Broadband: Rural Communities

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to be called first from the Opposition side. I would say it is unique; it may not be all that unique, but that is by the way. I thank the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) for leading the debate so well. He set the scene well for his constituency; I will mirror what he said for my own, and others will do the same shortly. I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman has done to improve mobile and broadband connectivity for his constituents. Most of us here share the concern that some cannot access the same technological advances as others. This is very much a UK-wide issue, so it is great to be here to give a Northern Ireland perspective, as well as that of my constituents.

As the Minister will know, back in 2017 we had a deal with the Conservative party, through a confidence and supply motion, to deliver some £150 million of broadband across Northern Ireland. That secured the delivery of broadband to almost 90,000 rural premises across Northern Ireland. While others, namely Sinn Féin, postured and said that we did not need to do that, public money was spent on high-speed broadband for rural dwellers, and the intervention has been the most transformative investment for our rural economy since the electricity network was extended. We should never underestimate the importance of what happened at that time.

One of the most startling statistics of the past five years has been the fact that Northern Ireland, at 82% full-fibre broadband, is already well ahead of England at 67%, Scotland at 60% and Wales at 49%. The Republic of Ireland was way behind us at 40%. Maintaining current rates of progress until 2025 will see Northern Ireland becoming the first country in these islands in which availability reaches 99% of our premises. That is some of the good news. In my constituency of Strangford, we have had 5,000 homes upgraded, which is a massive boost for my constituency. It underlines the importance of what we did, so I publicly thank the Minister and our Government for the partnership we had at that time.

To update hon. Members on where we are now, in June 2023 the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland launched a public review aimed at improving broadband infrastructure, predominantly in rural areas, to catch up that 18% who do not have it yet. Many constituents who have been in touch with my office have been able to avail themselves of the scheme, but others are still unable to resolve the issue.

The public review is part of the planned implementation of Project Gigabit in Northern Ireland. Project Gigabit in the UK is the Government’s flagship £5 billion programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access lightning-fast gigabit-capable broadband. It is a commendable project by the Government here, and one that I welcome because I see the benefits; I am sure we will see more benefits shortly. In addition, members of the public, businesses, groups, organisations, telecoms infrastructure providers were able to avail themselves of the scheme, but thus far I am aware of a few instances where businesses are struggling to regain better connection.

I will give an example. I spoke to the Minister beforehand about this and gave him a letter along these lines just last week: I am currently dealing with an issue for a constituent whose business is on a rural road in Saintfield, a village in my constituency. I have sent numerous emails to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I handed the case to the Minister through the Whip. Indeed, I have spoken to the Minister.

On this rural road, cables, fittings and nodes have been secured to permit the extension of sufficient broadband to this area. It is frustrating to have all that stuff in place when all we need to do is make that last connection, and then that business will be up and running. The work was halted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and my constituents have received little or no communication on the improvement of their broadband. I am hopeful that the Minister will help to resolve the issue for my constituents, and I know my hope and confidence in him will not be misplaced, but the damage and the hassle for local businesses are extremely destructive to people’s livelihoods.

Another example of where we need to improve relates to card payments and the sending of digital invoices and receipts. Cards are often not charged and there are delays in the processing of payments, which poses an inconvenience for customers and business owners. When broadband is poor, emails with digital receipts will not send properly and online orders cannot be made efficiently. That creates more issues for local businesses, given that we encourage people to invest in them daily. I look again to the Minister, who always responds positively and grasps the issues that we put to him. I am confident that his answers will reinforce my faith in him. I ask him to look at the cases I have mentioned, and I would be grateful if he expedited any work on them for the betterment of my constituents’ businesses.

Many farmers in my constituency—others will probably say this as well—keep track of livestock through online apps. Given that there is so much rural theft, that is to be encouraged, and I encourage it in my constituency. To ensure that the agricultural industry can thrive, we must ensure that rural connectivity is made a priority. Doing so will benefit the local economy, which agriculture plays such an important role in making successful. Like the constituency of the hon. Member for West Dorset, my constituency of Strangford has seen many large high-street bank closures in the past couple of months. In the past couple of years, 11 banks have closed in my constituency, which has meant a huge shift to online banking.

I am conscious that others wish to speak; I want to give them equal time to contribute, so I will conclude. For rural constituents, online and telephone banking are more or less their main ways of accessing banking services. If decisions are being taken to close banks, we must ensure that consideration is given to having the best possible broadband and mobile signal. I am confident that we can achieve that, and I look forward to it. Again, I ask the Minister to chase up the constituency case that I mentioned and to keep in contact with my office. He has already given me that commitment, and I am quite sure that that will happen.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Thank you. That was just the amount of time that I had in mind: seven minutes. I call Selaine Saxby.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

No, it is not a good excuse and that is not a very good argument to make.

I concur with the point made by the hon. Member for Meon Valley about the head of Openreach. It is important that major corporations, which broadly speaking have not far off a monopoly position in the UK, respond to Members of Parliament as swiftly and directly as possible and do not simply pass the buck. The hon. Lady also made a very good point about the need for better co-operation between all the different operators in this field, because now, with all the “old-nets”—I fully support competition within the market—there is a danger, which I will discuss a little later, that if there is not co-operation there will be a complete and utter muddle.

