Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Matt Hancock and Helen Goodman(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course I will. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work to raise funds for the MRI scanner in Bishop Auckland, which benefits from great levels of philanthropy in some areas. The whole purpose of having a national health service is that, wherever people live in the country, they can get high-quality healthcare, free at the point of delivery, according to need. I stand by that principle, and I honour it.
BBC Pay
Debate between Matt Hancock and Helen Goodman(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Matt Hancock
It is incredibly important that the BBC recognises the level and strength of feeling in this House among people who have long championed the BBC, people who have long disagreed with the BBC, people who have been employed by the BBC and people who have never been employed by the BBC that the BBC must get to the bottom of this, root and branch.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
When my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) brought before this House the Equality Act 2010, which provides for gender pay audits on every organisation employing more than 250 people, the Tories voted against it. Will the Secretary of State now say whether he thinks that that was the right thing to do?
Matt Hancock
I am a very strong believer in equal pay and tackling discrimination, because I believe in the equality of opportunity—wherever someone comes from and whatever their gender, sexual orientation or race. Those are the values that will guide me in this role.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Matt Hancock and Helen Goodman(7 years ago)
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Matt Hancock
Windsor is not only well connected, but well represented. My hon. Friend’s point is that it is important that new developments get infrastructure and connectivity right from the start. We have agreed with the Home Builders Federation and major broadband providers that all new large developments of over 30 homes will get good connections, but we are also talking to the Department for Communities and Local Government to strengthen that requirement, because it is pretty absurd to build a new house without the ducting to take fibre all the way to it.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I wrote to the Treasury about its £200 million locally led infrastructure fund, but I was passed to the Minister, who passed me to the local authority. The local authority says that the criteria mean that people have to make bids that are too big for a rural area. Will the Minister please look again at that so that my constituents in Teesdale can get the broadband they need?
Matt Hancock
As it happens, I was in Teesside last week talking to local authorities from across the region. We designed the scheme to allow all local bodies of whatever size to bid—district and borough councils, county councils and larger metropolitan areas—so I look forward to engaging with the hon. Lady to ensure that that can be taken forward.
Digital Economy Bill
Debate between Matt Hancock and Helen GoodmanMonday 28th November 2016
(7 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Digital Economy Act 2017 View all Digital Economy Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 28 November 2016 - (28 Nov 2016)
Matt Hancock
The Digital Economy Bill will help to connect modern Britain, support the digital economy and keep people safe online. The measures in this group are about strengthening the enforcement of protections for children, improving access to online media, and addressing consumer protection in telecoms. I will take in turn those three sub-groups of your excellent grouping, Mr Speaker.
Turning first to child protection, I am delighted by the cross-party support for delivering the Conservative manifesto commitment to require age verification to access online pornography. During the Bill’s passage through the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who is in the Chamber, ably supported by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), has led debate about this by powerfully expressing the view that the enforcement proposed in the Bill is not strong enough—she is right. We have listened to the case that she and others have made. They have advanced the argument that some companies, especially those based overseas, simply will not abide by the law that is enacted by this House, so it is clear that there is a case to direct a UK internet service provider to prevent access.
We all want the internet to be free, but freedom operates within a framework of social responsibility, norms and the law. The approach set out in Government new clause 28 will protect the freedom of adults to watch pornography online, but provide adequate protections by giving children the same sorts of safeguards online as they have offline. We have worked closely with the industry and I am confident that it will take a responsible position. I therefore envisage the regulator needing to use this power only sparingly, because the vast majority of companies will want to obey the law. We will work through the technical detail with the regulator—it is expected to be the British Board of Film Classification—and others to understand the broader implications and make the new system work as we take the proposals through the other place.
We have been persuaded of another argument that was made powerfully on Second Reading. The provisions we have discussed today will see children protected by one of the most robust and sophisticated regimes globally but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)—I see her in her place—has said, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), the protections have resulted in a disparity between UK-based on-demand services on the one hand, and overseas-based on-demand services and online commercial providers of pornography on the other. We have carefully considered that and concluded that we do not want disparate regimes. Government new clause 29 will ensure that children are protected from pornographic content from wherever it is derived. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton for making her case; I believe that we will have a stronger system as a result.
New clause 3 proposes a legal requirement to undertake an online safety impact assessment. I understand the intent behind the new clause, but I think that the measure is unnecessary, because leading social media companies already report on their online safety practices voluntarily as part of the safety framework of the ICT Coalition. We work closely with social media companies to ensure that they take down content that is violent or that incites violence, and to flag terrorist-related content. The system is important and is working well. Since 2010, we have secured the voluntary removal of more than 220,000 pieces of content. A requirement for a safety assessment is likely to be difficult to apply in practice because of the extraterritorial organisations that are involved in this space, and it would be almost impossible to target individuals who run small online websites for commercial purposes.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to amend the Bill in this important area. As he is addressing the responsibility of social media sites, what action is he thinking of taking to prevent what happened recently, when Facebook refused to give the police information that it had relating to a missing child?
