Online Safety Bill (Programme) (No. 4)

Debate between Michelle Donelan and Margaret Hodge

Programme motion
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Michelle Donelan)]

I beg to move,

That the following provisions shall apply to the Online Safety Bill for the purpose of varying and supplementing the Order of 19 April 2022 in the last session of Parliament (Online Safety Bill: Programme) as varied by the Orders of 12 July 2022 (Online Safety Bill: Programme (No.2)) and today (Online Safety Bill: Programme (No.3)).

Re-committal

(1) The Bill shall be re-committed to a Public Bill Committee in respect of the following Clauses and Schedules—

(a) in Part 3, Clauses 11 to 14, 17 to 20, 29, 45, 54 and 55 of the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(b) in Part 4, Clause 64 of, and Schedule 8 to, the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(c) in Part 7, Clauses 78, 81, 86, 89 and 112 of, and Schedule 11 to, the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(d) in Part 9, Clause 150 of the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(e) in Part 11, Clause 161 of the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(f) in Part 12, Clauses 192, 195 and 196 of the Bill as amended in Public Bill Committee;

(g) New Clause [Repeal of Part 4B of the Communications Act: transitional provision etc], if it has been added to the Bill, and New Schedule [Video-sharing platform services: transitional provision etc], if it has been added to the Bill.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee on re-committal

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee on re-committal shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 15 December 2022.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration following re-committal and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration following re-committal shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration following re-committal.

I know that colleagues across the House have dedicated a huge amount of time to getting the Bill to this point, especially my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who unfortunately could not be with us today. I thank everybody for their contributions through the pre-legislative scrutiny and passage and for their engagement with me since I took office. Since then, the Bill has been my No. 1 priority.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Member not agree that it is regrettable that her junior Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)—failed to acknowledge in his winding-up speech that there had been any contributions to the debate on Report from Labour Members?

[Michelle Donelan]

As the right hon. Member will note, the Minister had to stop at a certain point and he had spoken for 45 minutes in his opening remarks. I think that he gave a true reflection of many of the comments that were made tonight. The right hon. Member will also know that all the comments from Opposition Members are on the parliamentary record and were televised.

The sooner that we pass the Bill, the sooner we can start protecting children online. This is a groundbreaking piece of legislation that, as hon. Members have said, will need to evolve as technology changes.