I think I have heard some of the speech by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) before, too, and again I commend him for repetition; it is not something ever to complain about in politics. He made two really important points. The first was that being isolated is a dangerous place to be in the modern world. If we think about an elderly person who relies on mobile connectivity to connect to her relatives, who might be on the other side of the world, or to healthcare providers, that is evident, and the point is extremely well made. He also made a point about hill farmers. Funnily enough, when I had a farm in the Rhondda, which was on a hill, I had the best connectivity I have ever had, but that was purely and simply because the mast was almost immediately opposite my house.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) made a very important point about Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or DVLA services no longer being available in post offices. Soon, my constituency will no longer have a bank at all—no bank whatsoever. Of course lots of people are using digital banking services today, but sometimes it is necessary for someone to go physically to a bank, to prove their identity and so on. Banks will need to go a considerable further distance to make some things available online that currently people cannot do online; because of the distances involved in travelling in rural areas, the present situation is simply problematic. However, even if that happens, people need full access to a broadband connection; otherwise, they are simply unable to continue their business.

I think that Vintage Ghetto is the hon. Lady’s business, or perhaps one of her businesses; I do not know. Vintage Ghetto has some very fine things online, if anybody wants to go shopping before Christmas. However, I simply note that it will be difficult for people to pursue that kind of business, which many people in rural areas now do, without having a really strong broadband connection.

Finally, there was the contribution by the hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan). I would have laid a bet that he would refer to what the Scottish Government have done and condemn the Westminster Government for not doing what the Scottish Government have done. I could point out that the Welsh Government have often intervened in the same way in Wales to address some of the problems that we have in rural areas. However, the truth is that we need a whole-UK answer to all these issues, and I will give some of the reasons why in a moment.

Broadband is not just important in rural areas but absolutely vital—for building or growing a business; for running a farm or, for that matter, diversifying an agricultural business, for instance by allowing tourism; for doing homework or, for that matter, doing university study; for providing healthcare and local services; and, frankly, for growing up, by allowing children to talk to their friends online, play a video game or download a film.

Members have talked a lot about the haves and the have-nots in this field. Members may not be aware that the phrase “haves and have-nots” originally comes from “Don Quixote”. It is when Sancho Panza says:

“There are two kinds of people in this world, my grandmother used to say—the haves and the have-nots. And she stuck to the haves. And today, Señor Don Quixote, people are more interested in having than in knowing. An ass covered with gold makes a better impression than a horse with a packsaddle.”

I quote that extract because one of my concerns about the way that we are developing in relation to broadband and digital connectivity in this country is that we get a bit too focused on the “having” rather than on the “using”. Indeed, my biggest concern as an MP who represents one of the poorest constituencies not only in the UK but in Europe, is the affordability issue.

I have raised this issue in a previous debate and I know that the Minister has similar concerns. There are social tariffs. They are almost unknown to most of the people who might be able to take them up. One local council—maybe several councils now, but certainly Sunderland City Council wrote to everybody in its area about social tariffs. The council had the information on who qualifies for universal credit and who therefore qualifies for a social tariff, so it wrote to everybody concerned and that drove up the take-up of social tariffs. However, when 18% of poorer homes in the country—in my patch, I suspect the percentage is even higher—do not have any internet to home at all, even when superfast broadband or gigabit capability is available, that is going to be a long-term problem for levelling up, for all the reasons that the hon. Member for West Dorset gave earlier. It is not levelling up if people simply cannot afford to take something up.

Secondly, as several Members have said, many people are not taking up better connectivity, either because it is too expensive or because they simply do not understand what the benefit might be to them. When we and the industry bang on about gigabit-capable, megabits per second, superfast or fast broadband and all the rest of it, that is not a sell to an ordinary household. People want to know what they will be able to do that they could not do previously and therefore why they need it. There is a real marketing problem across the whole of the UK that we need to address if we really are to drive up take-up, otherwise the danger is that all the companies will be making massive investments but getting no return. That is when the whole situation may get into trouble.

I worry about the exclusion of certain areas and categories of people. I have asked the Minister this before and I ask him again: how are we doing on new contracts for Project Gigabit? When I asked him the last time we met, he said that more were going to be let in the next few months. It would be interesting to know precisely how that is going.

My other concern is this: competition is a really good thing, but not if it turns every street into the wild west. In just the last few weeks, in my own patch—particularly in Tonypandy, CF40—lots of different companies have been digging up the roads again and again. People are sick of it. It is happening not just in Kingston upon Hull but in lots of different places in the country. I worry that the system, through Ofcom’s powers, is not strong enough to ensure that there is proper co-operation. One complaint I had said:

“You will have seen road closures without relevant permissions being granted, poor reinstatement of pavements, mud-laden streets, poor communications with residents and tardy workmanship.”

I am fully in favour of companies such as Ogi rolling out gigabit-capable broadband in my patch, but I also want to see rational co-operation between the different organisations.

Finally, the Minister will know that the Government’s digital strategy is now more than a decade old. In fact, the online version has references to websites and programmes that no longer exist, so I think it is time for a new Government digital strategy. After the Government responded to the House of Lords digital exclusion report, Baroness Stowell, who is a Conservative Member of the House of Lords, said that the failure to come up with a new Government digital strategy

“suggests a reluctance to dedicate political attention and departmental resource to this matter”,

and the Communications and Digital Committee in the House of Lords said:

“The Government’s contention that digital exclusion is a priority is not credible.”

I therefore hope that the Government will announce today that they will start consultation on a new Government digital strategy.

I will end with some questions. I have asked these questions before, but the Minister did not answer them. Have I run out of time?

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

indicates assent.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I have run out of time. I asked them last time: perhaps the Minister will answer them this time.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution, particularly the opening part.

