Digital Economy Bill (First sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Perry]

Q That rather depends on the sort of small business. While that might be true for a farmer, for example, what I want in my constituency is the ability to have the sort of businesses that would locate to silicon roundabout come to a beautiful part of the country where property is much cheaper. I would be cautious about writing off rural areas as only ever being able to access Government websites and check their emails one at a time. I think we should be doing something much more ambitious with obligations—particularly for small business parks, so you have clusters of fibre around those.

David Wheeldon: We would probably part company with Virgin Media here, in as much as we do not think you should be constraining by type of usage in quite that way. All the history and evidence of the data that goes across our networks means we are seeing a continued exponential increase in data usage. Going back to what Daniel said earlier, it is hard to say that specific usages are worthy of a USO intervention and others are not. Those things will change over time, including small businesses—their use cases will change over time.

In the case of businesses and business parks, it is extraordinary that there are business parks, not just in rural areas but in city areas, that do not have sufficient fibre connections. Very often that is to do with the distortions in the market where it is to the benefit of the network operator to be selling expensive leased lines to businesses rather than investing in fibre to all premises.

When we come down to it, this is a problem based around the quality of the infrastructure we have at the moment and the incentives to continue to invest. As Paul Morris said, it is important that we get the USO right, but it must not stand in the way of the massive further investment we believe is required of the nation’s network.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Q I am a little shocked to hear Mr Butler say that 10 megabits is okay for the average small business. In my constituency, high-tech industries and digital creative industries need something much more reliable, much more secure and a lot greater than 10 megabits. They are not just uploading the odd film; they are making the films. Can I push you on that? They need secure, reliable, consistent bandwidth. What on earth has blocked the roll-out of that so far in city centres as well as rural areas? What else could the Bill do to push business, provide the infrastructure or give Ofcom the teeth—whatever is needed—to help the high-tech and creative industries grow?

Daniel Butler: This is one part of the market where Paul’s concerns about market distortion are particularly pronounced, because the market for small business connectivity is evolving at a rapid pace. Broadband providers are beginning to target the types of use cases you outlined there: high-tech but small business where, realistically, a leased line is not an affordable solution. Virgin Media has been at the vanguard of product innovations to make symmetric business broadband connections available to high-tech businesses in London, but also outside of London, at more affordable, residential-type price points. This is one example where the market is evolving at a very rapid pace.

Business connectivity is starting to address the challenges you have identified. The use requirements I outline are what the evidence suggests is the typical requirement of a small business. Obviously, there will be outliers where the market is the right mechanism to deliver for those companies.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q I am not just talking about outliers, Mr Butler. You talked about providing to London and some areas outside London. London is overheating, with great respect to my London colleagues. A lot of these industries are looking to other cities and if they cannot get what they need they are going to stay put in London—and that is not good for the economy, both rural and urban. What else can be done by business or what else do you need in the Bill for this to be put right?

Paul Morris: As you will know, telecoms has got a lot going on at the moment. There are other things going on: we have an Ofcom strategic review, which is looking, in part, at how the relationship between Openreach works with the rest of the industry. There are a number of moving parts, not necessarily in the Bill, that need to be thought about.

I suggest we need to think about what we do next—that is, post-BDUK. I do not necessarily mean Government programme support, but what the ambition of the country is when it comes to traditional infrastructure. We have probably looked at other traditional infrastructure first; now it is time to look more at digital. That is beyond the Bill but it is something that needs to be done, certainly within this Parliament. We also need to start thinking about delivery because, frankly, that will take 10-plus years to do.

We need to look at the strategic review, including the relationship with Openreach. At least two of us here have that as businesses; frankly, that can be a bit more ambitious, deliver a better service, and be in control of its own investment, board and everything. Openreach needs to be independent. If that cannot work, then we have made the case to say that Openreach needs to be separate from BT. That is something that Ofcom needs to look at.

Within the Bill, the universal service obligation—you have both identified an issue. If you look at the Ofcom figures, small businesses are disadvantaged probably more than consumer households because you are not on the traditional phone network, effectively, if you are in a business park. So you have got the right point.

I would suggest that, with the USO the way it is today, we make a small step in the right direction with this idea of how we do more. I think Dan is right: there are connectivity options coming in as well. So it is a mixed picture, but I do agree—I do not think that 10 megabits is enough for most small businesses, unless of course they are one-person bands doing stuff for which they need the phone more than the computer. Again, it all comes down to a mixture of things going on that are in and around the legislation. There are a number of things going on.

