Online Safety Bill (Fifth sitting)

Maria Miller Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee. I want to apologise for missing the evidence sessions. Unfortunately, I came down with covid, but I have been following the progress of the Committee.

This is important legislation. We spend so much of our lives online these days, yet there has never been an attempt to regulate the space, or for democratically elected Members to contribute towards its regulation. Clause 1 gives a general outline of what to expect in the Bill. I have no doubt that this legislation is required, but also that it will not get everything right, and that it will have to change over the years. We may see many more Bills of this nature in this place.

I have concerns that some clauses have been dropped, and I hope that there will be future opportunities to amend the Bill, not least with regard to how we educate and ensure that social media companies promote media literacy, so that information that is spread widely online is understood in its context—that it is not always correct or truthful. The Bill, I hope, will go some way towards ensuring that we can rely more on the internet, which should provide a safer space for all its users.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

May I join others in welcoming line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill? I am sure that the Minister will urge us to ensure that we do not make the perfect the enemy of the good. This is a very lengthy and complex Bill, and a great deal of time and scrutiny has already gone into it. I am sure that we will all pay due regard to that excellent work.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd is absolutely right to say that in many ways the world is watching what the Government are doing regarding online regulation. This will set a framework for many countries around the world, and we must get it right. We are ending the myth that social media and search engines are not responsible for their content. Their use of algorithms alone demonstrates that, while they may not publish all of the information on their sites, they are the editors at the very least and must take responsibility.

We will no doubt hear many arguments about the importance of free speech during these debates and others. I would like gently to remind people that there are many who feel that their free speech is currently undermined by the way in which the online world operates. Women are subject to harassment and worse online, and children are accessing inappropriate material. There are a number of areas that require specific further debate, particularly around the safeguarding of children, adequate support for victims, ensuring that the criminal law is future-proof within this framework, and ensuring that we pick up on the comments made in the evidence sessions regarding the importance of guidance and codes of practice. It was slightly shocking to hear from some of those giving evidence that the operators did not know what was harmful, as much has been written about the harm caused by the internet.

I will listen keenly to the Minister’s responses on guidance and codes of practice, and secondary legislation more generally, because it is critical to how the Bill works. I am sure we will have many hours of interesting and informed debate on this piece of legislation. While there has already been a great deal of scrutiny, the Committee’s role is pivotal to ensure that the Bill is as good as it can be.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Key Definitions

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 3 stand part.

That schedules 1 and 2 be the First and Second schedules to the Bill.

Clause 4 stand part.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

Thank you, Sir Roger.

I do not want to get sidetracked, but I agree that there is a major parental knowledge gap. Tomorrow’s parents will have grown up on the internet, so in 20 years’ time we will have not have that knowledge gap, but today media literacy is lacking particularly among parents as well as among children. In Scotland, media literacy is embedded in the curriculum; I am not entirely sure what the system is in the rest of the UK. My children are learning media literacy in school, but there is still a gap about media literacy for parents. My local authority is doing a media literacy training session for parents tomorrow night, which I am very much looking forward to attending so that I can find out even more about how to keep my children safe online.

I was asking the Minister about the App Store and the Google Play Store. I do not need an answer today, but one at some point would be really helpful. Do the App Store, the Google Play Store and other stores of that nature fall under the definition of search engines or of user-to-user content? The reality is that if somebody creates an app, presumably they are a user. Yes, it has to go through an approval process by Apple or Google, but once it is accepted by them, it is not owned by them; it is still owned by the person who generated it. Therefore, are those stores considered search engines, in that they are simply curating content, albeit moderated content, or are they considered user-to-user services?

That is really important, particularly when we are talking about age verification and children being able to access various apps. The stores are the key gateways where children get apps. Once they have an app, they can use all the online services that are available on it, in line with whatever parental controls parents choose to put in place. I would appreciate an answer from the Minister, but he does not need to provide it today. I am happy to receive it at a later time, if that is helpful.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I want to pick up on two issues, which I hope the Minister can clarify in his comments at the end of this section.

First, when we took evidence, the Internet Watch Foundation underlined the importance of end-to-end encryption being in scope of the Bill, so that it does not lose the ability to pick up child abuse images, as has already been referred to in the debate. The ability to scan end-to-end encryption is crucial. Will the Minister clarify if that is in scope and if the IWF will be able to continue its important work in safeguarding children?

[Kirsty Blackman]

A number of people have raised concerns about freedom of speech in relation to end-to-end encryption. Does the right hon. Lady agree with me that, there should not be freedom of speech when it comes to child sexual abuse images, and that it is reasonable for those systems to check for child sexual abuse images?

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is right to pick up on the nuance and the balance that we have to strike in legislation between freedom of speech and the protection of vulnerable individuals and children. I do not think there can be many people, particularly among those here today, who would want anything to trump the safeguarding of children. Will the Minister clarify exactly how the Bill works in relation to such important work?

Secondly, it is important that the Government have made the changes to schedule 2. They have listened closely on the issue of pornography and extended the provisions of the Bill to cover commercial pornography. However, the hon. Member for Pontypridd mentioned nudification software, and I am unclear whether the Bill would outlaw such software, which is designed to sexually harass women. That software takes photographs only of women, because its database relates only to female figures, and makes them appear to be completely naked. Does that software fall in scope of the Bill? If not, will the Minister do something about that? The software is available and we have to regulate it to ensure that we safeguard women’s rights to live without harassment in their day-to-day life.