Online Harms

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds]

I agree. Some of those matters should be addressed in the Bill and some outside it, but my hon. Friend, whom I commend for all his work, particularly on pensions fraud and investment fraud, is absolutely right that as the balance in the types of crimes has shifted, the ways we resource ourselves and tool up to deal with them has to reflect that.

Could you give me an indication, Mr Dowd, of how many Members are speaking in this debate after me?

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

About eight to 10.

[Damian Hinds]

I shall accelerate in that case. The third area I want to mention, from my previous role as Security Minister, is disinformation. I welcome what is called the bridge that has been built between the Online Safety Bill and the National Security Bill to deal specifically with state-sponsored disinformation, which has become a tool of war. That probably does not surprise anybody, but I am afraid that, for states with a hostile intention, it can become, and is, a tool in peacetime. Quite often, it is not necessarily even about spreading untruths—believe it or not—but just about trying to wind people up and make them dislike one another more in an election, referendum or whatever it may be. This is important work.

Health disinformation, which we were exercised about during the coronavirus pandemic, is slated to be on the list of so-called legal but harmful harms, so the Bill would also deal with that. That brings me to my central point about the hardest part of this Bill: the so-called legal but harmful harms. I suggest that we actually call them “harmful but legal”, because that better captures their essence, as our constituents would understand it. It is a natural reaction when hearing about the Online Safety Bill, which will deal with stuff that is legal, to say, “Well, why is there a proposed law going through the British Parliament that tries to deal with things that are, and will stay, legal? We have laws to give extra protection to children, but adults should be able to make their own choices. If you start to interfere with that, you risk fundamental liberties, including freedom of speech.” I agree with that natural reaction, but I suggest that we have to consider a couple of additional factors.

First, there is no hard line between adults and children in this context. There is not a 100%—or, frankly, even 50%—reliable way of being able to tell who is using the internet and whether they are above or below age 18. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), among others, has been round the loop many times looking at age verification and so-called age assurance. It is very difficult. That is why a couple of weeks ago a piece of Ofcom research came out that found 32%—a third—of eight to 17-year-old social media users appear to be over 18. That is why a couple of weeks ago a piece of Ofcom research came out that found 32%—a third—of eight to 17-year-old social media users appear to be over 18. Why is that? Because it is commonplace for someone to sign up to TikTok or Snapchat with the minimum age of 13 when they are 10. They must give an age above 13 to be let in. Let us say that that age limit was set at 14; that means that when they are 14, it thinks they are 18—and so it carries on, all the way through life.

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the hon. Lady; I think her point stands on its own.

The second additional factor I want to put forward, which may sound odd, is that in this context there is not a hard line between what is legal and what is not. I mentioned emoji abuse. I am not a lawyer, still less a drafter of parliamentary legislation—there are those here who are—but I suggest it will be very hard to legislate for what constitutes emoji abuse in racism. Take something such as extremism. Extremist material has always been available; it is just that it used to be available on photocopied or carbon-copied sheets of paper. It was probably necessary to go to some draughty hall somewhere or some backstreet bookshop in a remote part of London to access it, and very few people did. The difference now is that the same material is available to everyone if they go looking for it; sometimes it might come to them even if they do not go looking for it. I think the context here is different.

This debate—not the debate we are having today, but the broader debate—is sometimes conducted in terms that are just too theoretical. People sometimes have the impression that we will allow these companies to arbitrarily take down stuff that is legal but that they just do not like—stuff that does not fit with their view of the world or their politics. On the contrary, the way the Bill has been drafted means that it will require consistency of approach and protect free speech.

I am close to the end of my speech, but let us pause for a moment to consider the sorts of things we are talking about. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) made a written ministerial statement setting out an indicative list of the priority harms for adults. They are abuse and harassment—not mere disagreement, but abuse and harassment—the circulation of real or manufactured intimate images without the subject’s consent; material that promotes self-harm; material that promotes eating disorders; legal suicide content; and harmful health content that is demonstrably false, such as urging people to drink bleach to cure cancer.

I suggest that when people talk about free speech, they do not usually mean those kinds of things; they normally mean expressing a view or being robust in argument. We have the most oppositional, confrontational parliamentary democracy in the world, and we are proud of our ability to do better, to make better law and hold people to account through that process, but that is not the same thing as we are talking about here. Moreover, there is a misconception that the Bill would ban those things; in fact, the Bill states only that a service must have a policy about how it deals with them. A helpful Government amendment makes it clear that that policy could be, “Well, we’re not dealing with it at all. We are allowing content on these things.”

There are also empowerment tools—my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) may say more about that later in relation to anonymity—but we want users to be in control. If there is this contractual relationship, where it is clearly set out what is allowed in this space and someone signs up to it, I suggest that enhances their freedoms as well as their rights.

I recognise that there are concerns, and it is right to consider them. It may be that the Bill can be tightened to reassure everybody, while keeping these important protections. That might be around the non-priority areas, which perhaps people consider to be too broad. There might also be value in putting the list of priority harms in the Bill, so that people are not concerned that this could balloon.

As I said at the start, the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, knows more about this than probably any other living human being. He literally works tirelessly on it and is immensely motivated, for all the right reasons. I have probably not said anything in the past 10 minutes that he did not already know. I know it is a difficult job to square the circle and consider these tensions.

