Digital Economy

Debate between Margot James and Maggie Throup

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I am sorry that I am taking a long time to answer my right hon. Friend’s point, but it is an important one. I will finish with the last intervention before I take more interventions.

The Government are keeping a weather eye on the availability of pornography on social media platforms. I shall talk more about that, but I reassure my right hon. Friend that we will introduce further measures. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who is in the Chamber, has a duty to report back on the impact of the regulations 12 to 18 months after their commencement and he will look at just the issues my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has raised. I will make a little progress before taking further interventions.

There is no doubt, going back to the work of the Women and Equalities Committee, that the large amount of pornography available on the internet in the UK, often for free and with no protections to ensure that those accessing it are old enough to do so, is leading to a change in the way that young people understand healthy relationships, sex and consent. I know that that is a major issue of concern to everybody across the House. A 2016 report commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children made that absolutely clear. More than half of the children sampled had been exposed to online pornography by the age of 15, nearly half of the boys thought that the pornography they had seen was realistic, and just under half wished to emulate what they had seen.

The introduction of a requirement for age-verification controls is a necessary step in tackling those issues and it contributes towards our commitment to make the UK a safer place to be online, particularly for children and young people.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, when children have such experiences at a very young age, it can affect them for the whole of their life and have a big impact on their relationships as they grow up and get married? Indeed, it can affect not just their relationship with their partner, but their relationships with their children as well.

[Margot James]

I very much agree that, if children see hardcore pornography when they are too young to understand it, it can have long-lasting and very negative impacts on their development and future relationships. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

The draft Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations set out the basis on which pornographic material is to be regarded as

“made available on a commercial basis”.

The regulations cover material on websites and applications that charge for access. They also cover circumstances where a person makes available pornographic material on the internet for free, but then receives payment or reward for doing so, for example, through advertising revenue.

It was clear from the debates in this House during the passage of the Digital Economy Act that it was not Parliament’s intention that social media sites on which pornography is only a small part of the overall content should be required to have age verification.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Margot James and Maggie Throup

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

Shockingly, only 17% of the tech workforce are women. I therefore welcome the recent announcement of a digital skills innovation fund of £1 million, which is there to help under-represented groups. Will the Minister outline what further measures are being taken to ensure that our digital economy is accessible and diverse?

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

Diversity in the tech sector is vital. In addition to the digital skills partnership, which is bringing government and industry together to solve these problems, we are also backing the tech talent charter, which is driving diversity, especially regarding gender, across the sector.