Matt Hancock
It is incredibly important to get the framework that operates in that sort of space right, as is the case for terrorist material and child protection online. The system that we have in place—it is essentially non-statutory, although it is underpinned by online and offline offences—is working well. Social media organisations’ collaboration with the police and others is incredibly important, and I urge them to collaborate with the police whenever they are asked to do so. We have taken the view that the effective and rigorous enforcement of rules relating to age verification is an important step to get that system up and running. The system is working well, with 220,000 take-downs since 2010, so we want to leave it in place. In all such instances, there might be difficult individual cases, but overall the system is, on the whole, working effectively. That is why we have taken different approaches for the two different areas.
New clause 10 would introduce some very specific requirements around online education. I maintain that the measure is not necessary, because e-safety is already covered at all stages in the new computing curriculum that was introduced in September 2014. From primary school, children are taught how to use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly, how to keep personal information private, how to recognise acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and how to report a range of concerns. As hon. Members will see, we care deeply about protecting children online both through direct rules for the internet and through education. The new clause is not necessary, and I worry that putting in place a more static system would risk making the task at hand harder.
When it comes to broader protection, we expect social media and interactive services to have in place robust processes that can quickly address inappropriate content and abusive behaviour on their sites. It would be difficult to make the sort of statutory code of practice proposed in new clause 13 work, as there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. The way in which to deal properly with inappropriate content and abuse will vary by service and by incident. Technological considerations might differ by platform as innovation changes the way in which the internet operates. Legislating in this area is difficult because of the pace of change, and users will benefit most if companies develop a bespoke approach for reporting tools and in-house processes. Existing arrangements and the action taken by social media companies provide the best approach to tackling this problem.
Helen Goodman
The hon. Gentleman is right.
Under the Bill, publications made in the media that are in the public interest are not on the list of exceptional circumstances in which information to combat fraud against the public sector and related personal information can be disclosed. For example, if a whistleblower were to leak the records of a private company to a journalist without authorisation and the journalist ran a story based on this, both parties could receive criminal sentences. This is particularly pertinent to clause 50, which states that a person who discloses personal information not in one of the stipulated excluded situations will be committing an offence.
This is quite technical and complex, so if the Minister cannot respond in this debate today, I would like him to write to me about the definition of the information covered and of the public sector here. Let me give an example to explain why. I was given information that Coutts—which is currently owned by the taxpayer; it is a subsidiarity of one of the banks we bought in 2008—was selling tax avoidance schemes in Switzerland. I spoke about that in the House, but if I had instead given the information to a journalist and it had been printed in a newspaper, it would appear that under these provisions the journalist or newspaper would be criminalised.
This cannot be the Government’s intention. I am sure the Government do not like leaks about Concentrix or about sustainability and transformation plans in the NHS, but I am equally sure the Government are not trying to clamp down on the effectiveness of the media in our country to such an extent that we cannot use these leaks about these sources.
Matt Hancock
I can confirm that it is neither the intent, nor our understanding of the Bill, to do those things, but it is our intent to protect personal information.
Helen Goodman
I am glad that is not the Minister’s intent—I did not think that it was—but the Media Lawyers Association highlighted in its written evidence that it thought there was a problem. So if the Minister wants to avoid his colleagues in another place having to have this debate again in two months’ time, perhaps he could write to me with a full explanation of what he thinks is going on, because I think that there might be a problem with the Bill in this respect.
Matt Hancock
I am glad that there is a willingness for that data to be shared, because I share the right hon. Gentleman’s passion to improve the use of data to improve people’s lives in Wirral and elsewhere. Given that passion, I hope that the clarity that we will achieve, not least as a result of this debate, will ensure that the data are indeed shared.
Clarity is supported by the Data Protection Act 1998, because all the data shared under powers in the Bill will continue to be protected under the firm boundaries of that Act, which rightly enjoys a broad consensus of support. We are strengthening in the Bill the sanction on the purposeful reidentification of data to make that a criminal sanction. The hon. Member for Cardiff West expressed concerns about the details, but the protections are important and strike the right balance. New clause 19 seeks to strengthen data sharing, but amendment 3 seeks to weaken it and put barriers in place. The amendment is not needed, as health bodies in England are not within the scope of the public service delivery power. For the rest of the UK, health is devolved. The Labour Administration in Wales and the Scottish National party Government in Scotland have signalled that they will seek the consent of their legislatures on the grounds that the amendment is not in place. The Labour party in Wales and the SNP in Scotland support this sort of data sharing for the precise reasons set out by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, so I hope to persuade hon. Members not to divide the House on these matters. They should be reassured that we value data sharing as well as its protection and safekeeping. I therefore urge Members on both sides of the House to resist the amendments.