My main message to the Minister and the Government is, with all the work that he and others have done, please let us get on with it. Let us get the Bill into law as soon as possible. If changes need to be made to reassure people, then absolutely let us make them, but most of all, let us keep up the momentum.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I would not have dreamed of interfering in your largesse, but I am pleased that you interfered in your own. Thank you very much.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. Many people will be watching who have taken a keen interest in the Online Safety Bill, which is an important piece of legislation, and the opportunities it offers to protect people from harmful, dangerous online content. I also welcome the Minister to his place. I am sure he will listen carefully to all the contributions.

My interest in the Bill is constituency based. I was approached by the family of a young man from my constituency called Joe Nihill, a popular former Army cadet who sadly took his own life at the age of 23 after accessing harmful online content related to suicide. Joe’s mother Catherine and sister-in-law Melanie have run an inspiring campaign, working with the Samaritans to ensure that the law is changed. In the note Joe left before he sadly took his life, he referred to such online content. One of his parting wishes was that what happened to him would not happen to others.

I want to ensure that the Minister and the Government take full opportunity of the Bill, so let me talk briefly about two amendments that might strengthen it. We want to protect people of all ages, and ensure that smaller online platforms as well as the larger ones are covered. Two related amendments have been tabled: amendment 159 by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and proposed new clause 16 by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I know that they are backed by the Samaritans and the inspiring campaigners from my constituency.

Amendment 159, relating to protecting people of all ages, addresses the point that clearly harmful suicide and self-harm content can be accessed by over-18s, and vulnerable people are not limited to those under 18 years of age. Joe Nihill was 23 when he sadly took his own life after accessing such content.

As it is currently drafted, the Bill’s impact assessment states that of the platforms in scope

“less than 0.001% are estimated to meet the Category 1 and 2A thresholds”.

It is estimated that only 20 platforms will be required to fulfil category 1 obligations. If the Bill is enacted in its current form, unamended, then smaller platforms, where some of the most harmful suicide and self-harm content can be found, will not even need to consider the risk that any harmful but legal content on their site poses to adult users. Amendment 159 presents a real opportunity for the Government to close a loophole and further improve the legislation to ensure that people of all ages are protected.

The issue is so relevant. Between 2011 and 2015, 151 people who died by suicide were known to have visited websites that encouraged suicide or shared information about methods of harm, and 82% of those people were over 25. The Government must retain regulation of harmful but legal content, but they should extend the coverage of the Bill to smaller platforms where some of the most harmful suicide and self-harm content can be found. I urge the Government to carefully consider and adopt amendment 159.

Finally on closing all the related loopholes in the Bill, new clause 16 tabled by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden would create a new communications offence of sending a message encouraging or assisting another person to self-harm. That offence is crucial to ensuring that the most harmful self-harm content is addressed on all platforms. As the Minister knows, Samaritans was pleased that the Government agreed in principle to create a new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm earlier this year. That new offence needs to be created in time to be part of this legislation from the outset. We do not want to miss this opportunity. The Law Commission has made recommendations in this regard.

I urge the Government to make sure that the Bill takes all possible opportunities. I know that the Minister is working hard on that, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire said. I plead with the Minister to accept amendment 159 and new clause 16, so that we do not miss the opportunity to ensure that people over 18 are protected by the legislation and that even the smaller platforms are covered.

The Bill, which will come back before the House next week, is a historic opportunity, and people across the country have taken a close interest in it. My two constituents, Catherine and Melanie, are very keen for the Government not to miss this opportunity. I know that the Minister takes it very seriously and I look forward to his response, which I hope will include reassuring words that the amendments on over-18s and smaller platforms will both be adopted when the Bill returns next week.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

The Front-Bench speeches will begin at 3.28 pm and quite a number of people still wish to speak. I will not impose a formal limit, but if Members could keep to three to four minutes that would be helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. Regrettably, I now have to impose a formal three-minute limit on speeches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Fell]

I thank my right hon. Friend for clarifying that for me—although I would be better off now had I been on the other side of the fence.

Fraud is at epidemic levels. Which? research recently found that six in 10 people who have been victims of fraud suffered significant mental health harms as a result. I use this example repeatedly in this place. In my past life I met, through a safeguarding group, an old lady who accessed the world through her landline telephone. She was scammed out of £20,000 or so through that phone, and then disconnected from the rest of the world afterwards because she simply could not trust that phone when it rang anymore.

We live in an increasingly interconnected world where we are pushing our services online. As we are doing that we cannot afford to be disconnecting people from the online world and taking away from them the services we are opening up to them. That is why it is essential to have vital protections against fraud and fraudulent adverts on some of the larger social platforms and search engines. I know it is out of the scope of this debate but, on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), that is also why it is crucial to fund the law enforcement agencies that go after the people responsible.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire is right: banks have a financial motivation to act on fraud. They are losing money. They have the incentive. Where that motivation is not there, and where there is a disincentive for organisations to act, as is especially the case with internet advertising, we have to move forward with the legislation and remove those disincentives.

On harms, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire is right to mention the harmful but legal. We have to act on this stuff and we have to do it quickly. We cannot stray away from the problems that currently exist online. I serve on the Home Affairs Committee and we have seen and examined the online hate being directed at footballers; the platforms are not acting on it, despite it being pointed out to them.

When it comes to disinformation and small, high-harm platforms—

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Luke Evans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, Mr Dowd. I follow a number of excellent speeches. The most excellent was from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). He said many of the things that I would say, which is just as well given the time constraint I face.