Daniel Butler: I add one final point on provisions in the Bill that would help. There are provisions in the Bill that will reduce the cost of network expansion in the UK—an exercise that Virgin Media is currently undertaking with our £3 billion network expansion. That network expansion is benefiting business parks and small stay-at-home businesses. Last month, we announced 90 new business parks that we were connecting under Project Lightning. The specific way in which the Bill can support that is through reform of the electronic communications code that will lower the cost of and time taken to achieve a wayleave agreement. The measures in the Bill take us part of the way towards that reform, but could be more ambitious.

[The Chair]

Can I remind Members and witnesses to be as brief as possible? I call the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

Q Any comments on, particularly, the public services power, and how that might affect it?

Pete Moorey: No, no specific other comments on the Bill itself.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q I particularly direct this question at Mr Moorey, because I noticed you mentioned unsolicited calls and the problem of people receiving them despite registering with the Telephone Preference Service. I can declare that I am one of those. I am particularly concerned about the example of a constituent in a neighbouring constituency to mine, Olive Cook, who was one of Britain’s longest-serving poppy sellers, having started in 1938. She fell to her death after being plagued by nuisance callers, particularly from charities. My experience has been that there are also private companies making them. Who is it? Who makes nuisance calls? How are they being dealt with? Does the Bill go far enough to ensure that those companies are held responsible—the directors, if necessary? Should they be made more accountable? Can you tell me some more, please?

Pete Moorey: We have made a lot of progress, I think, on nuisance calls over the last three or four years. That is thanks to an awful lot of people around this table. The Government have made progress with the action plan that we have had, and then in setting up the taskforce, which Which? chaired. We have seen changes to the powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office, and it is now much better able to take action against nuisance callers, and hit them with bigger fines. Caller line identification has been introduced. However, you are right that there is still an awfully long way to go.

Nuisance calls come from a range of places, all over the place. Frequently they come from claims management companies and lead generators. Sometimes they come from reputable businesses. Sadly, too often they also come from scammers and fraudsters. The important measure in the Bill is putting the Information Commissioner’s code into statute, which I think will give it more clout. However, we agree that more could be done about director-level accountability. We recognise that many MPs support that, as do the Scottish Government. Indeed, the Information Commissioner herself, who I believe you are seeing this afternoon, has made supportive noises about it.

We would like director-level accountability to be introduced. It is important, because while in recent years the ICO has used its powers to fine companies, it has collected only four out of the 22 fines it has imposed in the past year. We are concerned that some of the more disreputable firms simply abolish themselves once they are fined—and they are phoenixing. Directors pop up elsewhere and continue the behaviour of making nuisance calls and sending texts. That behaviour needs to be stopped. We need to ensure that those directors are struck off, and that they cannot do the same thing again.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Is the Telephone Preference Service system now completely pointless? My constituents say to me that they feel completely unprotected by it. Could the Bill do more to strengthen it?

Pete Moorey: It is not pointless. Our research shows that if people sign up to the TPS they usually have a reduction in calls. The problem is that there are too many firms out there that either just abuse the Telephone Preference Service and call people who are on the list, or indeed have consumers’ consent to call them, because, sadly, the customers have incorrectly ticked a box at some point, and thought they were not giving consent when they were giving it. More needs to be done about the data consent issue. I know that the Information Commissioner’s Office is doing more about it.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q So just to be clear, you would welcome amendments to the Bill that would strengthen action, including direct action against directors to avoid the shutting down of shell companies. Is there a case for some kind of aggravated offence where people are on the Telephone Preference Service, or where older people are specifically targeted in such a way?

Pete Moorey: I know there is a local police commissioner who is looking at the issue at the moment—particularly around making scam calls a hate crime. That is an interesting development. There is more that could be looked at in that area. I think a good start in the Bill would be the introduction of director-level accountability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

That is a different witness. That is the Open Rights Group.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am sorry. I mixed you up with someone else. I withdraw my question.

[Chris Skidmore]

Q Mr Bracken, you were responsible for launching the Government’s data programme when you were head of the Government Digital Service, so I think that some of the measures in the Bill are very much trying to build on your fantastic work when you were setting a vision for transforming the management and use of data within the Government and driving the use of data as a tool when making decisions in Government. Do you have thoughts about your work in GDS and how the Bill is now building on that work? How do you feel that the powers in the Bill will try to unlock some of the opportunities for better use of data?

