Online Safety Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

On age reassurance, does the Minister not see a weakness? Lots of children and young people are far more sophisticated than many of us in the Chamber and will easily find a workaround, as they do now. The onus is being put on the children, so the Bill is not increasing regulation or the safety of those children.

[Paul Scully]

As I said, the social media platforms will have to put in place robust age assurance and age verification for material in an accredited form that is acceptable to Ofcom, which will look at that.

Tackling violence against women and girls is a key priority for the Government. It is unacceptable that women and girls suffer disproportionately from abuse online, and it is right that we go further to address that through the Bill. That is why we will name the commissioner for victims and witnesses and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner as statutory consultees for the code of practice and list “coercive or controlling behaviour” as a priority offence. That offence disproportionately affects women and girls, and that measure will mean that companies will have to take proactive measures to tackle such content.

Finally, we are making a number of criminal law reforms, and I thank the Law Commission for the great deal of important work that it has done to assess the law in these areas.