Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

Select Committee statement

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now come to the Select Committee statement. Damian Collins will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call him to respond to those in turn. Front Benchers may take part in questioning as well. I call the Chair of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill.

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[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has spoken out strongly on the targeting of people with epilepsy both in Committee and elsewhere. That is a clear example of how some people can be badly abused: people who are known to have epilepsy are deliberately targeted with flashing images that the sender knows will trigger a seizure and cause them physical harm. This practice should have no place on the internet and the companies should be working to stop it and close it down, and they should make sure that action is taken against the accounts that do it. That is one of the clear recommendations in our report and I completely agree with my hon. Friend on that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Just a little reminder: Members should ask questions.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the report, along with all who served on the Committee. I will certainly add it to my reading list for the Christmas recess.

I have a specific question on whether the Committee was able to look at the issue of pimping websites, on which individuals, often trafficked, are advertised for sex. They make large amounts of money for websites such as Vivastreet. Did the Committee feel able to make any recommendation about how that should be covered in the draft Online Safety Bill?

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[Damian Collins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are also grateful to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson), who is a member of the Committee. He is not in his place today. The question of the next chair of Ofcom was not one that the Committee was asked to consider. The Government will run a process, and the DCMS Committee will hold a hearing for the pre-appointment scrutiny of the new candidates. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that online safety will be a big job for Ofcom. The world will be watching, and we have to get the legislation right and ensure that Ofcom has the resources it needs to do the job. It believes that it has, and that it has the powers to do the job, but it should be an ongoing role for this House to scrutinise that process and ensure that it is being run effectively.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Chair of the Joint Committee for that statement. We now come to the Backbench debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment.