Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova]

I place on record my thanks, congratulations and appreciation of Reverend Canon David Williams and his wife—as we know, these things are always a partnership—for all their good work in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The Diocese of Oxford is thankful for the dedicated, pioneering and innovative work of the clergy and their great contribution to the Church’s ministry and mission, and to our local communities. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pass on my thanks, and that he will be present for the reverend’s final service on Christmas morning, to congratulate him in person.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

6. What progress the Church has made on developing interfaith understanding.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Some 85% of the global population have a faith that shapes their day-to-day life. The Church has been working at a global, national and local level to improve interfaith understanding and engagement. At home, it engages with national and local networks to support faith and civic leaders, mayors and MPs in building trust and resilience in their local communities, as they did during and after the most recent civil unrest.

[Matt Rodda]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her post; she is doing a fine job. Will she join me in congratulating the local faith communities across the diverse and tolerant town of Reading on their work to support one another, and to understand one another’s faith? I associate myself with that tremendous work; it is wonderful to see different faith communities working together for the whole community. I also put on record my support for the retiring Bishop of Reading, Bishop Olivia, and pay tribute to her for her outstanding work to tackle knife crime in our community.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating all those working across all faiths to ensure that there is good, strong community cohesion, and I congratulate the retiring bishop. That is important across constituencies that, like Reading, have diverse communities with diversity in faith.

Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. May I associate myself with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Minister? She spoke eloquently about the importance of sport to men and women, boys and girls, and particularly to disabled people—everyone—as well as about the lifelong benefits that sport can give. I hope that the whole House will support her endeavours on this important subject.

In the time available to me—many other colleagues want to speak—I will cover three areas. First, I want to pay tribute to Paralympians and Olympians after the summer’s success. Secondly, I will highlight some of the wonderful achievements of local sportsmen and women from the Reading area and the importance of grassroots sport in our community. Finally, I will call for the owner of Reading football club to speed up the sale of the club, which is a huge local issue, and I thank my hon. Friend for her unstinting support on this important matter.

I start with the amazing success of our local Paralympians at this summer’s Paralympic games. I mention in particular Gregg Stevenson, a Paralympic rower who trains in Caversham, where the British rowing base is. Gregg has been through enormous challenges in life, yet he won gold for GB in the PR2 mixed double sculls. He suffered disability in 2009 while he was a member of the 59 Commando Squadron in the Royal Engineers through a bomb blast in Afghanistan, which caused him to lose both legs. He has come back from that tragedy to become a Paralympic rower. It is important to remember the contribution of our service personnel, as well as other disabled sportspeople. What an amazing achievement for him.

While I have the opportunity, I would also like to mention Ed Fuller, another Paralympic rower training locally who attended the University of Reading. He was one of the crew who won gold for ParalympicsGB in the mixed coxed four events in Paris. I also praise Will Arnott, a Paralympian from our community who plays boccia—an unusual precision ball sport, similar to bowls but less well known—for his hard work and dedication, and his success this summer.

Our Paralympians are all wonderful ambassadors for sport. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their work for ParalympicsGB to raise the profile of the Paralympics, and para sport in general, among young and older people, both in the Reading area and across the country. I appreciate that colleagues are lining up to speak, but I would like to mention briefly a few prominent sportswomen from our community and say a little about grassroots sports. I thank Fran Kirby for her work in football, including for the Lionesses. She plays for Brighton & Hove Albion now, but she started as a Reading player and went to school locally at Caversham Park primary school. She is much loved in our community, and it is worth paying tribute to amazing stars like her, who blaze a trail for other women. I also thank Amanda Handisides, who is a Team GB ice hockey player, and of course Morgan Lake, who was born in Reading. She is a well-known high jumper who has represented GB on many occasions.

I also mention our wonderful grassroots sports. I cannot do justice to all of them, but I thank our local teams in football, hockey, cricket and many other sports for their enduring work at the grassroots. In a sense, I have to declare an interest: my family and I have benefited from it.

I turn briefly to Reading football club. Let me tell the story of what has happened, and call for action from the owner, Mr Dai Yongge, who has delayed selling the club, which has caused huge problems for fans, players and the club. Reading is one of the oldest clubs in the football league, yet it is in real difficulty. We have had a successful career and an illustrious history over many years, including two spells in the premiership, the highest-ever point tally achieved in the championship and numerous other successes. Sadly, we have never got to an FA cup final, but we have had some amazing cup runs, yet unfortunately our club has fallen into a difficult period because of irresponsible ownership.

Reading’s case is similar to that of a number of other clubs, as I know from working with colleagues. I am glad to see that the previous Government’s Football Governance Bill has been brought back by our Front-Bench team, and I hope that soon becomes law and deals with the problem of irresponsible ownership, which has been experienced across the country by a number of clubs, many of them in medium-sized towns and cities. I know other colleagues have strong feelings about that.

Before I call for action from Mr Yongge, I point out how difficult this situation has been. The reason why the club has been so badly affected by his ownership is repeated financial mismanagement: he failed to pay His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on time and, as a result, points were deducted, meaning that Reading were relegated from the championship to league one. That was not because of anything that happened on the pitch. That is grossly unfair on the club, the players and local fans—it is completely and utterly unacceptable. The same thing could happen to other clubs in the football league in exactly the same way, due to the same issues of irresponsible ownership, and of owners failing to live up to the standards that they should be adhering to.

