipeline, as he suggests, for many years to come.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

14. What recent discussions she has had with the Premier League and English Football League on the financial stability of football clubs.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lucy Frazer)]

As my hon. Friend will know, the Football Governance Bill was introduced to Parliament last month, and it will help with the financial sustainability of football as a whole. I have met the Premier League, the English Football League, many stakeholders and parliamentarians to ensure that the legislation is appropriately drafted. I have met over 90 clubs and senior executives from the leagues many times.

[Dr Evans]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. We do not have to look too far across the east midlands to see that clubs such as Nottingham Forest, Derby County, Coventry City and Leicester City have found themselves in some form of difficulty, so I welcome the Government’s plans to introduce a regulator to bring some stability to the football pyramid. However, how do we ensure that we strike a balance so that we do not strangle and over-regulate the best league in the world, the premiership?

[Lucy Frazer]

As my hon. Friend mentions, the Premier League is world leading. It is worth £7 billion, and we absolutely want to ensure that it stays first and world class. That is why the legislation takes a proportionate approach. It takes on board the fact that the regulator will have to work very closely with the leagues, including the Premier League. We call it an advocacy-first approach, and having worked very carefully with the team, I am very confident that the legislation takes a balanced and proportionate approach.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Evans Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I invite the hon. Member to read a speech I gave on youth, which is a massive priority of mine. We are funding significantly through DCMS and through the National Citizen Service as well as through a number of Departments. There are Home Office funds, Justice funds, and funds through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

T6. For me, as a massive Bath rugby fan, it is difficult to represent a seat in Leicestershire, what with the Tigers being there. With that said, the nice thing that brings all rugby fans together is the ability to watch the game. There is concern, though, about the governance of premiership rugby and how it is run. Could the Minister update us on where we are up to on that? I know that he has taken a special interest in trying to get that organised.

[Stuart Andrew]

I know that my hon. Friend has taken a keen interest in this, and he is absolutely right that we need to see improved governance. That is why we appointed two special advisers, who have been working with both the premier league and the Rugby Football Union to come up with solutions. We are having meetings with them constantly and will ensure that they progress.

Online Safety Bill

Luke Evans Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only is it incumbent on companies to use that technology should it exist; if they hamper Ofcom’s inquiries by not sharing information about what they are doing, what they find and which technologies they are not using, that will be a criminal liability under the Bill.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

To take that one step further, is it correct that Ofcom would set minimum standards for operators? For example, the Content Authenticity Initiative does not need primary legislation, but is an industry open-standard, open-source format. That is an example of modern technology that all companies could sign up to use, and Ofcom would therefore determine what needs to be done in primary legislation.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I be helpful? We did say that our discussions should be within scope, but the Minister is tempting everybody to intervene out of scope. From his own point of view, I would have thought that it would be easier to keep within scope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I absolutely echo my hon. Friend’s remarks, and I again thank him for his work.

We are also taking steps to strengthen Ofcom’s enforcement powers, which is why we are giving Ofcom a discretionary power to require non-compliant services to publish or notify their users of enforcement action that it has taken against the service. Ofcom will be able to use this power to direct a service to publish details or notify its UK users about enforcement notices it receives from Ofcom. I thank the Antisemitism Policy Trust for bringing this proposal to our attention and for its helpful engagement on the issue. This new power will promote transparency by increasing awareness among users about breaches of the duty in the Bill. It will help users make much more informed decisions about the services they use, and act as an additional deterrent factor for service providers.

[Dr Luke Evans]

It is fantastic to have the data released. Does the Minister have any idea how many of these notifications are likely to be put out there when the Bill comes in? Has any work been done on that? Clearly, having thousands of these come out would be very difficult for the public to understand, but half a dozen over a year might be very useful to understand which companies are struggling.

[Paul Scully]

I think this is why Ofcom has discretion, so that it can determine that. The most egregious examples are the ones people can learn from, and it is about doing this in proportion. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that if we are swamped with small notifications, this will be hidden in plain sight. That would not be useful, particularly for parents, to best understand what is going on. It is all about making more informed decisions.

