Online Safety Bill

Maria Miller Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

Once again, I wish to thank all the Members who have put together a good piece of legislation. In the spirit of generosity, let me say that the Government have tried their very best on a tricky issue, and I give credit to those on both sides of the House for this step in the right direction.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

This Bill may well have been with us since April 2021 and been subject to significant change, but it remains a Bill about keeping people safer online and it remains groundbreaking. I welcome it back after scrutiny in the Lords and join others in paying tribute to those who have campaigned for social media platforms to release information following the death of a child. I am pleased that some are able to be with us today to hear this debate and the commitment to that issue.

This will never be a perfect Bill, but we must recognise that it is good enough and that we need to get it on to the statute book. The Minister has helped by saying clearly that this is not the endgame and that scrutiny will be inherent in the future of this legislation. I hope that he will heed the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who encouraged him to set up a bespoke Committee, which was one of the recommendations from the initial scrutiny of the Bill.

I will confine my remarks to the Government’s Lords amendment 263 and those surrounding it, which inserted the amendments I tabled on Report into the Bill. They relate to the sharing of intimate images online, including deepfakes, without consent. I wish wholeheartedly to say thank you to the Minister, who always listens intently, to the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), who has recently joined him, and to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. They have all not only listened to the arguments on intimate image abuse, but acted. The changes today are no less a testament to their commitment to this Bill than any other area. Focusing on children’s safety is very important, but the safety of adults online is also important. We started on a journey to address intimate image abuse way back in 2015, with the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, and we have learned to provide that protection much better, mostly through the work of the Law Commission and its report on how we should be tackling intimate image abuse online.

The Bill, as it has been amended, has been changed fundamentally on the treatment of intimate image abuse, in line with the debate on Report in this place. That has created four new offences. The base offence removes the idea of intent to cause distress entirely and relies only on whether there was consent from the person appearing in the image. Two more serious offences do include intent, with one being sending an image with intent to cause alarm and distress. We also now have the offence of threatening to share an image, which will protect people from potential blackmail, particularly from an abusive partner. That will make a huge difference for victims, who are still overwhelmingly women.

In his closing comments, will the Minister address the gaps that still exist, particularly around the issue of the images themselves, which, because of the scope of the Bill, will not become illegal? He and his colleagues have indicated that more legislation might be in the planning stages to address those particular recommendations by the Law Commission. Perhaps he could also comment on something that the Revenge Porn Helpline is increasingly being told by victims, which is that online platforms will not remove an image even though it may have been posted illegally, and that will not change in the future. Perhaps he can give me and those victims who might be listening today some comfort that either there are ways of addressing that matter now or that he will address it in the very near future.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

As we reflect on the Bill today, it is important to say that it has been improved as it has progressed through the Parliament. That is due in no small measure to Members from across the parties—both here and in the other place—who have engaged very collegiately, and to individuals and groups outside this place, particularly the Samaritans and those who have lived experience of the consequences of the dangers of the internet.

People from my constituency have also been involved, including the family of Joe Nihill, whom I have mentioned previously. At the age of 23, Joe took his own life after accessing dangerous suicide-related online content. His mother, Catherine, and sister-in-law, Melanie, have bravely campaigned to use the Online Safety Bill as an opportunity to ensure that what happened to Joe so tragically does not happen to others. I thank the Minister and his team for meeting Joe’s mother, his sister-in-law and me, and for listening to what we had to say. I recognise that, as a result, the Bill has improved, in particular with the Government’s acceptance of Lords amendment 391, which was first tabled by Baroness Morgan of Cotes. It is welcome that the Government have accepted the amendment, which will enable platforms to be placed in category 1 based on their functionality, even if they do not have a large reach. That is important, because some of the worst and most dangerous online suicide and self-harm related material appears on smaller platforms rather than the larger ones.

I also welcome the fact that the Bill creates a new communications offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm and makes such content a further priority for action, which is important. The Bill provides an historic opportunity to ensure that tackling suicide and self-harm related online content does not end with this Bill becoming law. I urge the Government to listen very carefully to what the Samaritans have said. As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister asked, will the Government commit to a review of the legislation to ensure that it has met the objective of making our country the safest place in the world in which to go online? Importantly, can the Government confirm when the consultation on the new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm will take place?