Many people have said that the Bill will be back on Tuesday. I do not expect the Minister to confirm the business for next week, but if it does not come back next Tuesday, we will have a difficulty. The delay to the Bill must be either because people in the Government believe that it can be made perfect, or because they believe that it can be made less difficult. Neither of those two things are possible.

The Bill will always be imperfect. However hard many of us have worked to get it there, it will never be perfect, and it needs to be brought forward anyway. If people think the Bill’s fundamental choices will become easier by the passage of time, they are fundamentally mistaken. This will always be a difficult set of choices, but those choices need to be made. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, when it comes to the most contentious part of the Bill—which is only about eight, nine or maybe 10 clauses of 190 or so—on what we shall now refer to as “harmful but legal” material, three things need to be understood by those who believe that that part of it is unacceptable.

First, as others have said, we should start with what the Bill actually says—always a good place to start. There is an important balancing duty on all platforms to protect freedom of speech, in addition to the duties they have to protect others from harm.

Secondly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, the platform is required to describe how it will handle harmful material; it is not required to remove that material automatically. That is not well understood. I would add that if the Government are to do any more work on the Bill, a definition of what is meant by harmful would be helpful and necessary.

We must understand that we regulate in other environments beyond the confines of the criminal law. The objective of this legislation has always been to create a more level playing field between the online world and every other world. We should remind ourselves that that is where the Bill starts and continues.

Thirdly, as my right hon. Friend also said, the status quo does not restrict the platforms from taking down whatever they like now. Anyone worried about freedom of speech should worry about the situation that we have today, not the situation that we will have under this legislation.

The fundamental point is that we have to get on with it. People have talked about the Bill being world leading, and it is, but we can only lead if we go first. Many others are also developing legislation. If we do not succeed in being world leading, we will miss an opportunity to set the standard in this legislation and regulation. Most importantly, we will let down our own citizens, who have a right to be kept safer online than they are.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

The right hon. Member for East Hampshire has indicated that he recuses himself from his closing remarks. I call Kirsty Blackman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Minister, can I just say that there may be votes very shortly? That means that we will be suspending the sitting and coming back, so if you can—

[Damian Collins]

Wrap it up in the next—

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Preferably.

[Damian Collins]

I will just touch on a couple of other points that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and other Members raised the point about the abuse of footballers. The abuse suffered by England footballers after the final of the European championship is a very good example. Some people have been charged and prosecuted for what they posted. It was a known-about risk; it was avoidable. The platform should have done more to stop it. This Bill will make sure that they do.

That shows that we have many offences where there is already a legal threshold, and we want them to be included in the regulatory systems. For online safety standards, it is important that the minimum thresholds are based on our laws. In the debate on “legal but harmful”, one of the key points to consider, and one that many Members have brought up, is what we base the thresholds on. To base them on the many offences that we already have written into law is, I think, a good starting point. We understand what those thresholds are. We understand what illegal activity is. We say to the platforms, “Your safety standards must, at a minimum, be at that level.” Platforms do go further in their terms of service. Most terms of service, if properly enforced, would deal with most of the sorts of content that we have spoken about. That is why, if the platforms are to enforce their terms of service properly, the provisions on traceability and accountability are so important. I believe that that will capture the offences that we need.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) rightly said—if I may paraphrase slightly—that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. There will always be new things that we wish to add and new offences that we have not yet thought about that we need to include, and the structure of the Bill creates the framework for that. In the future, Parliament can create new offences that can form part of the schedule of priority illegal offences. On priority harms, I would say that that is the stuff that the platforms have to proactively look for. Anything illegal could be considered illegal online, and the regulators could take action against it.

Let me finish by thanking all the Members here, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), another former Minister. A very knowledgeable and distinguished group of Members have taken part in this debate. Finally, I thank the officials at the Department. Until someone is actually in the Department, they can never quite know what work is being done—that is the nature of Government—but I know how personally dedicated those officials are to the Bill. They have all gone the extra mile in the work they are doing for it. For their sakes and all of ours, I want to make sure that we pass it as soon as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered online harms.

Women’s Elite Sport: Prize Money

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered prize money in women’s elite sport.

It is a pleasure, as ever, Sir Charles, to speak under your chairmanship. I am grateful to the Speaker for granting this debate on such an important subject at a critical time for women’s sport.

The issue of prize money in women’s sport featured quite prominently in a debate on women’s football that I led in this Chamber back in January, and it is great to see the Minister announce that there is to be a review into women’s football, as recommended in the fan-led review, the call for which I and many colleagues echoed in that debate. I am sure that the issue of prize money will be included in that. Taken alongside the news that the Women’s EURO taking place in England this summer and the women’s World Cup will be added to the listed events regime, it is a great time for women to be involved in sport. The Minister said in the previous debate that the Government were minded to agree to that change in the regime, so I am very glad that that has now been confirmed. Visibility is vital and I think that will go a long way towards improving women’s sport.

One of the other issues raised by colleagues in the debate was the difference in FA cup prize money that the women’s teams received in comparison with the men’s. At the time of the debate, the women’s competition received 2% of the total prize money received by the men. I am sure most people would be shocked by that. Even if we take into account the fact that around double the number of teams play in the men’s competition, the disparity was huge.

It was therefore extremely welcome that the FA announced two days after the debate that it was to raise the prize money for the women’s game tenfold. The final figure of rewards for the women’s FA cup is still only 20% of what the men get, but this is good progress and I must pay tribute to the FA for its swift action in increasing support for the women’s competition. The FA has already noted that the distribution of that money will be disproportionately directed towards the early stages of the competition, which will go a long way in supporting clubs that need that extra funding, given that some made a loss on their FA cup games in the past and many had to be crowdfunded in order to fulfil games in the event that they progressed further than their budget predicted. The FA has done some incredible work in growing the women’s game, and the increase in the women’s FA cup prize money will help put the money where the game needs it most.