The House will be aware that we recently announced our intention to make a number of other changes to the Bill. We are making those changes because we believe it is vital that people can continue to express themselves freely and engage in pluralistic debate online. That is why the Bill will be amended to strengthen its provisions relating to children and to ensure that the Bill’s protections for adults strike the right balance with its protections for free speech.

Online Harms

Luke Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered online harms.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to serve in Westminster Hall under your chairmanship—[Interruption.] In a debate about technology, this was always going to happen. It is great to see the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), in his place. He is enormously respected by Members on both sides of the House. He came to this role with more knowledge of his subject than probably any other Minister in the history of Ministers, so he brings a great deal to it.

This is an important and timely debate, given that the Online Safety Bill is returning to the Commons next week. Obviously, a great deal of the debate will be in the House of Lords, so I thought that it was important to have more discussion in the House of Commons. The Online Safety Bill is a landmark and internationally leading Bill. As a number of people, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), can attest, it has been a long time in gestation—five years, including two consultations, a Green Paper, a White Paper, a draft Bill, prelegislative scrutiny, 11 sessions of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, and nine days at Committee stage in the Commons. It is complex legislation, but that is because the subject that it addresses is complex.

Some want the Bill to go further, and I have no doubt that on Report and in the Lords there will be many attempts to do that. Others think it already goes too far. The most important message about the Bill is that we need to get on with it.

Technology is a big part of children’s lives—actually, it is a big part of all our lives. The vast majority of it is good. It provides new ways of keeping in touch, and ways of enhancing education for children with special educational needs. Think of all the rows in the car that have been done away with by the sat-nav—at least those rows. My personal favourite is the thing on my phone that says, “The rain will stop in 18 minutes,” so I know when to get my sandwich. Technology changes the way we live our lives. Think about our working lives in this place. Thanks to Tony Blair and new Labour, the pager got all MPs on message and disciplined, and now WhatsApp is having exactly the opposite effect.

In particular, in the Bill and this discussion we are concerned about social media. Again, most of what social media has given us is good, but it has also carried with it much harm. I say “carried with it” because much of that harm has not been created by social media, but has been distributed, facilitated and magnified by it. In the last couple of weeks, we have been reminded of the terrible tragedy of Molly Russell, thanks to the tireless campaigning and immense fortitude of her father, Ian, and her family. The coroner concluded that social media companies and the content pushed to Molly through algorithmic recommendations contributed to her death

“in more than a minimal way”.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I entirely agree that the Bill needs to come forward now. The algorithm is the key part to anything that goes on, in terms of dealing with online problems. The biggest problem I have found is trying to get transparency around the algorithm. Does he agree that the Bill should concentrate on exposing the algorithms, even if they are commercially sensitive, and allowing Ofcom to pull on those algorithms so that we do not get into the horrible situation that he has described?

[Damian Hinds]

I absolutely agree about the centrality of the algorithms and about understanding how they work. We may come on to that later in the debate. That brings me on to my next point. Of course, we should not think of Molly’s tragedy as a single event; there have been other tragedies. There is also a long tail of harm done to young people through an increased prevalence of self-harm, eating disorders, and the contribution to general mental ill-health. All of that has a societal cost, as well as a cost to the individual. That is also a literal cost, in terms of cash, as well as the terrible social cost.

Importantly, this is not only about children. Ages 18 to 21 can be a vulnerable time for some of the issues I have just mentioned. Of course, with domestic abuse, antisemitism, racist abuse, and so on, most of that is perpetrated by—and inflicted on—people well above the age of majority. I found that the importance and breadth of this subject was reflected in my Outlook inbox over the past few days. Whenever a Member’s name is on the Order Paper for a Westminster Hall debate, they get all sorts of briefings from various third parties, but today’s has broken all records. I have heard from everybody, from Lego to the Countryside Alliance.

On that subject, I thank some of the brilliant organisations that work so hard in this area, such as 5Rights, the Children’s Charities Coalition, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, of course, the Carnegie Trust, the City of London Corporation, UK Finance, the Samaritans, Kick It Out, and more.

I should also note the three e-petitions linked to this subject, reflecting the public’s engagement: the e-petition to ban anonymous accounts on social media, which has almost 17,000 signatories; the petition to hold online trolls accountable, with more than 130,000 signatories; and the e-petition for verified ID to be required to open a social media account, with almost 700,000 signatories.