[Dan Carden]

This part of the Bill deals with the definitions of services and which services would be exempt. I consider myself a millennial; most people my age or older are Facebook and Twitter users, and people a couple of years younger might use TikTok and other services. The way in which the online space is used by different generations, particularly by young people, changes rapidly. Given the definitions in the Bill, how does the Minister intend to keep pace with the changing ways in which people communicate? Most online games now allow interaction between users in different places, which was not the case a few years ago. Understanding how the Government intend the Bill to keep up with such changes is important. Will the Minister tell us about that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kirsty Blackman]

I want to make a couple of brief comments. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire is not here as, ironically, he is at the DCMS committee taking evidence on the Online Safety Bill. That is a pretty unfortunate clash of timing, but that is why I am here solo for the morning.

I wanted to make a quick comment on subsection 7. The Minister will have heard the evidence given on schedule 7 and the fact that the other schedules, particularly schedule 6, has a Scottish-specific section detailing the Scottish legislation that applies. Schedule 7 has no Scotland-specific section and does not adequately cover the Scottish legislation. I appreciate that the Minister has tabled amendment 126, which talks about the Scottish and Northern Irish legislation that may be different from England and Wales legislation, but will he give me some comfort that he does intend Scottish-specific offences to be added to schedule 7 through secondary legislation? There is a difference between an amendment on how to add them and a commitment that they will be added if necessary and if he feels that that will add something to the Bill. If he could commit that that will happen, I would appreciate that—obviously, in discussion with Scottish Ministers if amendment 126 is agreed. It would give me a measure of comfort and would assist, given the oral evidence we heard, in overcoming some of the concerns raised about schedule 7 and the lack of inclusion of Scottish offences.

[Dame Maria Miller]

In many ways, clause 6 is the central meat of the Bill. It brings into play a duty of care, which means that people operating online will be subject to the same rules as the rest of us when it comes to the provision of services. But when it comes to the detail, the guidance and codes that will be issued by Ofcom will play a central role. My question for the Minister is: in the light of the evidence that we received, I think in panel three, where the providers were unable to define what was harmful because they had not yet seen codes of practice from Ofcom, could he update us on when those codes and guidance might be available? I understand thoroughly why they may not be available at this point, and they certainly should not form part of the Bill because they need to be flexible enough to be changed in future, but it is important that we know how the guidance and codes work and that they work properly.

Will the Minister update the Committee on what further consideration he and other Ministers have given to the establishment of a standing committee to scrutinise the implementation of the Bill? Unless we have that in place, it will be difficult to know whether his legislation will work.

[Dan Carden]

Some of the evidence we heard suggested that the current precedent was that the Secretary of State had very little to do with independent regulators in this realm, but that the Bill overturns that precedent. Does the right hon. Lady have any concerns that the Bill hands too much power to the Secretary of State to intervene and influence regulators that should be independent?

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman brings up an important point. We did hear about that in the evidence. I have no doubt the Secretary of State will not want to interfere in the workings of Ofcom. Having been in his position, I know there would be no desire for the Department to get involved in that, but I can understand why the Government might want the power to ensure things are working as they should. Perhaps the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is to have a standing committee scrutinising the effectiveness of the legislation and the way in which it is put into practice. That committee could be a further safeguard against what he implies: an unnecessary overreach of the Secretary of State’s powers.

[Kirsty Blackman]

Thank you, Sir Roger, for allowing me to intervene again. I was not expecting the standing committee issue to be brought up at this point, but I agree that there needs to be a post-implementation review of the Bill. I asked a series of written questions to Departments about post-legislative review and whether legislation that the Government have passed has had the intended effect. Most of the Departments that answered could not provide information on the number of post-legislative reviews. Of those that could provide me with the information, none of them had managed to do 100% of the post-implementation reviews that they were supposed to do.

It is important that we know how the Bill’s impact will be scrutinised. I do not think it is sufficient for the Government to say, “We will scrutinise it through the normal processes that we normally use,” because it is clear that those normal processes do not work. The Government cannot say that legislation they have passed has achieved the intended effect. Some of it will have and some of it will not have, but we do not know because we do not have enough information. We need a standing committee or another way to scrutinise the implementation.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising this point. Having also chaired a Select Committee, I can understand the sensitivities that this might fall under the current DCMS Committee, but the reality is that the Bill’s complexity and other pressures on the DCMS Committee means that this perhaps should be seen as an exceptional circumstance—in no way is that meant as a disrespect to that Select Committee, which is extremely effective in what it does.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I completely agree. Having sat on several Select Committees, I am aware of the tight timescales. There are not enough hours in the day for Select Committees to do everything that they would like to do. It would be unfortunate and undesirable were this matter to be one that fell between the cracks. Perhaps DCMS will bring forward more legislation in future that could fall between the cracks. If the Minister is willing to commit to a standing committee or anything in excess of the normal governmental procedures for review, that would be a step forward from the position that we are currently in. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on that.