While I start with the good news, I intend this debate to be on wider issues of equality in sport, not just football. I have long taken a keen interest in equal pay in sport, and given the work done by the Telegraph women’s sports team on the new Close The Gap campaign, I believe now is the right time to bring the matter forward. I must thank Anna Kessel, Jeremy Wilson, Molly McElwee, Fiona Tomas and Tom Garry for all their research on this area and their work in bringing the issue to light. The campaign was launched a few weeks ago with the support of incredible sports icons, including Dame Laura Kenny, Steph Houghton and Ian Wright, and it seeks to highlight the massive disparity in prize money awarded to men and women in elite sports, both in the UK and abroad. Jessica Ennis-Hill, who wrote in support of the campaign, said:

“We all tell our children that everyone is equal. I always say to my daughter, ‘Girls can do anything,’ and she says, ‘and boys can too!’ But one day they will go out into the big wide world and they will realise, ‘No, this isn’t actually equal, there is a big discrepancy.’”

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that financial support for young women’s teams, which sets the scene for later years, feeds into the very issue of inequity that she is talking about, and that funding for young women’s and girls’ football teams is crucial to setting the cultural scene?

[Julie Elliott]

Absolutely—and, as I have said, not just in football; this debate is happening across sport more widely. Unfortunately, that is where we are with sport.

Jessica Ennis-Hill went on to say:

“Many of us know the story of how tennis made huge strides around equal prize money, with Billie Jean King and Venus Williams, and others, lobbying for change, but you do not hear much about the discrepancies in other sports. It tends to go under the radar. Unless you are a diehard sports fan most of us probably are not aware how different the prize money scales are across different events. It is only when you take the time to delve into it, and look at the numbers. Then you cannot help but think it is just ridiculous.”

So let us look at the numbers. The men’s European championship in football, which was held in this country last year, saw the men awarded a total prize pot of some £335 million. The women’s European championship, which will be held in this country this year, will see women receive a total prize pot of £13.4 million. The champions league, which of course we do not solely host but many of our clubs play in, offers a £1.6 billion prize fund to the men, but just £20 million to the women.

Snooker is a sport that historically women have been allowed to play, but without equal access to facilities in venues such as working men’s clubs, and therefore they have struggled to gain access to it. Snooker’s world championship winner is awarded a £500,000 prize, but the winner of the women-only competition receives just £5,000.

In cricket, the International Cricket Council’s one-day international World cup for men, which was held in England and Wales in 2019, awards just over £7.5 million. The women’s competition, which was held in New Zealand this year, awarded only a third of that—£2.6 million—although I understand that the ICC is working towards making the situation more equitable.

Without going into too many more numbers, as I am sure people will get the picture from those snapshots, I will offer as a final example rugby union, the sport that I really enjoy—watching, not playing. Although it was difficult to get any finite data on the Six Nations, I understand that the tournament says it does not award prize money but instead awards the participating teams a tenth of its annual revenue from the men’s tournament—that is reportedly around £16 million, although, as I said, exact numbers are unclear—relative to performance. There is no such distribution of revenue in the women’s tournament. Jessica Ennis-Hill said in her article on the campaign for equality:

“At last year’s women’s Six Nations…some teams had to manage without sanitary bins, fresh kit, or even hot showers—it is a hard pill to swallow being underpaid compared to your male compatriots.”

At a global level, World Rugby says that it does not do prize money, but there is a “participation grant” in the men’s World cup, which is awarded depending on performance, whereas the women get a “preparation grant”.

I could go on. In golf, women consistently get much less money than men; in tennis, there have been some famous successes, but around the world the situation is still variable; and in cycling, the men’s Tour de France offers a prize pot of almost £2 million to men and just over a tenth of that to women.

The numbers are important because they paint a picture and they show an attitude. First, it is about respect. To reach the levels in elite sport that these athletes reach takes extreme dedication; it takes many hours of practice, energy and commitment to get to the pinnacle of a particular sport. Yet the nature of unequal prize money means that the effort of one person is valued so much more than that of another—in some instances, 10 times or even 20 times more. If we consider the situation purely on the basis of respect, then it is demonstrably unfair.

Secondly, it is about sport being a livelihood and something that athletes can commit time to, in order to take them to the top of the game. Whether that is a world cup, a world championship or the Olympics, it takes time and costs money. When the prize money for even the few who win is not enough for them to commit to an effective and long-lasting training programme in order to sustain high levels of performance, what of those who place lower down but work just as hard? That is part of the reason why there are far fewer female athletes, and why so many more female athletes need second jobs outside their sport—any possible hard-fought win does not provide enough to sustain the process full time. As Jessica Ennis-Hill writes,

“in some sports prize money is an essential part of our income, rather than a cash bonus.”

This takes me to my third point—the wider benefit to the sport of providing a more evenly financially rewarding playing field. The ability for an athlete to make their sport their full-time job is of benefit not only to them, but to the sport’s future. By giving more time to the sport, they are able not only to raise their game and compete on a larger stage for more reward, but to raise the game of those around them and those who train with them. They are able to spend more time in training facilities, learning from the best and passing on what they know to those who are following in their footsteps. And they are able to inspire more young boys and girls to get involved, and perhaps be future champions themselves.