Such is the interest in this subject and the Online Safety Bill, which is about to come back to the Commons, that someone could be forgiven for thinking that it is about to solve all of our problems, but I am afraid that it will not. It is a framework that will evolve, and this will not be the last time that we have to legislate on the subject. Indeed, many of the things that must be done probably cannot be legislated for anyway. Additionally, technology evolves. A decade ago, legislators were not talking about the effect of livestreaming on child abuse. We certainly were not talking about the use of emojis in racist abuse. Today, we are just getting to grips with what the metaverse will be and what it implies. Who knows, in five or 10 years’ time, what the equivalent subjects will be?

From my most recent ministerial role as Minister of State for Security, there are three areas covered in the Online Safety Bill that I will mention to stress the importance of pressing on with it and getting it passed into law. The first is child abuse, which I have just mentioned. Of course, some child abuse is perpetrated on the internet, but it is more about distribution. Every time that an abusive image of a child is forwarded, that victim is re-victimised. It also creates the demand for further primary abuse. I commend the agencies, the National Crime Agency and CEOP—Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command—and the brilliant organisations, some of which I have mentioned, that work in this area, including the international framework around NCMEC, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, in the United States.

However, I am afraid that it is a growth area. That is why we must move quickly. The National Crime Agency estimates that between 550,000 and 850,000 people pose, in varying degrees, a sexual risk to children. Shall I repeat those numbers? Just let them sink in. That is an enormous number of people. With the internet, the accessibility is much greater than ever before. The Internet Watch Foundation notes a growth in sexual abuse content available online, particularly in the category known as “self-generated” imagery.

The second area is fraud, which is now the No. 1 category of crime in this country by volume—and in many other countries. Almost all of it has an online aspect or is entirely online. I commend the Minister, and the various former Ministers in the Chamber, on their work in ensuring that fraud is properly addressed in the Bill. There have been three moves forward in that area, and my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) may speak a bit more about that later. We need to ensure that fraud is in scope, that it becomes a priority offence and, crucially, that advertising for fraud is added to the offences covered.

I hope that, over time, the Government can continue to look at how to sharpen our focus in this area and, in particular, how to line up everybody’s incentives. Right now, the banks have a great incentive to stop fraud because they are liable for the losses. Anybody who has tried to make an online payment recently will know what that does. When people are given a direct financial incentive—a cost—to this thing being perpetrated, they will go to extraordinary lengths to try to stop it happening. If we could get that same focus on people accepting the content or ads that turn out to be fraud, imagine what we could do—my hon. Friend may be about to tell us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

If it was not intimidating enough to be with the great and the good of the Online Safety Bill, trying to say everything I want in three minutes is even more of a challenge.

I will be brief. I came to this issue through body image; that is why I learned what I have on this subject. I simply ask for two things. In his speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said that this is about frameworks. I have two suggestions that I think would make a huge difference in respect of future-proofing the legislation and providing a framework. The first is to build on the fantastic work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie). We are talking about having authenticated anonymous and non-anonymous accounts. Giving the end user the choice of whether they want to go into the wild west is fundamental.

Now that, through the Content Authenticity Initiative —to which 800 companies around the world have signed up—the technology exists to have an open standard of transparency in respect of how images are taken, from the camera to how they are put in place, we have a framework that runs around the world that means people can make the same choice about images as about accounts. If we future-proof that in legislation, we simply allow the user to choose to switch on that tool and see images that we know are verified on an open source. It is not about someone making a decision; it is simply about understanding where the image comes from, how it got there, how it was made and who passed it on. That is an incredibly powerful and incredibly simple way to create a protective framework.

That leads me to my second, possibly more important, point, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). Algorithms are king when it comes to social media. Controlling them is very difficult, but someone should be responsible. In schools we have safeguarding leads for dealing with vulnerable people, and in councils we have financial named people, so why on earth do we not have a named person legally responsible for the algorithm in a company? We have it with GDPR. That would allow anyone in this debate, anyone in the police force, anyone in Ofcom or any member of the public to go that person and say, “Why is your algorithm behaving in the way it is?” Every time I have tried to do that, I have been told that it is commercially sensitive and that there is a team somewhere else in the world that deals with it.