Mike Bracken: Obviously, I am here as a member of the Co-op, so I am not going to give a review of my time in Government.

Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Perry]

Q Am I right in thinking that, for sites that are providing illegally copyrighted material, there is currently a take-down and blocking regime that does operate in the UK, regardless of their jurisdiction?

David Austin: Yes; ISPs do block website content that is pirated. There was research published earlier this year in the US that found that it drove traffic to pirated websites down by about 90%. Another tool that has been used in relation to IP protection is de-indexing, whereby a search engine removes the infringing website from any search results. We also see that as a potential way forward.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Q First, can I verify that you both support adding in the power to require ISPs to block non-compliant sites?

David Austin: Yes.

Alan Wardle: Yes, we support that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Good. That was quick. I just wanted to make sure that was there. What are your comments on widening the scope, so that age verification could be enforced for matters other than pornography, such as violent films or other content that we would not allow in the offline world? I am talking about things such as pro-anorexia websites. We know that this is possible to do in certain formats, because it is done for other things, such as copyright infringement. What are your views on widening the scope and the sanctions applying to that?

Alan Wardle: We would support that. We think the Bill is a really great step forward, although some things, such as enforcement, need to be strengthened. We think this is an opportunity to see how you can give children parity of protection in the online and the offline worlds.

It is very good, from our perspective, that the BBFC is doing this, because they have got that expertise. Pornography is not the only form of harm that children see online. We know from our research at the NSPCC that there are things like graphic violence. You mentioned some of the pro-anorexia and pro-suicide sites, and they are the kind of things that ought to be dealt with. We are supporting developing a code of practice with industry to work out what those harms are—and that is very much a staged approach.

We take it for granted that when, for instance, a child goes to a youth group or something like that, we make sure there are protections there, and that the staff are CRB checked. Somehow it seems that for children going on to the internet it is a bit like the wild west. There are very few protections. Some of the content really is upsetting and distressing to children. This is not about adults being blocked from seeing adult content. That is absolutely fine; we have no problem with that at all. But it is about protecting children from seeing content that is inappropriate for them. We would certainly support that widening, but obviously doing it in a staged way so that the regulator does not take on too much at once. We would certainly support that.

David Austin: I would echo what Alan says. We see this Bill as a significant step forward in terms of child protection. We absolutely agree with the principle of protecting children from a wider range of content—indeed, that is what we do in other areas: for example, with the mobile network operators and their adult filters. Like Alan, I think we see it in terms of more of a staged approach. The BBFC taking on this role is a significant new area of work—quite a challenge to take on board. I think there is a potential risk of overloading the Bill if we try to put too much on it, so I would very much support the NSPCC’s phased approach.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Is there anything further that you think needs to be added to the Bill to make the sanctions regime work? I am also thinking—at the risk of going against what you just said, Mr Austin—about whether or not we should be considering sites that are not designed for commercial purposes but where pornography or other harmful material is available on a non-commercial basis; or things not designed for porn at all, such as Twitter timelines or Tumblr and other social media, where the main purpose may not be pornography or other harmful material, but it is available. Do you think the Bill has enough sanctions in it to cope with all of that, or should that be added? Is there anything else you would like to add?

David Austin: There were a few questions. I will try to answer them all, but if I miss any of them please come back to me. In terms of sanctions, I have talked about ISP blocking and de-indexing. We think those could be potentially effective steps. In terms of commercial pornography, we have been working on devising a test of what that is. The Bill states explicitly that the pornography could be free and still provided on a commercial basis. I do not think it is narrowing the scope of the regulation an awful lot by specifying commercial pornography. If there are adverts, if the owner is a corporate entity, if there are other aspects—if the site is exploiting data, for example: there are all sorts of indications that a site is operating on a commercial basis. So I do not see that as a real problem.

In relation to Twitter, which you mentioned, what the Bill says the regulator should do is define what it sees as ancillary service providers. Those are organisations whose work facilitates and enables the pornography to be distributed. There is certainly a case to argue that social media such as Twitter are ancillary service providers. There are Twitter account holders who provide pornography on Twitter so I think you could definitely argue that.