Sadly, the powers available to the English Football League are not as great as they might be, and I hope that the Bill, which will hopefully come to Parliament shortly, will tackle this and set a high bar for ownership. It is interesting that Mr Yongge was not allowed to buy Hull City; the Premier League was able to intervene to avoid that. The EFL did not have the power at the time to stop him buying Reading, and that is an absolute tragedy for our fans, the players and the club. I hope something can be done about it.

We have been hoping for a sale since last October. The former Member for Bracknell and I attended a march in Reading town centre with several thousand fans last October, and we managed accidentally to stop all traffic on a local A road. The fans sent a strong message to Mr Yongge that he needed to get on with selling the club, finding a preferred bidder and working with them to move things on, so that a new owner could invest in the club. In the last year, the situation has not been properly addressed. He has been in discussion with Rob Couhig, the former owner of Wycombe Wanderers, but sadly that fell through a few days ago. It has been announced that a new preferred bidder has come forward. I urge Mr Yongge to take all reasonable steps to engage with the new preferred bidder quickly, and to conclude a sale, so that we can move on, take our wonderful club forward, and get it back up to the premiership, ideally, though the championship will do for the moment. I urge him to get on with selling the club and to take action on behalf of the people of Reading.

I would like once again to show my appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians. They do amazing work representing this country and are ambassadors for sport across the world. I also thank local sportsmen and women, and young people involved in sport. Finally, once again, I call for a quick sale of Reading FC.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Max Wilkinson.

Football Governance Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak today. I thank the Secretary of State, the Minister, the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), who has been a superb campaigner for Reading football club, and other Members from across the House.

Broadly speaking, I welcome the Bill, but at the outset I would like to pay tribute to our wonderful club, Reading football club, its players and its fans. The men’s and women’s teams were both relegated last year. As was referred to earlier, that was through no fault of their own. The crisis at the club was due entirely to financial mismanagement by the current owner, Mr Dai Yongge. Despite being relegated, and with the risk of further relegation hanging over them, players and fans have battled through and we hope they have sustained the future of the club.Thankfully, Dai Yongge now appears to be selling the club, and we hope that a brighter future lies ahead. I hope that this Bill will ensure that other clubs do not have to face what Reading have been through, and that football can move on to a brighter future.

When Reading were in the championship, Dai Yongge started his period as the owner of the club by investing in their future. However, his behaviour changed over time, and the story we face is one of a failure to pay wages and, indeed, national insurance. This led to a series of winding-up petitions from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and ultimately to 16 points being deducted. That, rather than anything that happened on the pitch, determined the situation at Reading.

This season, the financial problems have continued. Unfortunately, further points deductions have been made, although we are grateful to the EFL for its decision that they be suspended. In an incredible effort, the players have battled hard and avoided relegation from league one, and we hope they have secured the future of the club. However, the pressure on players, fans and the whole town has been absolutely awful. We have been through, and are still going through, the worst crisis in our club’s history. Reading football club were founded in 1871 and are one of the oldest members of the football league, and their proud history includes getting the highest number of points in the championship—106—having three seasons in the premiership and going on a glorious series of cup runs, including winning the Simod cup in the 1980s and several impressive FA cup runs.

During this period of great difficulty, emotions have run high. Some 1,400 people, including the hon. Member for Bracknell and me, joined a march to the stadium in October, and there have been numerous other protests. Fans simply want their Reading back, and I would encourage Dai Yongge to speed up the sale. As I said, we must ensure that what happened at Reading never happens again. We need a better test for owners and a better assessment of club finances, as mentioned earlier. Above all, we need to ensure that clubs, players and fans are not penalised for the actions of owners, however irresponsible they are.

I have some points to make to the Minister and the Secretary of State. Although I welcome the Bill, I would like far more detail on a number of key areas that I hope we will explore in Committee, particularly the test for owners and directors, the assessment of financial resilience, the oversight of financial plans, and the protection of grounds and training grounds, which is another problem we might face. In Reading’s case, the sale might separate the training ground from the ground, which has caused a great deal of concern and has, I hope, now been resolved.

I hope the Minister will address some of those issues and that they will be explored more fully in Committee. I believe that the Bill is a real opportunity for English football, and indeed for football in Wales, and I hope that we can all look forward to a brighter future for all our football clubs, particularly Reading.

Football Regulation

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about football regulation and about Reading football club in tonight’s Adjournment debate. Before I start, I will say a few words of thanks to Reading fans and to all those campaigning to secure the future of football clubs around the country. I also thank the Minister for his support; I appreciate that he is standing in for a colleague at the last minute. I particularly thank the Reading fans who set up the Sell Before We Dai campaign, which is calling on the current owner to sell the club to a new, more responsible owner. I would like to mention Ian Morton, who is here tonight, Eleanor Flood and many others. I also thank our supporters trust, and many other fans groups.

[Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)]

As a supporter-run club, Chester football club has not-going-into-debt written into its constitution. For them, it means that they will never again lose the club to the whim of feckless owners. Chester FC competes against clubs that do not have that safeguard and is therefore always at a competitive disadvantage because it is committed to a sustainable future for the club. Football regulation must mean that that is tackled. Does my hon. Friend agree that meaningful regulation, and financial incentives to promote good governance with supporter representation at its heart, has to be the way forward, from the premiership to the grassroots?

[Matt Rodda]

I thank my hon. Friend; of course, the interests of fans and clubs must come first.

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate on such an important topic. Southend United football club is the heart of the new city of Southend, but it has had a terrible time and is currently under new ownership. Will he join me in welcoming the football governance Bill in yesterday’s King’s Speech, which we hope will pave the way to protect clubs such as Southend United for generations to come?

