Online Safety Bill

Debate between Miriam Cates and Dean Russell

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the work of charities such as Dignify in Watford, where Helen Roberts does incredible work in raising awareness of this issue, is essential to ensuring that people are aware of the harm that can be done?

[Miriam Cates]

I completely agree. Other charities, such as CEASE—the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation —and Barnardo’s have been mentioned in the debate, and I think it so important to raise awareness. There are many harms in the internet, but pornography is an epidemic. It makes up a third of the material on the internet, and its impact on children cannot be overstated. Many boys who watch porn say that it gives them ideas about the kind of sex that they want to try. It is not surprising that a third of child sexual abuse is committed by other children. During puberty—that very important period of development—boys in particular are subject to an erotic imprint. The kind of sex that they see and the sexual ideas that they have during that time determine what they see as normal behaviour for the rest of their lives. It is crucial for children to be protected from harmful pornography that encourages the objectification and abuse of—almost always—women.

International Men’s Day

Debate between Miriam Cates and Dean Russell

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he does, especially on physical attributes and ensuring that people do not feel that they should be attacked online because of their body image. I agree—this is not only about surrounding oneself with role models, but about someone feeling as though they can be the best version of themselves. We often see that challenge. We are potentially creating a society, partly through online media, that shapes people to be something that they are not. They can use digital tools to change the way that they look online, but they then compare themselves in the mirror to that unrealistic ideal.

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He is talking about the negative impact of social media and pile-ons online, and so on. Does he agree that the more time that boys, in particular, spend online, the less time they spend offline in the physical presence of other young men and boys, doing things like climbing trees, taking appropriate risks, and doing things that will improve their mental and physical health much more than they will sitting in their bedroom alone on the internet?

[Dean Russell]

My hon. Friend makes an important point; she understands this area very well and has done incredible work in this space. I agree 100%—there is, of course, a place for digital, social media and the internet, but if that becomes the world in which someone exists, that has to be a bad thing. Girls climb trees, too, and boys can climb trees with girls, but this is about going out into the real world and spending real time with real people, learning social cues and understanding the challenges that one faces. People can learn about rejection in the real world and in the virtual world, but they learn how to deal with it with friends and by talking about that.

To come back to a point that I made in my maiden speech, I often use an acronym HOPE, which stands for Help One Person Everyday. Sometimes that one person has to be ourselves. We sometimes have to be able to say, “Look, I need to go to speak to somebody about how I’m feeling. I need to go to the pub on a Friday night and have a laugh with my friends. I need to chat about stuff that has been challenging me or issues that I have and not feel like I have to keep all that inside.”

I will start to conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am conscious that there will not be many more speeches, but I will not speak for the full hour that we have left, although you know that I probably could. I want to mention a couple of important points about suicide, which has been discussed. Men are invariably more likely to take their lives than women. That is a saddening statistic and it is the same around the world. In the UK, we have to try to stop this. It is not just about speaking to people, but about making sure that the network exists. Also, for those who have gone through that process and have, sadly, got to the point of perhaps trying to take their lives, it is about making sure that they have long-term support. I ask the Minister to make sure that we have the mental health support for young people and everyone alike, so that people have long-term support to get through the challenging times. I visited the Samaritans in Watford recently, and found that they do incredible work in ensuring that they are at the end of the telephone line for somebody—and, of course, there is anonymity to ensure that they are supported.

I am particularly proud of the fact that this is one of Hertfordshire County Council’s top priorities. It wants to create a county that is suicide-free, and I want to create a country that is suicide-free, but we can only do that by talking about it. We can only do it if each one of us, in each of our constituencies, says that we need to make this a top priority. We need to save lives, we need to change lives, and we need to make sure that the next generation knows this is important.

Let me end by repeating a statement that I made last time I spoke on International Men’s Day. I want to remind everyone who is watching the debate that they should ask others if they are OK—not just once, not just twice, but every time they see them. They should also ask themselves, “Am I really OK?” By doing that, we can ensure that we have a society that cares and people can be signposted to the help that they need, but also ensure that we really do deliver a compassionate country that saves lives, changes lives, and gives people the ability to be the best that they can be.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Miriam Cates and Dean Russell

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 14th January 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Dean Russell]

Q Thank you, Chair. I would like to understand more how the diversification strategy that accompanies this Bill will benefit you as an organisation and the public.

Alex Towers: I think we see long term that diversification of vendors would be good for the operators in the marketplace if we can get to that point. It is important to say, I suppose, as the other operators were doing earlier on, that we are not at that point right now, so we are having to manage a situation where with the market as it stands we have a small number of very large-scale, important vendors and suppliers and we are having to remove one of them, clearly, from the 5G marketplace. That creates a degree of complexity and engineering difficulty that we need to just work our way through; so there is a lot of work to do just to manage within the current market framework to replace Huawei and to bring Nokia and Ericsson to the point we want. While we are doing that, if we can at the same time create the prospects of, in the longer term, a more open marketplace with a wider range of vendors—with other-scale vendors that do not quite work at the minute in the UK market, and Howard could probably explain exactly why that is, as well as with the potential for open RAN and other types of technology and software-based models to be developed—that is good for the whole industry and could be good for UK jobs and potential UK companies and therefore also for the citizen.

Howard Watson: I certainly welcome the Government’s supply chain diversification initiative here. It is concerning that we are moving from, essentially, three suppliers in the mobile supply chain down to only two. Our network going forward will use both of those. So widening that choice over time, for all the operators in the UK, is I think a critical opportunity. Please bear in mind that most operators quite like to have a primary source and a second source. It is unlikely that we will all start deploying equipment from four or five different vendors, because the operational challenge of the person in the van maintaining that tends to limit you to a choice of two; but being able to choose two from six is a lot better than choosing two from two, of course.

We welcome the three initiatives, which I will summarise. The first is whether we can we encourage Samsung, NEC and other large vendors who build mobile networks elsewhere to enter the UK market. The second is open RAN and it really just creates through more open standards the ability to have more players in that end-to-end solution. The third area really is to have a thriving research agenda for the UK. We really welcome the £250 million allocated in the recent spending review. We already have a thriving research capability in the UK and I think continuing to focus that on antenna design, optoelectronics and semiconductors will have a role to play in diversification going forward.

[Miriam Cates]

Q You have said in your written evidence that you fully support the objectives of the Bill, to improve security in the networks, but 20 years ago we could not possibly have anticipated the kind of threats that we face today, so it is safe to assume that we cannot perceive the kind of threats that we will face in the future. Do you think that the Bill is wide-ranging and flexible enough for the Government to be able to respond to future threats and, if not, what could be done to make it more future-proof?

Howard Watson: I actually think the structure of the Bill accommodates that quite well. It allows secondary legislation and guidelines to be upgraded. We note the critical role of the National Cyber Security Centre working with Government in doing that. I think, actually, you have taken care of that well with the way the Bill is structured.

Alex Towers: Yes, I would completely agree with that. I suppose our concern, slightly, at the minute, is to see some of the detail that is going to sit underneath the Bill in terms of a code of practice, in particular, and secondary legislation, because that is where it will become clear exactly what the implications are for operators. The sooner we can see some of that detail and get into the teeth of that, that would be great; but the way the Bill is structured, to allow that sort of detail to be updated on a regular basis as the world changes around us, seems totally sensible.