I would argue that Twitter is an ancillary service provider, as are search engines and ISPs. One of the things that we plan to do in the next weeks and months would be to engage with everyone that we think is an ancillary service provider, and see what we can achieve together, to try and achieve the maximum protection we can through the notification regime that we are taking on as part 3 of the Bill.

[The Chair]

Just before we move on, shall we see if Mr Wardle also wants to contribute to things that should be in the Bill?

Alan Wardle: On that point, I think it is important for us that there is clarification—and I would agree with David about this—in terms of ensuring that sites that may for instance be commercial but that are not profiting from pornography are covered. Again, Twitter is an example. We know that there are porn stars with Twitter accounts who have lots of people following them and lots of content, so it is important that that is covered.

It is important that the legislation is future-proofed. We are seeing at the NSPCC through Childline that sexual content or pornography are increasingly live-streamed through social media sites, and there is self-generated content, too. It is important that that is covered, as well as the traditional—what you might call commercial—porn. We know from our research at the NSPCC that children often stumble across pornography, or it is sent to them. We think that streamed feeds for over-18s and under-18s should be possible so that sort of content is not available to children. It can still be there for adults, but not for children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q We talked earlier about the bulk transfer and bulk sharing of data, and an earlier witness talked about providing data access, rather than data sharing. Should the Government not be pursuing trials on that basis, rather than these enormous powers without any kind of assurances to the public or parliamentarians about how they will be using them?

Renate Samson: It was very specific at the end of the open policy making process that, for example—put the bulk to one side for a moment—but regarding the fraud and debt aspect of the Bill, it had been agreed that three-year pilot projects would take place with subsequent review and scrutiny potentially by the OPM or by another group. They are in the Bill as a piece of legislation with the Minister deciding whether or not it is okay and potentially asking other groups, which are not defined. That is half an answer to half your question. Pilots are an excellent idea if they are pilots, not immediate legislation.

With regards to the bulk powers in the Bill, civil registration documents were a late addition. We are still not clear as to their purpose. The purpose given in the consultation to the OPM process, but also in the background documents relating to the Bill, is a whole mix of different reasons, none of which, I would argue, are clear and compelling or, indeed, necessary and proportionate. But again, as you have heard a lot today, without detail, how can we properly answer your question?

Jim Killock: I have a quick observation on this. We currently have a data protection framework. The European Union is revising its data protection laws; they are somewhat tougher, which is quite a good thing, but we do not know what the future of data protection legislation is in the UK. It might be the same or it might be entirely different in a few years’ time.

That is a very good reason for ensuring that privacy safeguards are quite specific and quite high in some of these sensitive areas, because we do not know whether the more general rules can be relied on and whether they are going to be the same. That is not to say that we do not need higher safeguards in any case here, because you are not dealing with a consent regime. People have to use Government and Government have to look at the data, so it is not a mutual agreement between people; you have to have higher safeguards around that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q My questions are directed at Mr Killock and relate to paragraphs 37 and 38 of your submission, “Definition of pornographic material”. We heard earlier that both the NSPCC and the British Board of Film Classification support a provision to require ISPs to block websites that are non-compliant. There was also discussion of widening the scope to apply the restrictions to other harmful material that we would not allow children access to in the offline world. Here, you seem to be questioning the value of that:

“This extension of the definition…also raises questions as to why violent—but not sexual—materials rated as 18 should then be accessible online.”

I also question this consistency but the solution, to me, seems to be that we should include other material, such as violent material and pro-anorexic websites, as we talked about earlier. Will you tell us a bit more about what your objection is to creating a framework to keep children as safe online as they are offline?

Jim Killock: We have no objection; it is a laudable aim and something we should all be trying to do. The question is, what is effective and what will work and not impinge on people’s general rights? As soon as you look a little beyond pornography, you are talking about much more clear speech issues.

There will be a need to look at any given website and make a judgment about whether it should or should not be legally accessed by various people. That starts needing things like legal processes to be valid. Some of the things you are talking about are things that might not be viewed by anybody, potentially. The problem with all these systems is that they just do not work like that. They are working on bulk numbers of websites, potentially tens of thousands, all automatically identified, as a general rule, when people are trying to restrict this information. That poses a lot of problems.