Many of the organisations that I have mentioned will talk about their investment in women’s sport and the money that they put in elsewhere, but the issue of prize money is symbolic as much as anything else. One of the key metrics that they often refer to is commercial revenue; they say that the women do not bring in as much money. But we simply must place that in the context of women being banned for so long from playing different sports—they were banned for 50 years from playing football—of the unequal access to facilities, and of the attitude towards women playing sport that still exists today, as researchers at the University of Leicester reported earlier this year. That has had an effect on the commercial revenues available to people, especially as the visibility of women’s sport still suffers from historical inequalities.

There has been progress in this area. It is clear that women’s sport is getting more coverage than ever. That is testament to those at the BBC, under the incredible leadership of Barbara Slater, and at Sky, for example. There are brand-new deals on women’s sport, and there is the greater exposure that many women who play elite sport receive today. But ultimately, as the organisation Women in Sport notes, women’s sport still accounts for only about 10% of total sports coverage, and when we flick through the sports pages of newspapers, we still have to look much more closely to find women’s sport. There are many excellent journalists out there who are doing all they can to bring attention to women’s sport—not least those whom I mentioned earlier—but there is still so much more to do.

The lack of general coverage and the historical context in which elite sportswomen have operated contribute to the arguments about lower commercial revenue. I know that many of the organisations will point to commitments to raise their game, but it would be wrong not to take this opportunity to say that more can always be done. Above all, this is about a fairer distribution, about respect, and about ensuring that children and young people have the chance to see people like them competing at the highest levels of their sport and to think, “That could be me, too.” I therefore ask the Minister what plans he has to work with governing bodies towards a fairer deal for women’s sport and how he will go about continuing the huge growth that we have seen in women’s sport in the last decade.

I will end with a quote from Steph Houghton, the former Lionesses captain, whom we are extremely proud of in my city of Sunderland; she is a former Sunderland player who grew up in the city. She said this in support of the campaign:

“The prize money in women’s sport to reward and acknowledge personal and team achievements continues to fall incredibly short. Football clubs and sponsors are increasing investment into the sport more than ever before, but prize money seems to have a glass ceiling that needs to be broken. Let’s work together to #CloseTheGap.”

We have seen cracks in the glass ceiling. I am with Steph—let’s break it.

Body Image in the Media and Online

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in this debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test twice a week if they are coming on to the parliamentary estate. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give each other space when you are seated, and when leaving or entering the Chamber.

I will now call Dr Luke Evans to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for Dr Evans to sum up at the end, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government action on body image in the media and online.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I welcome the Minister to his role. This is the first time that I have formally met him to discuss this issue.

I will open with a description of an advert put out about a year ago by Dove, called “Reverse Selfie”. It starts with a young girl looking at her phone. On that phone, there is a picture of her. She may be in her late teens or early twenties. She starts to scroll backwards. She sees the comments underneath the photo suddenly disappearing, with all the “likes” going away and the comment, “You look amazing”, disappearing. Suddenly, the filter changes and so does her hair colour. The size of her face, including her nose, changes, and the blemishes on her skin all suddenly reappear. The process goes further. She puts the phone down, lies backwards and there is a picture of her family, which she has scrubbed off the back of the wall, and a picture of her favourite teen band. Furthermore, the image shows her makeup, including her lipstick, coming off. Finally, what is left in front of us is a girl no older than 13 or 14. The advert then finishes with the line:

“The pressure of social media is hurting our girls’ self-esteem”.

The advert is only a minute long, so if people have a chance I encourage them to look at it, because it encapsulates perfectly the kind of world in which we now exist, and the problem is getting worse.

Over the next few minutes, I will set out three points to address when it comes to debating this issue of body image and what the Government can do. The first is the scale of the problem; the second is why it matters; and the third, and most important, is what we can do about it.

There are so many statistics out there, but I will quickly go through the scale of the problem. Evidence from Girlguiding shows that two in five girls between the ages of 11 and 16 have seen images online making them feel insecure or less confident about themselves, rising to 50% for those aged between 17 and 21. Some 55% of girls aged between 11 and 21 say that these images make them feel insecure by showing unattainably wealthy lifestyles or expensive clothes, and 94% agree that more should be done to protect them from body image pressures online. Some 90% of girls agree that there should be stricter rules for online advertisers. The Women and Equalities Committee heard that more than six in 10 women feel negative about their bodies. Factors including diet culture and being bombarded with images of photoshopped, sexualised women have negative impacts.

It is not just women; it is men as well. Some 35% of men aged between 16 and 40 say that they are unhappy with how they look; 48% say that they have struggled with their mental health because of unhappiness; and two in every five men feel pressured to have the perfect body.

It goes further. Work by the Mental Health Foundation found that 85% of under-18s thought that appearance was either very important or important, but it led to one in five adults and one in three teenagers feeling actual shame about the way they looked. The Women and Equalities Committee report said that the triggers include social media, stereotypes and, of course, conventional media. Those are just some of the survey results that give a flavour of what people in this country feel like.

Why does this actually matter? Let us take the worst-case scenario. As a clinician, I have seen more and more men —but also women—with concerns about body image. At worst, they suffer with eating disorders. There are 1.25 million people suffering with anorexia or bulimia. There are also 1 million people, particularly men, who are using steroids to bulk up, to try to get those stereotypical big shoulders or tight abs. That was brought home to me when UK Anti-Doping saw my campaign about body image and came to me with evidence of how much of a problem it is causing. It is finding that people who are using drugs for aesthetic enhancement are then turning up to play rugby only to then be banned from the sport.