New clause 5 would impose obligations on organisations to report data breaches, as has been said. That is covered in the general data protection regulation, which will come into force in May 2018, so it is not necessary to legislate here. New clause 11 deals with data-sharing registers. Part 5 includes a number of commitments to transparency and proportionality in the disclosure of information by public authorities. We are committed to the transparency of information shared under part 5, and I think that the new clause is aimed at testing that. However, there are a number of problems with it, not least the fact that setting the requirement in primary legislation reduces the flexibility to learn from and adapt to the consequences of publishing a register.
New clause 12 requires that the Government commission an independent review of the collection and use of data by Government and commercial organisations. The Royal Society and the British Academy are currently undertaking such a review to consider the ethical and legal frameworks that are needed in the UK as data technologies advance. I agree with the hon. Member for Cardiff West that it is important that we develop those ethical and legal frameworks to make sure that they are ahead of the use of data and data science, not behind, so that we can take the public with us. We will consider the findings of the review when it is published.
New clause 23 was tabled by Plaid Cymru. We are firmly committed to ensuring that the needs of Welsh language speakers are recognised and met. For example, gov.uk now publishes its frequently used web content in Welsh. The Government Digital Service has helped to produce exemplar Welsh language versions of new digital services such as the register to vote service. The GDS and the Wales Office have discussed with the Welsh language commissioner how they can help Departments meet their requirements under their Welsh language schemes. Dwyn cefnogwyr brwd o S4C—I support strongly the Welsh language is, I think, a rough translation.
Government amendments 4 to 19 apply the duty to review set out in clauses 45 to 53 of the fraud and debt chapters, which require the relevant Minister after three years to review the operation of the powers. The amendments are consistent with the devolution settlements and ensure that appropriate consent for any proposed changes is sought from the affected territories.
On the illicit online trade and internet sales of counterfeit electrical appliances, we take this very seriously. The Intellectual Property Office has recently published its IP enforcement strategy for the next four years, which I think takes into account the concerns raised.
Helen Goodman
Before the Minister sits down, will he commit to write to me about the amendments that I tabled?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. I will happily write to the hon. Lady about the detail of the concerns—I think they are unfounded, but we want to ensure that they are indeed unfounded—that journalists might be caught by increasing the criminal penalty for the intentional disclosure of information under the data-sharing powers, which are intended for the protection of data, especially in the bulk transfer of data around the system, rather than to militate against whistleblowing of the type that the hon. Lady described.
I appreciate the intention behind new clause 34, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman). Here and around the world, the media landscape is changing rapidly and the emergence of new digital platforms has impacted on a wide variety of sectors, including news. Ensuring that citizens have access to a full variety of news sources is essential, and it is vital that our media are vibrant and sustainable. There is a huge challenge in maintaining high-quality journalism when advertising revenues increasingly go to the platform, but the costs fall on the content provider or the newspaper. The Government are actively engaged in examining this, and I am meeting the News Media Association later this week to discuss this very issue.
Ofcom publishes an annual report on news consumption across the UK. It includes the sources and platforms used in news consumption and the role of intermediaries, such as Facebook and Google. Ofcom undertakes ad hoc reviews where appropriate and we will explore whether this is an area where such a review is needed. Although I acknowledge the importance of the issue, I urge my hon. Friend, who has a lot of experience in this area, to work with us under existing powers to seek a solution.
I ask that hon. Members do not press their amendments and new clauses to a Division, but support the Government amendments.
Coalfield Communities
Debate between Matt Hancock and Helen Goodman
Matthew Hancock
The question is about how we tackle these problems for the future. Although coal mining areas were hard hit by the great recession, it is true, and ought to be acknowledged, that unemployment is now falling in every one of the communities affected.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but let me bring him bang up to date. Durham coalfield was one of the biggest coalfields, but when this Government switched money from public services to capital, the north-east got 0.3% of the money. Will the Minister admit that that is utterly disgraceful?
Matthew Hancock
Unemployment in the hon. Lady’s constituency has fallen by 30% since the election. Next time she gets up she should mention that, rather than shouting across the Dispatch Box. In south Staffordshire, unemployment has fallen by 58% since 2010. It has fallen by 51% in south Derbyshire, and as I said earlier, by 30% in Yorkshire. That goes to show the central truth that the best way to help coalfield communities now is to have a strong and healthy economy, and we cannot do that unless we have an economic plan.