I also query what is the measure of success here. Because I feel, I suspect, that the number of teenagers accessing pornography will probably not be greatly affected by these measures. There is more of an argument that small numbers of children who are, perhaps, under 12 may be less likely to stumble on pornographic material, but I doubt that the number of teenage boys, for instance, accessing pornographic material will be materially changed. If that is the case, what is the measure of success here? What harm is really being reduced? I just feel that, probably, these are rather expensive and difficult policies which are likely to have impacts on adults. People are saying it is not likely to affect them, but I rather suspect it might, and for what gain?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q You have mentioned your feelings and your suspicions but, actually, the British Board of Film Classification already has a system for identifying for instance pro-anorexic, pro-suicide and violent websites. It already has a system for use on mobile networks.

Jim Killock: No, it does not.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes, it does. They sat right here this afternoon.

Jim Killock: No it does not. The mobile providers have a system that the BBFC—

Q Thangam Debbonaire: So a system exists?

Jim Killock: They have a system, which is not wildly accurate that people choose to use. To the extent that they are choosing to use it, there is some legitimacy around that. People choose to have websites blocked and they understand that a certain number of them may be incorrectly blocked, that is OK.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Are you saying that that sort of system does not exist, because we were told that it did earlier?

Jim Killock: This is what they are currently doing: they are blocking websites, which are sometimes the right websites, sometimes not; sometimes the right websites are not blocked. It is essentially automated decision making that comes with the problem that you can only really do this by things like keyword search. There are not enough humans available at the right price to do the review, so all kinds of things get blocked for essentially no real reason. For instance, we have had a widget manufacturer—

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Forgive me for interrupting Mr Killock, but there is a good reason. You asked about successful outcomes—and if you are going to ask a question, I am going to answer it—the successful outcome is that children are protected in the online world in the same way as they are protected in the offline world. I have to reiterate this to you: I do not understand why you think it is a risk worth taking that some adults may or may not have their own personal preferences infringed, balanced against the harm which we know is done to children. On teenage boys, just saying that because teenage boys may or may not continue to watch pornography there is no point, that seems to be a very sad conclusion to come to.

Jim Killock: The point is that you can help children to be protected, the questions is, what is the best way? For instance, I agree with the NSPCC’s calls for the compulsory education of children. Of course that should be happening and it is not. Similarly, Claire Perry’s initiative to have filters available has its merits. Where I have a problem is where adults are forced into that situation, where they are having websites blocked and where there is little redress around that. I caution you around large-scale blocking of websites because we know from our own evidence that a very large number of websites get blocked incorrectly and it has impacts on those people too. The question is, what is effective? I am not sure that age verification will be effective in its own terms in protecting children.

[Claire Perry]

Mr Killock, it is nice to hear you finally supporting the initiative. Indeed, all of the shroud waving about false blocking was brought out with vigour many times over the past five years—

Jim Killock: We stand by that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q Claire Perry brought up the poor standards in the private sector earlier. Presumably you agree that the Bill misses an opportunity to deal with consent for the private sector’s use of data as well.

Sarah Gold: It does, because I think the Government should set best standards on this. There is a real opportunity to do that, and I cannot see that on the face of the Bill.

Chris Taggart: I broadly agree. There was a comment in one of the submissions that despite this being a Digital Economy Bill, it felt like it was from almost 10 years ago. We have the ability to treat data in a much more granular way—dealing with permissions, rights and so on; having things selectively anonymised; having things almost time-boxed, and so on. It struck me that it felt like the Bill was using the broad brush of how we used to exchange data 10 years ago. That seemed like a missed opportunity, particularly given that what we are talking about here is Government to Government. While it is very difficult for the private sector—or even between the Government and the private sector—to come up with some of those solutions, when you are talking essentially about one organisation, particularly one where there is the ability to legislate that everything should happen in the right way, it seems to be a missed opportunity.

I was asked a couple of years ago to be on the Tax Transparency Sector Board, which talked about opening up some of the tax data. Of course, pretty much no data were actually opened up, but some of the discussions were interesting. For example, the Bill talks a lot about individuals, which is absolutely right—I believe that we have innate human rights—but from a tax point of view, individuals and companies are exactly the same thing. There is no difference. HMRC was saying, “Hey, look, whatever we think and whatever we would like to do, we have no ability to treat individuals and companies as the same.” The idea of allowing companies to tick a box and say, “Yes, we’d like our tax to be reported and to be open about it,” or saying, “These offenders will be treated differently if they are corporate offenders,” for example—many countries do report tax offences by companies—was not even possible because of the underlying legislation. There is a sense that that sort of attitude slightly pervades some of this. Again, I am extremely in favour of the Government being more effective and efficient and using information sharing for that, but I would like the Bill to be as good as it possibly can be.