I know that Ofcom has the power to deal with this issue, but it is a one-off notice when it is requested. I simply think that stating that there is a named person legally responsible for the algorithm would change behaviours, because their head would be on the chopping block if they got it wrong. This is about responsibility. That is what the Bill provides, and that is why I am advocating for those two points.

Online Safety Bill

Luke Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I must make some progress, because I am almost out of time and there are lots of things to reply to.

I particularly thank previous Ministers, who have done so much fantastic work on the Bill. With us this evening are my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), but not with us this evening are my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who I think is in America, and my right hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) and for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), all of whom showed fantastic leadership in getting the Bill to where it is today. It is a Bill that will stop illegal content circulating online, protect children from harm and make social media firms be consistent in the way they handle legal but harmful content, instead of being arbitrary and inconsistent, as they are at the moment.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

rose—

[Munira Wilson]

rose—

Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Luke Evans Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I come to this report through the prism of my work on body image. The Minister will be pleased to hear that I will not give again the speech that I delivered yesterday, when he was kind enough to join proceedings on my private Member’s Bill about digitally altered body images that should carry a logo. Although I would welcome the Government taking on that Bill, I have to play on the Government’s playing field, which has led me to assess this Bill through that prism.

I should congratulate the Government on what they are trying to achieve: a world-leading, world-beating risk assessment across the internet. To achieve that would be no mean feat. I have not heard mentioned enough the role that Ofcom will play. Having met Ofcom, I know that it would need the tools and ability to investigate and to levy very heavy fines and punishments on companies for breaching the rules. They are going to be the key to holding this all together.

Body image falls on the side of content that is legal but harmful. Clause 46(3) of the draft Bill states:

“Content is within this subsection if the provider of the service has reasonable grounds to believe that the nature of the content is such that there is a material risk of the content having, or indirectly having, a significant adverse physical or psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities”.

It repeats that in several versions. I am pleased to see that that matches up with the report, but I appreciate that there is a difference of opinion on whether clause 11 should remain. Both pick up on the fact that

“Knowingly false communications likely to cause significant physical or psychological harm to a reasonable person”

should be called out. The report goes on to state:

“As with the other safety duties, we recommend that Ofcom be required to issue a mandatory code of practice to service providers on how they should comply with this duty. In doing so they must identify features and processes that facilitate sharing and spread of material in these named areas and set out clear expectations of mitigation and management strategies”.

After reading those points, both in the Bill and the report, I think a gap has been missed. There is no problem with seeing one doctored image; it is the volume of doctored images—the repeated images of shoulders distorted, waists thinner, breasts bigger—that has an impact. That is the same with people who are looking for information on dietary requirements. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), who is no longer in her place, hit the nail on the head perfectly. It is about algorithms. That is where I want the Bill to be stronger. In every meeting that I have had with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat—you name it—when I have asked about algorithms, they say, “We can’t tell you more about it because it’s commercially sensitive,” but they are fundamentally what is driving us down the rabbit holes that the report rightly picks up on. How will we in this House determine what things look like if we do not understand what is driving them there in the first place? The horse has literally left the stables by the time we are picking up the pieces.

I am pleased that in previous debates the Minister has said that Ofcom will be able to request this information, but I would ask that we go one step further and say that that information could be exposed to the public. Why? Because that will undermine the whole model driving these companies in their commercial activity, because it will lay it bare for us all to see. That is key to the transparency that we need. Otherwise, how do we police the volume of images that are being delivered to our young people, whether they are body images or about self-harm, race hate or race-baiting, or whatever people want to call or it or whatever their niche happens to be? As we heard in this debate, social media plays on not only people’s interests, but their insecurities. That is what we have to tighten up on. The Bill and this report, working in conjunction, can really do that. However, I urge that the volume and, most importantly, the algorithms are considered.

Body Image in the Media and Online

Luke Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in this debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if they are coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give each other space when you are seated, and when leaving or entering the Chamber.