As I mentioned in an intervention, it is clear that the Government want to tackle harmful suicide and self-harm related content with the Bill, but, as we have heard throughout our discussions, the measures do not go far enough. The Samaritans were correct to say that the Bill represents a welcome advance and that it has improved recently, but it still does not go far enough in relation to dangerous suicide and self-harm online content. How will the Government engage with people who have lived experience—people such as Melanie and Catherine—to ensure that the new laws make things better? Nobody wants the implementation of the Bill to be the end of the matter. We must redouble our efforts to make the internet as safe a place as possible, reflect on the experiences of my constituents, Joe Nihill and his family, and understand that there is a lot of dangerous suicide and self-harm related content out there. We are talking about people who exploit the vulnerable, regardless of their age.

I urge all those who are following the progress of the Bill and who look at this issue not to make the mistake of thinking that when we talk about dangerous online suicide and self-harm related content, it is somehow about freedom of speech. It is about protecting people. When we talk about dangerous online material relating to suicide and self-harm, it is not a freedom of speech issue; it is an issue of protecting people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhan Baillie]

I am interested in that intervention, but I fear it would lead us into a very long discussion and I want to keep my comments focused on my amendment. However, it would be interesting to hear from the Minister in response to that point, because it is a huge topic for debate.

On the point about whether someone is real or not real online, I believe passionately that not only famous people or those who can afford it should be able to show that they are a real and verified person. I say, “Roll out the blue ticks.”—or the equivalents—and not just to make the social media performs more money; as we have seen, we need it as a safety mechanism and a personal responsibility mechanism.

All the evidence and endless polling show that the public want to know who is and who is not real online, and it does not take rocket science to understand why. Dealing with faceless, anonymous accounts is very scary and anonymous abusers are terrifying. Parents are worried that they do not know who their children are speaking to, and anonymous, unverified accounts cannot be traced if details are not held.

That is before we get to how visible verification can help to tackle fraud. We should empower people to avoid fake accounts. We know that people are less likely to engage with an unverified account, and it would make it easy to catch scammers. Fraud was the most common form of crime in 2022, with 41% of all crimes being fraud, 23% of all reported fraud being initiated on social media and 80% of fraud being cyber-related. We can imagine just how fantastically clever the scams will become through AI.

Since we started this process, tech companies have recognised the value of identity verification to the public, so much so that they now sell it on Twitter as blue ticks, and the Government understand the benefits of identity verification options. The Government have done a huge amount of work on that. I thank them for agreeing to two of the three pillars of my campaign, and I believe we can get there on visibility; I know from discussions with Government that Ofcom will be looking carefully at that.

Making things simple for social media users is incredibly important. For the user verification provisions in this Bill to fulfil their potential and prevent harm, including illegal harm, we believe that users need to be able to see who is and is not verified—that is, who is a real person—and all the evidence says that that is what the public wants.

While Ministers in this place and the other place have resisted putting visible verification on the face of the Bill, I am grateful to the Government for their work on this. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we are reassured that the Bill as now worded gives Ofcom the powers to do what the public wants and what we are suggesting through codes and guidance. We hope that Ofcom will consider the role of anonymous, inauthentic and non-verified accounts as it prepares its register of risks relating to illegal content and in its risk profiles.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I pay tribute to the way my hon. Friend has focused on this issue through so many months and years. Does she agree that, in light of the assurances that she has had from the Minister, this is just the sort of issue that either a stand-alone committee or some kind of scrutiny group could keep an eye on? If those guidelines do not work as the Minister is hoping, the action she has suggested will need to be taken.

[Siobhan Baillie]

Absolutely. Given the fast nature of social media and the tech world, and how quickly they adapt—often for their own benefit, sadly—I think that a committee with that focus could work.

To wrap up, I thank MPs from across the House, and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your grace today. I have had help from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) in particular, for which I am very grateful. In the other place, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Stevenson, Baroness Morgan, Baroness Fall and Baroness Wyld have all been absolutely excellent in pushing through these matters. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says, and thank everybody for their time.