Finally, there are little things—I used to be a journalist but now I am a full-time geek—such as what is being reported? What things have been shared? How are those organisations being identified? The Government do not even have a coherent way of identifying Government Departments or non-departmental public bodies. Those sorts of things. There is a lot more that could be done to make this a genuinely effective Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Mr Taggart, you mentioned something about its feeling like it is 10 years out of date. I want to bring us bang up to date by chucking in a Brexit question. Is there anything that the three of you could very quickly add to the discussion about what might need to be in the Bill given that we are now in Brexit? Brexit has implications for the digital economy, about which I am sure you know more than me.

Chris Taggart: I will try to be brief. One is to do with policy aspects of what happens. I believe you are hearing from the Information Commissioner later. What happens to data protection in a post-EU UK? From our perspective, the UK has generally taken a slightly different perspective on data protection from the information commissioners in some other countries and is generally taking things like public interest into account and treating paid-for and free information the same, which we welcome. We have some concerns about the general data protection regulations because of that sort of stuff and some of the stuff that is coming from the EU. There are some potential benefits, but there are also some downsides about whether people’s rights will be defended. I think the digital economy becomes much, much more important, and my position here is as an advocate of open data and the potential for open data in driving a thriving digital economy. As a digital entrepreneur, I think we are missing some significant opportunities for that. If you were to sit down today and do a digital economy Bill with the knowledge that in a couple of years we perhaps would not be part of the EU, I think we would be doing something quite different.

Paul Nowak: May I pick up the point about post-Brexit? I think there is growing political consensus that one of the implications of the decision on 23 June is that we need to think seriously about how we invest in our national infrastructure. For the TUC that goes beyond Heathrow, Hinkley, High Speed Rail. It talks to issues around, for example, high-speed broadband. It is about thinking about how this Bill would interface with, for example, announcements that might come in the autumn statement about investment in high-speed broadband. I note that the Chair of the Committee talked about the interface between rail and high-speed broadband, which is something that should be borne in mind. Again, valid points were made on Second Reading about requirements for developers to incorporate high-speed broadband into new housing developments, which is absolutely essential. I reiterate the point I made earlier about seeing this in the context of the wider approach to industrial strategy and how the digital economy can support other parts of the economy that are going to be even more important as we move forward post-Brexit.

Sarah Gold: For me, particularly looking at privacy, security and personal data, it is about the age of some of the language used in the Bill. Even talking about data sharing feels to me like the wrong language. We should be talking about data access. Data sharing suggests duplication of databases, with data being slopped around different Departments, whereas data access suggests accessing minimum data via APIs or by using the canonical Government registers, which is an excellent project that is not mentioned in the Bill but should be.

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q There is a lot in this Bill, everything from BBC regulation to child protection, the universal service obligation and making switching easier. Can each of you say what are the top two or three positive features of the Bill that you believe will be of benefit to your members, clients or, indeed, the general public?

Chris Taggart: Yes. First of all, I agree that what I would like to see is that the Government—

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann]

Q One of the biggest contributing factors for people moving house is having access to a decent broadband signal. Have you done any statistical or economic modelling of population densities and movement away from cities to rural areas? Is that a piece of work that you would be prepared to do to find out the economic benefits to rural areas as part of the USO?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: That is not really my territory.

Hetan Shah: Ditto. I am here to talk about the stats and research clauses. I do not know about the other bits, I am afraid.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q You have both talked about other European countries and Canada. Forgive me for not knowing whether this is the correct term, but are we talking here about big data? Is that the term I hear bandied about? Either way, could you tell me a bit more about the benefits and outcomes in terms of policy information? Give us a bit more information about what these other countries are doing better and how their politicians are better equipped as a result.

Professor Sir Charles Bean: I think most people use the term “administrative data” to refer to large information held within the public sector that accrues as a by-product of whatever the public authority is doing. Tax information is a classic example, and it is something that is obviously potentially of use to the Office for National Statistics in constructing economic statistics. Big data is a wider concept that embraces the vast range of information that is generated by various sorts of private sector organisations, which includes the scanner data that Hetan mentioned. It is the sort of information that is generated by the likes of Google and phone companies. Big data is much broader.