I will now call Dr Luke Evans to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for Dr Evans to sum up at the end, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government action on body image in the media and online.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I welcome the Minister to his role. This is the first time that I have formally met him to discuss this issue.

I will open with a description of an advert put out about a year ago by Dove, called “Reverse Selfie”. It starts with a young girl looking at her phone. On that phone, there is a picture of her. She may be in her late teens or early twenties. She starts to scroll backwards. She sees the comments underneath the photo suddenly disappearing, with all the “likes” going away and the comment, “You look amazing”, disappearing. Suddenly, the filter changes and so does her hair colour. The size of her face, including her nose, changes, and the blemishes on her skin all suddenly reappear. The process goes further. She puts the phone down, lies backwards and there is a picture of her family, which she has scrubbed off the back of the wall, and a picture of her favourite teen band. Furthermore, the image shows her makeup, including her lipstick, coming off. Finally, what is left in front of us is a girl no older than 13 or 14. The advert then finishes with the line:

“The pressure of social media is hurting our girls’ self-esteem”.

The advert is only a minute long, so if people have a chance I encourage them to look at it, because it encapsulates perfectly the kind of world in which we now exist, and the problem is getting worse.

Over the next few minutes, I will set out three points to address when it comes to debating this issue of body image and what the Government can do. The first is the scale of the problem; the second is why it matters; and the third, and most important, is what we can do about it.

There are so many statistics out there, but I will quickly go through the scale of the problem. Evidence from Girlguiding shows that two in five girls between the ages of 11 and 16 have seen images online making them feel insecure or less confident about themselves, rising to 50% for those aged between 17 and 21. Some 55% of girls aged between 11 and 21 say that these images make them feel insecure by showing unattainably wealthy lifestyles or expensive clothes, and 94% agree that more should be done to protect them from body image pressures online. Some 90% of girls agree that there should be stricter rules for online advertisers. The Women and Equalities Committee heard that more than six in 10 women feel negative about their bodies. Factors including diet culture and being bombarded with images of photoshopped, sexualised women have negative impacts.

It is not just women; it is men as well. Some 35% of men aged between 16 and 40 say that they are unhappy with how they look; 48% say that they have struggled with their mental health because of unhappiness; and two in every five men feel pressured to have the perfect body.

It goes further. Work by the Mental Health Foundation found that 85% of under-18s thought that appearance was either very important or important, but it led to one in five adults and one in three teenagers feeling actual shame about the way they looked. The Women and Equalities Committee report said that the triggers include social media, stereotypes and, of course, conventional media. Those are just some of the survey results that give a flavour of what people in this country feel like.

Why does this actually matter? Let us take the worst-case scenario. As a clinician, I have seen more and more men —but also women—with concerns about body image. At worst, they suffer with eating disorders. There are 1.25 million people suffering with anorexia or bulimia. There are also 1 million people, particularly men, who are using steroids to bulk up, to try to get those stereotypical big shoulders or tight abs. That was brought home to me when UK Anti-Doping saw my campaign about body image and came to me with evidence of how much of a problem it is causing. It is finding that people who are using drugs for aesthetic enhancement are then turning up to play rugby only to then be banned from the sport.

On eating disorders, there has been a 50% increase in the number of people accessing services since 2016-17. We are seeing the worst extremes, but this is the thin end of the wedge. Combine those factors with what we have just talked about—the way the nation is feeling—and we see that there is an obvious cause for concern.

This matters and I do not believe that social media companies are doing enough. Many have filters, educational content, and ways of trying to filter out some of the problems they face, but, fundamentally, we need to go further, because the problem is getting worse and it is young people who are bearing the brunt of it. Other countries have started to make strides in addressing the problem, most notably Israel and France, and Norway has recently said that it will look at labelling digitally altered images. There is a precedent, therefore, not only here but across the western world, to make a difference.

What can we do? I am completely aware that the Minister is from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and that this problem cannot be solved with one single hit, because there is a chain. It involves parental responsibility and educating our children to be aware of the content they are looking at. Of course, when people go on to a platform, they need to have the tools to protect themselves, the platform needs to take responsibility and show them due care to, and if things go wrong, a regulator, backed up by legal statute, needs to be able to deal with it.

For the purpose of this debate, I will concentrate on three solutions that I think could make a difference. I proposed the first one last year—namely, labelling digitally altered images. It is a very simple process and we already have a precedent for it, with “PP” appearing for paid product placement advertising on TV. This is in line with the health aspect of providing information about calories and content on food labelling. It provides parity for mental health by saying that the image is not quite as it seems. We already have a precedent in advertising, as well, with video game adverts stating, “This is not actual video footage”, and, of course, political advertising is labelled as such.

I often use this example when people ask what that means: if someone wanted to sell their house or rent a room, it would be absolutely justifiable to paint the walls, put out a new throw and change the lighting. However, what they fundamentally could not do is digitally alter the size of the garden, the roof or the living space. That is what I am asking the Government to look at. We are creating a warped sense of reality that drives young people to believe they can be something that they can never achieve. I am all for aspiration and people improving their aesthetics—I am a GP by trade and I welcome heathy, promotional sport and exercise and people taking care of their bodies—but not if that is a goal that they can never achieve.

Critics of my position often say, “Hang on a second. Isn’t that the nanny state?”, but I would say it is not, because a perfect market needs perfect information. Others ask how it would work practically. The online space already distinguishes between organic and commercial activity according to the number of followers and what accounts use in their content, holding them to a different category of rules. I am not asking for a bride with a blemish to suddenly be punished or banned from dealing with that. I am simply asking for digitally altered images where biceps are made bigger and promoted online—or indeed in magazines—to carry a label.

Of course, that is my wish as a Back Bencher, but we have the draft Online Safety Bill, and I credit the Government for grabbing the bull by the horns and including a world-leading attempt to try to deal with some of the perils of the internet. That is really important, but there are some difficulties. How do we decide what goes in? How do we build a framework? Where does responsibility lie? I am pleased that there is a framework that covers social media companies with a duty of responsibility.

What I am talking about is not illegal, and that means that interpreting what is detrimental is mired in difficulty. Although an individual picture might not be detrimental, we start to have a problem when we are bombarded with 100 pictures of people with abs and shoulders the size of a fridge. However, I see a solution. Clause 46(3) of the draft Online Safety Bill, which sets out the meaning of content that is harmful to adults, states:

“Content is within this subsection if the provider of the service has reasonable grounds to believe that the nature of the content is such that there is a material risk of the content having, or indirectly having, a significant adverse…psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities”,

with roughly the same wording in place for children as well. I put it to the Government that body image could well be a legal but harmful issue, and should be counted among the priority harms.

As I have said, the draft Online Safety Bill tries to cover a whole load of issues that are not related to body image. My final point and plea to the Government is about the thrust of the issue—what it all boils down to—which is the algorithm driving the content. I am interested in fitness, and I follow CrossFit on Instagram. If I log into my account, it sends me to hundreds of pictures of gents with their tops off, training harder than ever before. It is not an issue having the one image, but there is a real difficulty when hundreds of images are being driven to people. When I raise the issue with all the big social media companies and ask them how the algorithm works, the first thing I hear is, “That is commercially sensitive,” and therein lies the problem. If we do not know what the algorithm is driving to people, and if we do not understand it or have any clarity on it, how can we address the problem in the first place?

I am so pleased to see that Ofcom is in line to deal with the problem. I have met with it to see that it has not only the resources and the legal backing but the ability to punish companies, demand that they open up their algorithms and demand papers from them so that we can get to the bottom of this problem. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is indeed the Government’s intent, and whether or not algorithms will be included in the online harms Bill. While I have come to this from body image, it would help to deal with all sorts of other issues, be that fraud scams, self-harm or suicide.

I hope that in the past 10 minutes I have demonstrated the scale of the problem, why it matters—because the most vulnerable young people are the ones facing it—and some of the solutions for dealing with it. I look forward to the online safety Bill coming forward. I am aware of the Advertising Standards Authority’s call for evidence about body image and the Government may know that I have launched a petition called #recognisebodyimage to make sure that body image is recognised in UK law for the first time. I hope that might just make a slight bit of difference for the young girl or boy who enjoys spending their time on social media.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. We used to appear opposite each other on occasion, so it is nice to serve under your chairmanship now. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) on tabling this important topic for discussion this afternoon and for speaking with such eloquence. The examples he gave were powerful and make a strong case for the need to do more in this important area for the sake of all our children and, indeed, many adults who suffer problems and issues as a result of images they see online. I take the opportunity to assure the House and, indeed, the public that the Government takes those problems seriously.