On eating disorders, there has been a 50% increase in the number of people accessing services since 2016-17. We are seeing the worst extremes, but this is the thin end of the wedge. Combine those factors with what we have just talked about—the way the nation is feeling—and we see that there is an obvious cause for concern.

This matters and I do not believe that social media companies are doing enough. Many have filters, educational content, and ways of trying to filter out some of the problems they face, but, fundamentally, we need to go further, because the problem is getting worse and it is young people who are bearing the brunt of it. Other countries have started to make strides in addressing the problem, most notably Israel and France, and Norway has recently said that it will look at labelling digitally altered images. There is a precedent, therefore, not only here but across the western world, to make a difference.

What can we do? I am completely aware that the Minister is from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and that this problem cannot be solved with one single hit, because there is a chain. It involves parental responsibility and educating our children to be aware of the content they are looking at. Of course, when people go on to a platform, they need to have the tools to protect themselves, the platform needs to take responsibility and show them due care to, and if things go wrong, a regulator, backed up by legal statute, needs to be able to deal with it.

For the purpose of this debate, I will concentrate on three solutions that I think could make a difference. I proposed the first one last year—namely, labelling digitally altered images. It is a very simple process and we already have a precedent for it, with “PP” appearing for paid product placement advertising on TV. This is in line with the health aspect of providing information about calories and content on food labelling. It provides parity for mental health by saying that the image is not quite as it seems. We already have a precedent in advertising, as well, with video game adverts stating, “This is not actual video footage”, and, of course, political advertising is labelled as such.

I often use this example when people ask what that means: if someone wanted to sell their house or rent a room, it would be absolutely justifiable to paint the walls, put out a new throw and change the lighting. However, what they fundamentally could not do is digitally alter the size of the garden, the roof or the living space. That is what I am asking the Government to look at. We are creating a warped sense of reality that drives young people to believe they can be something that they can never achieve. I am all for aspiration and people improving their aesthetics—I am a GP by trade and I welcome heathy, promotional sport and exercise and people taking care of their bodies—but not if that is a goal that they can never achieve.

Critics of my position often say, “Hang on a second. Isn’t that the nanny state?”, but I would say it is not, because a perfect market needs perfect information. Others ask how it would work practically. The online space already distinguishes between organic and commercial activity according to the number of followers and what accounts use in their content, holding them to a different category of rules. I am not asking for a bride with a blemish to suddenly be punished or banned from dealing with that. I am simply asking for digitally altered images where biceps are made bigger and promoted online—or indeed in magazines—to carry a label.

Of course, that is my wish as a Back Bencher, but we have the draft Online Safety Bill, and I credit the Government for grabbing the bull by the horns and including a world-leading attempt to try to deal with some of the perils of the internet. That is really important, but there are some difficulties. How do we decide what goes in? How do we build a framework? Where does responsibility lie? I am pleased that there is a framework that covers social media companies with a duty of responsibility.

What I am talking about is not illegal, and that means that interpreting what is detrimental is mired in difficulty. Although an individual picture might not be detrimental, we start to have a problem when we are bombarded with 100 pictures of people with abs and shoulders the size of a fridge. However, I see a solution. Clause 46(3) of the draft Online Safety Bill, which sets out the meaning of content that is harmful to adults, states:

“Content is within this subsection if the provider of the service has reasonable grounds to believe that the nature of the content is such that there is a material risk of the content having, or indirectly having, a significant adverse…psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities”,

with roughly the same wording in place for children as well. I put it to the Government that body image could well be a legal but harmful issue, and should be counted among the priority harms.

As I have said, the draft Online Safety Bill tries to cover a whole load of issues that are not related to body image. My final point and plea to the Government is about the thrust of the issue—what it all boils down to—which is the algorithm driving the content. I am interested in fitness, and I follow CrossFit on Instagram. If I log into my account, it sends me to hundreds of pictures of gents with their tops off, training harder than ever before. It is not an issue having the one image, but there is a real difficulty when hundreds of images are being driven to people. When I raise the issue with all the big social media companies and ask them how the algorithm works, the first thing I hear is, “That is commercially sensitive,” and therein lies the problem. If we do not know what the algorithm is driving to people, and if we do not understand it or have any clarity on it, how can we address the problem in the first place?

I am so pleased to see that Ofcom is in line to deal with the problem. I have met with it to see that it has not only the resources and the legal backing but the ability to punish companies, demand that they open up their algorithms and demand papers from them so that we can get to the bottom of this problem. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is indeed the Government’s intent, and whether or not algorithms will be included in the online harms Bill. While I have come to this from body image, it would help to deal with all sorts of other issues, be that fraud scams, self-harm or suicide.

I hope that in the past 10 minutes I have demonstrated the scale of the problem, why it matters—because the most vulnerable young people are the ones facing it—and some of the solutions for dealing with it. I look forward to the online safety Bill coming forward. I am aware of the Advertising Standards Authority’s call for evidence about body image and the Government may know that I have launched a petition called #recognisebodyimage to make sure that body image is recognised in UK law for the first time. I hope that might just make a slight bit of difference for the young girl or boy who enjoys spending their time on social media.

Sport: Disabled Officials, Referees and Umpires

Peter Dowd Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to the normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Members attending the debate physically should clean their spaces before they use them and when they leave. I also remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall.