ONLINE SAFETY BILL (Third sitting)

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alex Davies-Jones

Committee stage (re-committed clauses and schedules)
Thursday 15th December 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I would like to build on the excellent comments from my colleagues and to speak about child sexual abuse material. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) and for Stone for tabling the amendment. I am very interested in how we can use the excellent provisions in the Bill to keep children safe from child sexual abuse material online. I am sure the Committee is aware of the devastating impact of such material.

Sexual abuse imagery—of girls in particular—is increasingly prevalent. We know that 97% of this material in 2021 showed female children. The Internet Watch Foundation took down a record-breaking 252,000 URLs that had images of children being raped, and seven in 10 of those images were of children aged 11 to 13. Unfortunately, the National Crime Agency estimates that between 550,000 and 850,000 people in the UK are searching for such material on the internet. They are actively looking for it, and at the moment they are able to find it.

My concern is with how we use what is in the Bill already to instil a top-down culture in companies, because this is about culture change in the boardroom, so that safety is considered with every decision. I have read the proceedings from previous sittings, and I recognise that the Government and Ministers have said that we have sufficient provisions to protect children, but I think there is a little bit of a grey area with tech companies.

I want to mention Apple and the update it was planning for quite a few years. There was an update that would have automatically scanned for child sex abuse material. Apple withdrew it following a backlash from encryption and privacy experts, who claimed it would undermine the privacy and security of iCloud users and make people less safe on the internet. Having previously said that it would pause it to improve it, Apple now says that it has stopped it altogether and that it is vastly expanding its end-to-end encryption, even though law enforcement agencies around the world, including our own UK law enforcement agencies, have expressed serious concerns because it makes investigations and prosecution more challenging. All of us are not technical experts. I do not believe that we are in a position to judge how legitimate it is for Apple to have this pause. What we do know is that while there is this pause, the risks for children are still there, proliferating online.

We understand completely that countering this material involves a complicated balance and that the tech giants need to walk a fine line between keeping users safe and keeping their data safe. But the question is this: if Apple and others continue to delay or backtrack, will merely failing to comply with an information request, which is what is in the Bill now, be enough to protect children from harm? Could they delay indefinitely and still be compliant with the Bill? That is what I am keen to hear from the Minister. I would be grateful if he could set out why he thinks that individuals who have the power to prevent the harmful content that has torn apart the lives of so many young people and their families should not face criminal consequences if they fail to do so. Can he reassure us as to how he thinks that the Bill can protect so many children—it is far too many children—from this material online?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Labour supports new clause 9, as liability is an issue that we have repeatedly raised throughout the passage of the Bill—most recently, on Report. As colleagues will be aware, the new clause would introduce criminal liabilities for directors who failed to comply with their duties. This would be an appropriate first step in ensuring a direct relationship between senior management of platforms and companies, and their responsibilities to protect children from significant harm. As we have heard, this measure would drive a more effective culture of awareness and accountability in relation to online safety at the top of and within the entire regulated firm. It would go some way towards ensuring that online safety was at the heart of the governance structures internally. The Bill must go further to actively promote cultural change and put online safety at the forefront of business models; it must ensure that these people are aware that it is about keeping people safe and that that must be at the forefront, over any profit. A robust corporate and senior management liability scheme is needed, and it needs to be one that imposes personal liability on directors when they put children at risk.

The Minister knows as well as I do that the benefits of doing so would be strong. We have only to turn to the coroner’s comments in the tragic case of Molly Russell’s death—which I know we are all mindful of as we debate this Bill—to fully understand the damaging impact of viewing harmful content online. I therefore urge the Minister to accept new clause 9, which we wholeheartedly support.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alex Davies-Jones

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am afraid that I do not have the capacity in this debate to go into the technicalities. I have a lot to go through. As I have said, they are legal technicalities that we are working through with our friends in the devolved Administrations, which have a different legal jurisdiction. We can discuss that at another opportunity.

I thank the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins). We debated another tragic case in his constituency, or near to it, I believe. It was an honour to meet the family, and he is absolutely right to raise awareness of the importance of stalking protection orders. That is work that I am doing through the National Police Chiefs’ Council, to ensure that it is taking up those stalking protection orders.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) asked why we are not taking femicide as seriously as terrorism. That is precisely what the strategic policing requirement sets out to do. I am afraid that I must take issue with her comments about the allocation of funding in her area going to perpetrators, not victims. Those funding matters are local decisions. The Home Office will make funding available to her locally elected Labour police and crime commissioner, so she needs to take that up with her Labour party colleagues in the area. We have put aside national funding of £300 million for victims, so I suggest that she has those conversations.

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about honour-based violence. Just last Friday we banned child marriage thanks to the incredible hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). We fund many services helping victims of that horrific crime.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who was very passionate in her remarks, asked why we do not talk about this as male violence against women and girls. Many Members have responded in that way. We do not shy away from talking about this as a gendered crime. As I said, we will publish the perpetrator strategy and all the associated guidance soon.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The Minister is being very generous with her time. Will she meet me, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse, to discuss this more fully with the wider members of the group?

Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response

Debate between Rachel Maclean and Alex Davies-Jones

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am obviously sorry to hear about the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions, which is clearly devastating. I can specifically point to the laws that we have already passed to tackle stalking, which are much tougher than the previous regime and include stalking protection orders. These are a vital part of our response. In terms of consistency, which he and many other Members have raised, it is important to stress again that this is why we have appointed a national policing lead, Maggie Blyth, to drive this consistency. We know that there are forces that are doing an excellent job in responding to some of these horrific crimes, but some are not. That is why we need to work across the whole of the policing community.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

In the wake of so many women across the UK losing their lives at the hands of male perpetrators, I welcome the publication of the report. It recommends that

“there should be a radical refocus and shift in the priority given to VAWG offences by the police and all partners, including wrap-around, tailored support for victims”.

However, the Government have still failed to confirm the details of the long-awaited perpetrator strategy, so I ask the Minister, whom I welcome to her place, when exactly this strategy, which is so crucial to tackling violence against women and girls, will be published.

[Rachel Maclean]

I would like to be able to write to the hon. Lady about this specific strategy, as these are my first couple of days in this role. She is clearly right to highlight the importance of dealing with perpetrators and bringing them to justice, which is why we have introduced a number of measures across the piece in the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.