There are two projects under way designed to address exactly those issues, which provide useful platforms for doing more. My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth touched on both. The first is the online advertising programme, which, as the name implies, is designed to address the content of paid-for online advertising, where some of the images he describes appear. As he said, the Advertising Standards Authority launched a call for evidence on 21 October that remains open until 13 January, so there are opportunities for people to make their views known. I hope that the ASA will be able to do more in this area in response to that.

In the coming months, the online advertising programme consultation will be launched and, again, that will be an extremely useful vehicle into which points such as the ones made today can be fed. That will likely lead in due course to further measures in the online advertising space. It is clear that there is a real opportunity through the programme to do more in this area. Given the call for evidence and the consultation in the coming months, the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth are extremely timely and very welcome. He has picked his moment with a great deal of good fortune.

There is not just the question of advertising but that of user-generated content, and that is in the scope of the draft Online Safety Bill, which my hon. Friend mentioned. It was published last May and I can see he has a copy of it in front of him, which is diligently tagged up. I am delighted he has been studying it so carefully.

As hon. Members will know, the draft Bill is currently going through a pre-legislative scrutiny process. A Joint Committee of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), is looking very carefully at it. The Committee has taken extensive evidence and will be publishing a report on or before 10 December, which may well address some of the issues. The Government are certainly in listening mode on the draft Online Safety Bill and we are ready to make changes, amendments and improvements to the Bill where there is a case to do so. There is scope for us to do more in this area. The Bill has a number of important mechanisms that will directly help address some of the issues that have been raised.

Let me pick up a couple of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth. First, he mentioned the importance of algorithms. As he said, this applies not only to matters of body image and the fact that he has lots of pictures of well-built men appearing in his timeline, for the reasons that he explained, but elsewhere. These algorithms drive all kinds of content, some of which is harmful. In fact, Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, explained how the algorithms promote content that is often harmful, or even hateful, to individuals for purely commercial reasons. The algorithms do that not through any exercise of editorial judgment, but simply to drive user engagement, and therefore revenue, for the companies concerned. It is a purely commercial, profit-driven activity.

My hon. Friend made a point about transparency. When they are asked to talk a bit more about what these algorithms do, the companies very often refuse to disclose what is going on. Therefore, some of the most important measures in the draft Online Safety Bill are to do with transparency. There is a transparency duty on the category 1 companies—the largest companies—to be transparent about what is going on.

There are also powerful information rights for Ofcom, whereby Ofcom can require the companies concerned to provide information about a whole range of things, including algorithms. Companies will have to provide that information to Ofcom, providing the transparency that is so woefully lacking. If they fail to meet either the transparency duty or the information duty, that is, responding to an information request, they can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue. In the case of the information disclosure duties, not only can the company be punished by way of extremely large fine, but there will also be personal criminal liability for named executives. There will be a big change in the transparency about algorithms and how information is provided.

In the context of the draft Online Safety Bill, my hon. Friend also mentioned content that is legal but harmful. There is clearly a strong case to say that material that causes either young people or adults to develop anxiety about their body image can potentially be harmful. Once we have passed the Bill, the Ofcom consultation process will define the priority harms, which will be the harms where category 1 companies will have to take particular care. They will have to lay out in their terms and conditions how they will address issues with priority harms. There is a mechanism through which representations can be made, and the argument can be made that matters concerning body image ought to included.

[Dr Luke Evans]

I am very grateful for the comprehensive answers that the Minister is giving. On that secondary point, will the consultation be coming back to the House of Commons to determine those priorities or will they be set out after a consultation that will be delivered straight to Ofcom for it to make its judgment?