[Matt Rodda]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. In fact, the point of my speech is not only to thank the Minister for that Bill, but to probe and ask questions about it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We are going for a hat-trick of interventions, one after the other. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward. It is critical not only for those here, but for many others who are unfortunately not able to make it. I agree with the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) that the football governance Bill appearing in the King’s Speech is a significant step forward. In Strangford, we have many fantastic local clubs, including Ards football club in the major town of Newtownards. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a football regulator for finance must apply to all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and especially to support small, local clubs so they can reach their full potential? This is not just about Reading or Southend; it is about all of us in this great United Kingdom, if we do the thing right.

[Matt Rodda]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and I hope that the action the Government are proposing is brought forward and has the widest possible impact across the UK.

I take this opportunity to thank the thousands of local fans who have shown their support for a change of ownership of Reading FC, including the 1,400 people who joined a march from our town centre to the stadium a few days ago. It was an incredible show of support, and one that led to the unexpected closure of the A33 due to the huge numbers who took part. I thank all the drivers on the other side of the road—a two-lane trunk road—who hooted in support and cheered us on. I thank Reading FC legend Dave Kitson for leading the march and for his support for both the club and the campaign.

I thank our local council, including the council’s leader, Jason Brock, Councillor John Ennis, who has been a Reading fan since 1975, Councillor Adele Barnett-Ward and others. I thank John in particular, because he took part in a previous march in 1983 against Robert Maxwell’s ill-thought-through plan to merge Reading with Oxford United. I should add that John has been our lead councillor for transport for just four months and already he has shut a major road, which is not something that many councillors get to do.

I also thank my fellow Berkshire MPs, particularly the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). Sadly, the hon. Member for Bracknell cannot attend the debate due to illness, but he is a fan and hugely enjoyed the march. Despite the local political differences, he marched next to John and other seasoned campaigners and marchers from the Labour council—although, funnily enough, he seemed to feel more at home when the fans started chanting “Blue Army” as we walked down the road. I thank him, the Minister and colleagues from across the House for their support.

I turn now to the substance of the debate. It is clear to us all that there is an ownership problem in English football. I will use the debate to explain the terrible impact of that ownership problem on Reading and, by implication, on many clubs across the country, and to ask the Minister to reassure fans, players, staff and local communities. As I said earlier, I welcome the Government’s announcement that they plan to bring forward a Bill to regulate football. That is an important step.

I call on the Government to live up to that promise. Ministers must ensure that the Bill includes proper powers for the regulator and, crucially, that there is enough parliamentary time for the Bill in the last months before a general election. Above all, the Government need to show us that they have the determination to press forward with what they have promised. I know my hon. Friend the shadow Minister is willing to work with them, as are we MPs, fans and the whole football community. I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government are serious and will commit to them taking this vital work forward as a matter of urgency.

I will turn now to Reading football club. To put it clearly and simply, as loyal fans did on the march last week, we want our Reading back. The story of what is happening to our wonderful club is quite simply heartbreaking. It is terrible, and I could use much less parliamentary language—as was occasionally heard as we marched down the A33. The situation we face stands in stark contrast to the history and traditions of our great club.

Reading was founded in 1871, and it is one of the oldest clubs in English football. The fans, the players of the men’s and women’s teams, and the staff have all been badly let down. In men’s football, Reading has been a championship club, knocking on the doors of the premier league. It has enjoyed three seasons in the top flight. In fact, we were one place outside getting into Europe at the end of our first premier league season, in 2006-07. Fans have vivid memories of the nineties, the noughties and our most recent time in the premier league 10 years ago—the proudest possession of one of my children is a ball signed by the whole team from that heady time—under the wise leadership of brilliant managers such as Steve Coppell, who guided gifted players, many of whom were local and came up through the club’s academy, and the committed support of the then owner, Sir John Madejski, whom I thank for his wise stewardship of the club.

The club and the wider football community used to talk about “the Reading way”: developing and motivating players at a local family club, and achieving far more than others would have thought possible. That includes—I particularly like saying this—beating Watford 4-1 to win the Simod cup at Wembley; winning the championship a number of times, most recently in 2011; knocking on the door of the premier league in successive play-offs; and great FA cup runs, including sadly losing to Arsenal in the semi-final in 2015.

Crucially, the women’s team were also punching above their weight, and were a real success story. Until recently, they were playing in the women’s super league thanks to brilliant players and management, and were on the brink of doing something amazing. Sadly, that run of success has now ended.

The club was sold in 2013, and a succession of owners have presided over a worsening situation. Unfortunately, our men’s team is now languishing at the bottom of league one, through no fault of their own—16 points have been deducted from the club in the last few months for an array of financial mismanagement by the current owner, Chinese businessman Dai Yongge, not for anything that has happened on the pitch. That financial mismanagement includes Mr Yongge failing to pay wages and national insurance. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs had lodged winding-up petitions before the NI was paid. Mr Yongge’s term as owner started well, with investment in players and the training ground, but sadly he seemed to lose interest. This may be a familiar story to others who follow the history of many of our clubs.

The effect of those points deductions has been absolutely appalling. Reading’s men’s team was relegated from the championship to league one at the end of last season, and further points deductions have left us at the very bottom of that league. To make matters worse, it now looks as if the club will be relegated again at the end of this season. That would leave us playing in league two. The owner has also pulled the funding for the women’s team, which made them unsustainable as a professional outfit—sadly, the players are no longer fully professional—and they too have been relegated.