There is a question about the extent to which you can use big data in the construction of official statistics. I think there are two obvious areas that you might want to exploit. One is scanner data for constructive price indices, which Hetan has already mentioned. The other area where I could see private sector big data being of considerable use is on payment information—information from payments processors and payments providers.

Of course, there is a vast amount of other information that is generated by the private sector. Some of that information might be useful for shedding light on new puzzles or new phenomena in the economy. One might want to be a little bit wary about relying on them to build the regular official statistics because you cannot be sure they are always going to be there, whereas you will probably have a reasonable presumption that the payments information and scanner data will continue to be available, and the Office for National Statistics could therefore use them on a regular basis.

Hetan Shah: I can give a couple of examples or case studies. One is pensions. In this country we have made quite a lot of changes in recent years around pensions policy, but it is very hard to track the impact of that. The Bill will allow for the ONS to bring together the benefits and pensions data, which are held by the DWP, the HMRC data, and also to go out to companies or to either regulatory bodies or federated bodies and get their data and bring those together so that we can see what auto-enrolment has actually meant, in terms of the amount people are putting into their pensions, and you can actually start tracking policy.

Another example is international student migrants, which is clearly a hot topic at the moment. At the moment there are Home Office data in one place, the Higher Education Statistics Agency holding useful data in another place and there are labour market data held in a third place. You could bring all those things together to actually track the impact and the numbers and so on, which at the moment we just do not have a good handle on. Those are the sorts of things that are possible if you give your statistical office access to the aggregate data from other Departments and also some access to private sector data.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Is that the sort of data other countries are using in that way?

Hetan Shah: Yes, that is right. Other countries have different set-ups, as it were, but these are the sorts of puzzles they can solve because they can bring those data together in different ways.

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q Mr Shah, you have partly answered my question, so I will turn to Professor Sir Charles Bean first. What kind of Government data would you personally like to get access to; what would you do with it; and how would the public benefit from your having it?

Professor Sir Charles Bean: You do not mean me personally? Presumably you mean the Office for National Statistics and the UK Statistics Authority?

Digital Economy Bill (Third sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Skidmore]

Q That leads nicely on to my second question, which is about the debt-collection power and sharing data. You stated in evidence that it

“will create improved opportunities for better treatment of people in vulnerable situations”.

Can we get some examples of how you think that will work?

Peter Tutton: Alistair said that CAB clients tend to have five debts if they come in for debt advice, and it is about the same for us. Certainly, we see people with multiple contacts and creditors. I was looking today at a client who said they get 25 calls a day about debt collection. That is an extreme case, but that sense of constant demands that you do not know what do with is common. The importance of that is that it builds stress.

About half the people we see say they have been treated by a GP or a hospital for debt-related health problems. If we can reduce that stress and simplify the approach so people get less contact from creditors, that will help. It is helpful for us as advisers if, rather than having to deal with different bits of Government, we can deal with one. It saves us money, and we can recycle that money to help more people.

Again, it all depends. If it is one big collection stick, rather than three little collection sticks, it is not going to make things better. If you make it one contact, that contact must be based on some good principles and practices. That is what will make the difference.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Q I want to move us on to talk about nuisance calls and the direct marketing code in clause 77. First, do you think the proposals go far enough? Do you think that the nuisance calls section should be strengthened? Is there a justification for having an aggravated offence for targeting elderly and/or vulnerable people? Any thoughts on any of those from any of the three of you?

Peter Tutton: That is an interesting point about targeting people who are vulnerable; it is something to explore. We are quite keen on more action on nuisance calls. We would like to see a kind of code of practice; it would be a start. At the moment, the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance is not followed. When people give their details to a trader on the internet, and they say you want a loan or they are interested in a loan, that goes out into the ether and it is traded like currency. A third of our clients tell us that they are receiving an average of 10 nuisance calls for credit and other services a week—they are bombarded all the time. These are financially vulnerable people and they are being targeted, as you say.

As for the aggravating offence, this could be strengthened; the code of practice needs to address how that happens. There are a bunch of things you could do on nuisance calls. Some of the worst things are financial services—high-cost credit and things like that—where the Financial Conduct Authority could do something. It could just ban what it calls unsolicited real-time financial promotions.