[Chris Philp]

There will be an extensive consultation run by Ofcom, both on the matters considered to be priority harms and on the codes of practice that go alongside those. The Bill, as drafted, will see those codes of practice and the list of harms come back to the Secretary of State, and there will then be a parliamentary procedure, so Parliament will have an opportunity to look at the list of priority harms and the codes of conduct to be sure that Parliament is happy with them. There are various debates about whether the mechanisms to do that can be fine-tuned in some way, but it will not just disappear into a void with no further interaction with Parliament at all. In providing evidence to Ofcom, there will be an opportunity for my hon. Friend and for people who are campaigning with such passion on this issue to make representations.

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, given that it is built on years of expertise in the industry. These issues require careful thought and there are balances to strike. We do not want to cause unreasonable problems for the advertising industry.

That is why the Government and various regulatory authorities are looking at this in such a careful way, with the call for evidence that is running at the moment, the consultations in the coming months on the online advertising programme and the consultation on the priority harms and codes of conduct that Ofcom will conduct in relation to the online safety Bill. Through those consultations, there will be an opportunity for campaigners to put forward their point of view on body image. Obviously, the advertising industry will have extensive opportunities to put its case. There will be opportunities for regulators and Parliament to think about how that balance can most appropriately be struck. We fully recognise that, as in so many areas, there is a balance to strike in ensuring we reach the right solution.

[Dr Luke Evans]

I absolutely agree on striking that balance. To address the earlier intervention, I hope that no one would ever see a label on these images, because companies would be socially responsible and choose not to doctor them. However, should those images be doctored for any reason, having that label—a small “p”, a small “b”, or whatever it happens to be—alerts the user to the fact that, when they are scrolling through hundreds of images, particularly on social media, all is not as it seems. I think that is a fair balance.

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. His comment is probably directed as much at my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) as at me. Clearly, there are important points to debate.

In conclusion, the Government take the issue extremely seriously, not just in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport but across Government, such as in the Department of Health and Social Care and other Departments. We recognise that serious psychological harm is potentially being caused, particularly to young people but more widely as well. We want to ensure that reasonable steps are taken to avoid harm being inflicted.

I hope Members across the House, with opinions on both sides of the argument, will fully engage with the consultation on the online advertising programme and the call for evidence from the Advertising Standards Authority. I hope they will also fully engage, after the Bill passes, with Ofcom when it consults on the priority harms and codes of conduct. Some extremely important issues and arguments have surfaced on both sides in today’s debate. We look forward to debating the matter further in the coming months to ensure we strike that balance. We need to protect people who need protection, so that the internet is not an ungoverned, lawless space where anything goes, but equally we need to ensure that industries, such as advertising, are not unduly penalised or circumscribed. I am confident that the House, on a cross-party basis, can apply its collective wisdom and strike that balance. I look forward to working with colleagues to achieve that.

Question put and agreed to.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Luke Evans Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I will make some progress. I may come back to the right hon. Gentleman later, but I have already given way to him twice.

I know that some Members are concerned that we have not named Huawei on the face of the Bill and that our approach could be reversed in years to come. I want to reassure those Members on a number of fronts. We have not chosen to name Huawei for two compelling practical reasons. First, as we discussed, this Bill is designed to tackle not only the Huaweis of today but the Huaweis of tomorrow, wherever they come from. It needs to be flexible enough to cover future threats and not tie our hands by limiting our response to one company and one company alone. Secondly—this is the most crucial point—making reference to any one company would create a hybrid Bill, dramatically slowing the passage of the Bill and therefore our ability to combat all high-risk vendors, including Huawei.

However, as a concrete sign of our commitment to tackling the national security risks posed by Huawei, I can confirm today that we are going further in two significant ways. First—I hope Members will have had a chance to see this—we have published an illustrative designation notice and an illustrative designated vendor direction to demonstrate how the Bill’s powers in relation to a high-risk vendor could be exercised. Given the level of concern in this House and in the other place about Huawei’s role in 5G infrastructure, these illustrative drafts name Huawei explicitly, clarifying our position beyond doubt, and set out a clear pathway to the reduction and removal of its equipment.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State believe that taking out companies such as Huawei may damage the economic impact, and what assessment has he made about making sure that we are at the forefront of growing 5G network in the UK?