Let me say a brief word about players, staff and fans. Quite simply, they are doing a determined job to remain positive in an extremely difficult and challenging situation that is not of their making. We are all extremely proud of them, and I pay tribute to them all. Young, less experienced players—the men’s team are the youngest in the league—who in some cases should still be in the academy or on the bench, are playing with grit and determination despite everything that has been thrown against them. Fans with families and busy jobs have come together to fight for our club in a community campaign that has made the national news. We are all very proud of them, and I want to say: “Come on you R’s!”

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I apologise for being late to the debate—I was caught out by the earlier start. My hon. Friend is making a good point about the way in which football is often run by individuals who can, in the end, bring a whole club and its community down because of the way the club is managed. At Sheffield Wednesday, Dejphon Chansiri has put a lot of money into the club—great—but he has been saying recently that he may stop the funding, which is obviously a considerable threat. In the end, clubs are not just about the person who owns them, or the chairmen; they are about fans. Clubs belong to them, and they should have the right to be consulted right the way through on all those issues. We hope that the regulator, when it comes in, will have the powers to do precisely that.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will address later in my speech. I hope the Minister will offer further detail about what he proposes, and I urge him to use his speech to give us some hope, some cheer, some optimism, and some fire in our bellies to help fight for the future of our beloved club.

The Government have announced a Bill to introduce a football regulator, which is welcome. That Bill has the potential to lead to real change in English football, but sadly it is not clear how far the Government will respond to fans’ concerns, and indeed to those of the football authorities. We are all concerned about owners, such as Dai Yongge, who seem to swoop in, hope to make money, and then lose interest if they are not successful. We are at a very early stage with the Bill, so I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us about the thrust of that Bill. I ask him to provide some detail on a number of key points.

For example, can the Minister spell out what the Government hope the Bill will achieve? Can he be clear about the powers he is considering for the regulator, and will he reassure fans that they will actually have a say? Will he also put an end to clubs being punished for the actions of irresponsible owners? In short, will he commit to doing what it takes to make sure that no more clubs and no more fans have to suffer what we have had to suffer?

Dai Yongge has announced that he plans to sell Reading. He made that announcement in October, and so far there appear to be three bidders who have shown an interest in the club. That means that the sale could go through before the Bill is passed, so is the Minister able to reassure me about the club’s immediate future? If the sale does go ahead, will he commit to Reading becoming a pilot for new regulation to protect the club, and indeed to other measures that may be necessary to offer support?

Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you once again for allowing me to have this debate tonight, and I thank Members who have intervened on me. Most of all, I thank Reading fans and our whole community. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Whittingdale]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I do understand the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). Certainly, we would not wish to have a system in which the directors decided who they do and do not wish to talk to. It will be part of the licensing requirements that fans are involved. I am sure we will wish to explore that further during the passage of the Bill, but it is certainly the intention that that is one of the conditions for licensing.

We have seen other examples of fans fighting back against their owners to save their clubs at Blackpool, Charlton Athletic and, as we have heard tonight, Reading. That should not have had to happen.

[Matt Rodda]

Does the Minister agree that part of the issue here is about the test for ownership? It was interesting in Reading’s case that Dai Yongge was refused as a potential owner for Hull City when it was in the premiership —unlike Reading, which was in the championship at the time. The English Football League allowed him to become the owner of Reading. There is an issue there and a question about the fit and proper test for owners.

Online Safety Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

I agree with my right hon. Friend; that is exactly right, and it is also right that we look at including additional offences on the face of the Bill in schedule 7 as offences that will be considered as part of the legislation.

Where this touches on advertising, the Government have already accepted, following the recommendation of the Joint Committee, that the promotion of fraud should be regulated in the Bill, even if it is in advertising. There are other aspects of this, too, including modern slavery and immigration, where we need to move at pace to close the loophole where consideration was to be given to advertising outside of the Bill through the online advertising review. The principle has already been accepted that illegal activity promoted through an advert on an online platform should be regulated as well as if it was an organic posting. That general provision does not yet exist, however. Given that the Government have considered these additional amendments, which was the right thing to do, they also need to look at the general presumption that any illegal activity that is a breach of the safety duties should be included and regulated, and that if somebody includes it in an advert it does not become exempt, when it would be regulated if it was in an organic posting.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I would like to focus on new clause 1, dealing with redress, new clause 43, dealing with the toggle default, and new clause 4 on minimum standards. This Bill is a very important piece of legislation, but I am afraid that it has been seriously watered down by the Government. In particular, it has been seriously weakened by the removal of measures to tackle legal but harmful content. I acknowledge that some progress has been made recently, now that the Government have accepted the need for criminal sanctions for senior managers of tech companies. However, there are still many gaps in the Bill and I want to deal with some of them in the time available to me tonight.

First, I pay tribute to the families who have lost children due to issues related to social media. Some of those families are in the Public Gallery tonight. In particular, I want to mention the Stephens family from my Reading East constituency. Thirteen-year-old Olly Stephens was murdered in an horrific attack following a plot hatched on social media. The two boys who attacked Olly had both shared dozens of images of knives online, and they used 11 different social media platforms to do so. Sadly, none of the platforms took down the content, which is why these matters are so important to all of us and our communities.

Following this awful case, I support a number of new clauses that I believe would lead to a significant change in the law to prevent a similar tragedy. I stress the importance of new clause 1, which would help parents to make complaints. As Olly’s dad, Stuart, often says, “You simply cannot contact the tech companies. You send an email and get no reply.” It is important to tackle this matter, and I believe that new clause 1 would go some way towards doing that.

As others have said, surely it makes sense for parents to know their children have some protection from harmful content. New clause 43 would provide reassurance by introducing a default position of protecting children. I urge Members on both sides of the House to support this new clause. Both children and vulnerable adults should be better protected from legal but harmful content, and further action should be taken. New clause 43 would take clear steps in that direction.

I am aware of time, and I support many other important new clauses. I reiterate my support and backing for my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones). Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). I congratulate him on his moving tribute to his constituent’s son. It is a terrible story.

This Bill will be life changing for many, but I am sorry to say that it has taken far too long to get to this point. The Government promised in 2015 to end children’s exposure to harmful online material, and in 2017 they committed to making the UK the safest place for children to be online. This morning, as I waited in the freezing cold on the station platform for a train that was late, a fellow passenger spoke to me about the Bill. He told me how happy he is that action is, at last, under way to protect children from the dangers of the internet. As a father of three young children, he told me that the internet is one of his greatest concerns.

I am afraid that, at the moment, the internet is as lawless as the wild west, and children are viewing images of abuse, addiction and self-harm on a daily basis. As others have said, the stats are shocking. Around 3,500 online child sex offences are recorded by police each month, and each month more than a million UK children access online pornography. It has been said that, in the time it takes to make a cup of tea, a person who joins certain popular social media platforms will have been introduced to suicidal content, “Go on, just kill yourself. You know you want to.”

I am incredibly proud that our Government have introduced a Bill that will change lives for the better, and I hope and expect it will be a “best in class” for other Governments to do likewise. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and her predecessors for their ruthless focus on making the online world a safer place. Ultimately, improving lives is what every MP is here to do, and on both sides of the House we should take great delight that, at last, this Bill will have its remaining Commons stages today.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) and for Stone (Sir William Cash) for their determination to give the Bill even more teeth, and I sincerely thank the Secretary of State for her willingness not only to listen but to take action.

New clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friends, will not be pressed because the Secretary of State has agreed to table a Government amendment when the Bill goes to the other place. New clause 2 sought to create a backstop so that, if a senior manager in a tech firm knowingly allows harm to be caused to a child that results in, for example their abuse or suicide, the manager should be held accountable and a criminal prosecution, with up to two years in prison, should follow. I fully appreciate that many in the tech world say, first, that that will discourage people from taking on new senior roles and, secondly, that it will discourage inward investment in the UK tech sector. Those serious concerns deserve to be properly addressed.

First, with regard to the potential for senior tech staff to be unwilling to take on new roles where there is this accountability, I would argue that from my experience as City Minister in 2015 I can provide a good example of why that is an unnecessary concern. We were seeking to address the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and we established the possibility of criminal liability for senior financial services staff. It was argued at the time that that would be highly damaging to UK financial services and that people would be unwilling to take on directorships and risk roles. I think we can all see clearly that those concerns were unfounded. Some might even say, “Well, tech firms would say that, wouldn’t they?”. The likelihood of a criminal prosecution will always be low, but the key difference is that in the future tech managers, instead of waking up each day thinking only about business targets, will wake up thinking, “Have I done enough to protect children, as I meet my business targets?”. I am sure we can agree that that would be a very good thing.

Secondly, there are those who argue that inward investment to the UK’s tech sector would be killed off by this move, and that would indeed be a concern. The UK tech sector leads in Europe, and at the end of 2022 it retained its position as the main challenger to the US and China. Fast-growing UK tech companies have continued to raise near-record levels of investment—more than France and Germany combined. The sector employs 3 million people across the UK and continues to thrive. So it is absolutely right that Ministers take seriously the concerns of these major employers.

However, I think we can look to Ireland as a good example of a successful tech hub where investment has not stopped as a result of strong accountability laws. The Irish Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 carries a similar criminal responsibility to the one proposed in new clause 2, yet Ireland remains a successful tech hub in the European Union.

Online Safety Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I commend the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) on her work in this important area. I would like to focus my remarks on legal but harmful content and its relationship to knife crime, and to mention a very harrowing and difficult constituency case of mine. As we have heard, legal but harmful content can have a truly dreadful effect. I pay tribute to the families of the children who have been lost, who have attended the debate, a number of whom are still in the Public Gallery.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Just to be clear, the hon. Gentleman’s speech must relate to the amendments before us today.

[Matt Rodda]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. A boy called Olly Stephens in my constituency was just 13 years old when he was stabbed and brutally murdered in an attack linked to online bullying. He died, sadly, very near his home. His parents had little idea of the social media activity in his life. It is impossible to imagine what they have been through. Our hearts go out to them.

Harmful but legal content had a terrible effect on the attack on Olly. The two boys who attacked and stabbed him had been sharing enormous numbers of pictures and videos of knives, repeatedly, over a long period of time. There were often videos of teenagers playing with knives, waving them or holding them. They circulated them on 11 different social media platforms over a long period of time. None of those platforms took any action to take the content down. We all need to learn more about such cases to fully understand the impact of legal but harmful content. Even at this late stage, I hope that the Government will think again about the changes they have made to the Bill and include this area again in the Bill.

There is a second aspect of this very difficult case that I want to mention: the fact that Olly’s murder was discussed on social media and was planned to some extent beforehand. The wider issues here underline the need for far greater regulation and moderation of social media, in particular teenagers’ use of these powerful sites. I am finding it difficult to talk about some of these matters, but I hope that the Government will take my points on board and address the issue of legal but harmful content, and that the Minister will think again about these important matters. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to discuss it in the Bill’s later stages.

[Adam Afriyie]

I am pleased to follow my fairly close neighbour from Berkshire, the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda). He raised the issue of legal but harmful content, which I will come to, as I address some of the amendments before us.

I very much welcome the new shape and focus of the Bill. Our primary duty in this place has to be to protect children, above almost all else. The refocusing of the Bill certainly does that, and it is now in a position where hon. Members from all political parties recognise that it is so close to fulfilling its function that we want it to get through this place as quickly as possible with today’s amendments and those that are forthcoming in the Lords and elsewhere in future weeks.

The emerging piece of legislation is better and more streamlined. I will come on to further points about legal but harmful, but I am pleased to see that removed from the Bill for adults and I will explain why, given the sensitive case that the hon. Member for Reading East mentioned. The information that he talked about being published online should be illegal, so it would be covered by the Bill. Illegal information should not be published and, within the framework of the Bill, would be taken down quickly. We in this place should not shirk our responsibilities; we should make illegal the things that we and our constituents believe to be deeply harmful. If we are not prepared to do that, we cannot say that some other third party has a responsibility to do it on our behalf and we are not going to have anything to do with it, and they can begin to make the rules, whether they are a commercial company or a regulator without those specific powers.

I welcome the shape of the Bill, but some great new clauses have been tabled. New clause 16 suggests that we should make it an offence to encourage self-harm, which is fantastic. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has indicated that he will not press it to a vote, because the Government and all of us acknowledge that that needs to be dealt with at some point, so hopefully an amendment will be forthcoming in the near future.

On new clause 23, it is clear that if a commercial company is perpetrating an illegal act or is causing harm, it should pay for it, and a proportion of that payment must certainly support the payments to victims of that crime or breach of the regulations. New clauses 45 to 50 have been articulately discussed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). The technology around revenge pornography and deepfakes is moving forward every day. With some of the fakes online today, it is not possible to tell that they are fakes, even if they are looked at under a microscope. Those areas need to be dealt with, but it is welcome that she will not necessarily press the new clauses to a vote, because those matters must be picked up and defined in primary legislation as criminal acts. There will then be no lack of clarity and we will not need the legal but harmful concept—that will not need to exist. Something will either be illegal, because it is harmful, or not.

The Bill is great because it provides a framework that enables everything else that hon. Members in the House and people across the country may want to be enacted at a future date. It also enables the power to make those judgments to remain with this House—the democratically elected representatives of the people—rather than some grey bureaucratic body or commercial company whose primary interest is rightly to make vast sums of money for its shareholders. It is not for them to decide; it is for us to decide what is legal and what should be allowed to be viewed in public.

On amendment 152, which interacts with new clause 11, I was in the IT industry for about 15 to 20 years before coming to this place, albeit with a previous generation of technology. When it comes to end-to-end encryption, I am reminded of King Canute, who said, “I’m going to pass a law so that the tide doesn’t come in.” Frankly, we cannot pass a law that bans mathematics, which is effectively what we would be trying to do if we tried to ban encryption. The nefarious types or evildoers who want to hide their criminal activity will simply use mathematics to do that, whether in mainstream social media companies or through a nefarious route. We have to be careful about getting rid of all the benefits of secure end-to-end encryption for democracy, safety and protection from domestic abuse—all the good things that we want in society—on the basis of a tiny minority of very bad people who need to be caught. We should not be seeking to ban encryption; we should be seeking to catch those criminals, and there are ways of doing so.

I welcome the Bill; I am pleased with the new approach and I think it can pass through this House swiftly if we stick together and make the amendments that we need. I have had conversations with the Minister about what I am asking for today: I am looking for an assurance that the Government will enable further debate and table the amendments that they have suggested. I also hope that they will be humble, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) said, and open to some minor adjustments, even to the current thinking, to make the Bill pass smoothly through the Commons and the Lords.

I would like the Government to confirm that it is part of their vision that it will be this place, not a Minister of State, that decides every year—or perhaps every few months, because technology moves quickly—what new offences need to be identified in law. That will mean that Ofcom and the criminal justice system can get on to that quickly to ensure that the online world is a safer place for our children and a more pleasant place for all of us.

Online Safety Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I will come on to some of those issues. My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

I fear the Government’s current solution to the balance between free speech and regulation will please no one and takes us down an unhelpful rabbit hole. Some believe the Bill will stifle free speech, with platforms over-zealously taking down legitimate political and other views. In response, the Government have put in what they consider to be protections for freedom of speech and have committed to setting out an exhaustive list of “legal but harmful” content, thus relying almost entirely on a “take down content” approach, which many will still see as Government overreach.

On the other hand, those who want harmful outcomes addressed through stronger regulation are left arguing over a yet-to-be-published list of Government-determined harmful content. This content-driven approach moves us in the wrong direction away from the “duty of care” principles the Bill is supposed to enshrine. The real solution is a systems approach based on outcomes, which would not only solve the free speech question, but make the Bill overall much stronger.

What does that mean in practice? Essentially, rather than going after individual content, go after the business models, systems and policies that drive the impact of such harms—[Interruption.] The Minister for Security and Borders, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), says from a sedentary position that that is what the Bill does, but none of the leading experts in the field think the same. He should talk to some of them before shouting at me.

The business models of most social media companies are currently based on engagement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) outlined. The more engagement, the more money they make, which rewards controversy, sensationalism and fake news. A post containing a racist slur or anti-vax comment that nobody notices, shares or reads is significantly less harmful than a post that is quickly able to go viral. A collective pile-on can have a profoundly harmful effect on the young person on the receiving end, even though most of the individual posts would not meet the threshold of harmful.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Lucy Powell]

I will not, sorry. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who I had the privilege of meeting, cited many examples to the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill of Facebook’s models and algorithms making things much worse. Had the Government chosen to follow the Joint Committee recommendations for a systems-based approach rather than a content-driven one, the Bill would be stronger and concerns about free speech would be reduced.

Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I support the Joint Committee’s work, and I am grateful to the Chair, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and the members of the Committee for their efforts in this important area.

I would like to raise the case of a young boy from Reading, Olly Stephens, who was killed in a most brutal attack, a knifing, in a park where he was lured through social media. I hope to set out some of the concerns of his family and our local community about this dreadful crime.

I pay tribute to Olly. He was just 13 when he died, and he had his whole life ahead of him. He was a livewire at school and a likable boy. It is simply impossible to imagine what his parents and his family are going through. It is now a year since he passed away, and they had a memorial service at the beginning of January that was incredibly moving and very difficult. My heart and the hearts of people in the local community go out to the Stephens family at this incredibly difficult time.

I thank Stuart and Amanda Stephens and, indeed, the community as a whole for their campaigning work to try to raise awareness of knife crime—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you. And to raise awareness of the connection between knife crime and social media.

The background to the attack and the way in which it involved social media is very clear and quite shocking. First, Olly met the two boys who killed him online—that was the connection between them. Secondly, and most crucially of all, he was lured to the park where he was stabbed. A girl sent him a message online asking him to come to the park. She had separately messaged other young people asking someone to stab Olly. This was on a social media platform, and you can imagine how awful it is.

The third point that is important for us to consider today is that the boys who killed Olly—they were very young teenagers—were using 11 different social media platforms, and they were sharing images of knives. Imagine teenagers flicking and playing with knives in their bedroom, videoing it and putting that shocking content up on social media. None of those 11 platforms took down that content. That is the level we are talking about, which is why I urge the Minister particularly to address the connection between knife crime and social media. I am sure he will respond on that point.

Once again, and I hope the Minister will be able to reply in detail, I call for action from the Government on behalf of Olly’s parents and on behalf of the local community in Reading and Woodley. I know some of these points are in the report, but I would particularly like the Minister to address the importance of age restrictions, the importance of ending anonymity online and the importance of forcing companies to take down harmful content. How can it be right that powerful and very wealthy companies are allowed to put clearly dangerous content online, such as content featuring knives, and not take it down immediately?

Finally and crucially, because this was apparently also a factor in the case, we must ensure that companies co-operate with the police. I want to look into this further, but I understand it is possible that the social media company where the message was shared inciting this criminal act did not fully co-operate with the police. I want to hear more about it, but I understand that is a possibility. I therefore ask the Minister also to ensure that companies operating in the UK are regulated in the UK, so that we can protect our young people from this dreadful form of crime.

In conclusion, I am grateful to the Chair of the Joint Committee and his team for their work on this important matter, and I also thank the Minister and my colleague the shadow Minister for their work. I hope that we can now move forward together to tackle this awful abuse and other forms of crime.

Digital Infrastructure, Connectivity and Accessibility

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt). I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) on securing this important debate.

During the course of the pandemic, three things have become apparent. First, relationships really matter. The inability to connect with family, friends and co-workers is what we all miss most in the restrictions that most of the country is living under. Digital connectivity has helped those who are able to access online connections to keep those relationships going, even if it is not in reality a perfect substitute.

Secondly, the health of our economy and the health of our people go hand in hand. They are completely inseparable. If we want a strong and healthy economy, we need to invest in our people. Thirdly, the Conservative manifesto has gone out of the window. We heard powerfully from the right hon. Member for Tatton about how the commitment made in the manifesto only last December has been watered down in this crucial area of public investment. The choices and priorities of the Government risk entrenching inequality between rich and poor, deepening division between north and south and, as a result, and perhaps most appallingly of all, costing us as a country far more in the long run.

Excellent points have been made about the need to invest in our infrastructure—in cables and connections—but I want to talk about people: the 9 million people aged over 15 who cannot use the internet independently; the 23% of children in the poorest families who do not have access to broadband and a laptop, desktop or tablet; and the four in 10 claiming benefits who lack the essential digital life skills they need for everyday life and, crucially, for finding the employment opportunity they desperately want. Challenges have been writ large during the pandemic, but they were there before. One of the great lessons of the pandemic is that our failure to invest has left people more exposed to it than they would otherwise have been.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a truly excellent speech highlighting a number of very important points, which, indeed, other hon. Members have also made. Does he agree that a crucial part of this is for there to be more enforcement and more action taken against poorly performing companies that fail to provide the high-quality service that customers now expect and demand in so many other walks of life?

[Wes Streeting]

I strongly agree. Most of my speech this afternoon will be challenging the Government on the steps that they need to take to get the very best service and life opportunities for our people, but there are things that many of these companies can do. Let us be honest: for all the challenges we see in our high streets and communities and the plight of the millions of people who have been excluded from any support from Government, there are a number of companies that have done pretty well, none the less, during the pandemic and which have operated not just with business as usual, but have profited enormously because of the opportunities that have been presented to them as a result of other people’s misery. Those companies should not be criticised for turning a profit or providing services, or for doing well, but it is reasonable to ask those that have done particularly well to play an active role in supporting others in our society and to live up to their corporate social responsibility.

Our failure to invest before the pandemic has left people more exposed than they would otherwise be. We have seen that with the situation in our care homes and the failure to grasp the nettle of social care reforms, which have left many people more dangerously exposed than they would otherwise have been. In this particular area, the failure to invest in the digital skills of our people has meant that disconnection and the digital divide have made some people’s experience of this pandemic even more miserable and hopeless than that of others. I really deplore the fact that education has been an afterthought during this recession, that it took so long for the Department for Education to pull its finger out and get laptops to pupils who need them, and that many schools and pupils are still waiting for laptops and had to go off before receiving any device. No thought has been given to their parents and the fact that many of them lack the digital skills to support their children. Adult education and adult skills barely get a mention from this Government, and we are scrapping really great programmes such as Unionlearn that provide basic skills to workers who desperately need them.

This is not just an issue of general fairness. Class inequality is built into this, in terms of the poorest households, as is the north-south divide. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they have to invest not just in infrastructure and places, but in people. I strongly endorse what the Good Things Foundation has said. A great digital catch-up is desperately needed, but I hope that the Minister will have something better to say than what the Chancellor said barely a week or two ago.

Gambling Advertising in Sport

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. I appreciate the point he is making about gambling being a legal activity. One thing that struck me in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), which was so eloquent and detailed, was the sheer, overwhelming presence of gambling advertising, particularly when it comes to young and vulnerable people. My son, who is now at university, used to play FIFA20, or its predecessors. Many children do, and the fact that this advertising is accessible to children is deeply worrying. It is also worrying that it is so ubiquitous at sports grounds, where young people are bombarded by it. Will the Minister say something about the way in which the Government could scale back the level of advertising?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He may be tempting me to pre-empt the conclusions of the gambling review that we will be conducting, and I will say more about it later. However, that review will be forthcoming—it was in the manifesto—and we will all have plenty of opportunity to look further into these issues. I cannot say too much more on the specifics at the moment, but I understand the point he is making.

It is true that operators are spending far more on advertising. Research has indicated that operators have increased their spend on advertising and marketing significantly in recent years. It would be easy to assume that that has led to increased rates of gambling or of problem gambling, but, according to the Gambling Commission, the percentage of those who gambled in the last year was 47%, which was 1% less than the percentage who gambled in 2016, and rates of problem gambling have remained relatively steady, at below 1% for the past 20 years. Before the hon. Member for Swansea East intervenes, as I know she will on that point, let me say that that is too high—that is one thing we agree on. We continue to keep a careful eye on the evidence, but more advertising does not seem to lead to more people gambling or more people suffering from gambling problems.

However, there are clearly legitimate concerns about problem gambling. I am pleased that the industry has listened to concerns, such as those raised by the hon. Lady, and has acted to some extent: it has extended existing restrictions on pre-watershed advertising to include live sport—the so-called “whistle-to-whistle ban” that she mentioned.

Protecting children and other vulnerable people from gambling harms is a priority for the Government. Gambling advertising, like alcohol, is already governed by strict rules to ensure that it is not targeted at children and is not of particular appeal to them. Where advertising breaches these rules, the commission can and does take action.

We know that millions of people gamble each year and that nearly 7% of the population bet on sport last year. Most of those people will suffer no harm, but gambling does carry risks. That is why, as part of the last gambling review that took place between 2016 and 2018, we secured a commitment from industry to fund a multimillion-pound safer gambling advertising campaign to highlight the risks and encourage safer gambling behaviours.

Of course, advertising is not the whole story; sponsorship is an important source of income for sporting teams and bodies, as the hon. Member for Swansea East mentioned. The Gambling Commission has been clear that operators must undertake their sponsorship activities in a socially responsible way. The FA has strict rules about the size and placement of operator logos and has taken action when those have been breached. Logos cannot feature on shirts worn by youth team players and on merchandising, including shirts in children’s sizes. Paddy Power’s stunt with Huddersfield led to the FA fining the club.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady is making a fair point and, as I said, I am sure that all these things will be considered in the gambling review. The remit of the review has not yet been scoped, but she will have strong opinions on it—of that I have no doubt.

[Matt Rodda]

The Minister is being extremely gracious to other Members in giving way. Perhaps the review might consider the family nature of watching sport in Britain because, in many cases, families are going to football or to other sport together, and the adults and children are wearing replica shirts together. They are watching the team together, so the presence of the gambling logo is ubiquitous—it is everywhere. I hope that he can address that issue in his review and take it very seriously, because it is easy for children to inadvertently be exposed to logos or attractive advertising, which can affect their perception of gambling very seriously.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. One of the great joys of sport is that it can be a family activity, and we want to minimise any dangers that can be the unintended consequences of participating or observing those activities.

The gambling industry has committed to developing and adopting a new code of conduct for sponsorship activities by the end of 2020. We and the Gambling Commission will be reviewing its efforts closely to ensure that they go far enough. As I have mentioned, we have committed to reviewing the Gambling Act 2005 to make sure that it is fit for the digital age. We will announce further details in due course, but I assure the hon. Member for Swansea East that the Government and the Gambling Commission will not put our work to minimise harm on hold while the review takes place. We will always act on the evidence to prevent harm.

We have already delivered on our manifesto commitment to ban credit card gambling, and we have made it mandatory for operators to be part of GAMSTOP, the national online self-exclusion scheme.