So, yes, we think anything to look at that and strengthen that up is good. Make sure that if you put your details in as a consumer, you should know where they are going, so you cannot be contacted by anyone; there should be some boundaries to that. And there is the idea of some stronger controls on how and when direct marketing can be used. Currently, you sort of have to opt into not being called; maybe it should be an opt-out. There are some things we could do to strengthen the regime up.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Dr Fishenden, have you got anything to add to that?

Dr Fishenden: I guess on the specific point it would be my concern that, without understanding what all the data sharing is—we have just heard that people get their data farmed and used, and then abused, and they get lots of spam calls; if we do not really understand how the data will be secured, and the public sector starts sharing it more widely, that very same information about a vulnerable household or a household in fuel poverty is gold dust to the payday loan companies and others, which would be very keen to access that same data.

My concern is the lack of the detail that would enable us to understand how we get the upside of enabling people in fuel poverty or whatever to get the help they can from the energy companies, without that same data —depending on what “data sharing” means—potentially fuelling all these other parties that are highly undesirable to intrude into those same people’s lives.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Thank you. Anything else from Mr Chisholm?

Alistair Chisholm: I think I may have to ask some colleagues to help me with the aggravated offence question; I cannot answer that, because I do not know. One thing that I would say is that increasingly we have been working with the commercial sector around scams awareness. We run a scams awareness week with trading standards and lots of firms every week, and it would be great to have public sector debt collectors getting involved in that work, educating people. Also, that helps the people on the frontline, who are collecting those debts for Government, to understand the kind of problems that people are facing. There are kind of soft initiatives and it would be nice to see the Government participating more in that area.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We have got seven minutes and three colleagues to go. Claire Perry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Q On nuisance calls, which is an issue that has been running for a long, long time, over many years there have been increases in fines and various other measures. How much of a real difference do you think the Bill will make? Could it go further in trying to tackle the issue?

Lindsey Fussell: As you say, that is an incredibly difficult issue and one that is evolving over time. In contrast to five years ago, we notice now that the complaints about nuisance calls—as you may know, Ofcom deals particularly with silent and abandoned calls—are increasingly less about large firms and more about much smaller companies. We frequently see numbers that are spoofed or unreliable. It is a different kind of problem that we are now tackling.

The powers in the Bill relate specifically to direct marketing calls, which are within the remit of the Information Commissioner’s Office. We very much welcome the measure to put its guidance on to a statutory footing and to make it easier to enforce against companies that do not comply.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q I want to turn to the BBC. How do you think we can ensure that the BBC’s distinctiveness and public service commitments are upheld in this new role?

Tony Close: That is a great question, and a tough one to start with. The first thing to make clear is that it is very much for the BBC and its new unitary board to set out its strategy in the first instance and explain to all of us how it is going to ensure that the BBC’s output is distinctive, creative and engaging. Ofcom clearly has a role holding the BBC to account. What we are not going to do is try to micromanage the BBC. We do not want to be making decisions about individual programmes, such as whether “Eastenders” is or is not distinctive, but of course we have a role looking at the output of the BBC as a whole to make sure it is fulfilling all its public service duties. I am not going to pretend that we have the answer right now. We are doing an enormous amount of preparatory work to be ready for 3 April in order to ensure that we will be able to hold the BBC to account for the distinctiveness of its output as a whole.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q Could you say a bit more about what safeguards are in place for that public service duty and role?

Tony Close: Currently the BBC is still regulated by the BBC Trust. There is a job for us to ensure that there is a framework in place by 3 April or shortly after, to ensure that the BBC is held properly to account. That has many component parts. I suspect that it has a set of metrics. There is an element where you would be looking for consumer feedback on how the BBC is delivering to consumers in their view—whether it is genuinely distinctive or considered to be distinctive by members of the public and whether the audience themselves believe that the BBC is delivering on its obligations and its public purposes.

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

Q We have had some debate, which you may or may not have followed, on the electronic communication code, and about whether the changes in the Bill, which are designed to reduce the cost of rolling out mobile infrastructure, should go further and mirror the rules around the water industry. I would be interested in your reflections on what the consequences would be, should we make that change.

Lindsey Fussell: Ofcom very much supports the Bill’s provisions on the electronic communications code, because we believe that they will assist with the faster roll-out of mobile infrastructure and its maintenance. We do not have particular expertise to offer on the precise provisions in the Bill, particularly on land valuation. What we are doing is working collaboratively with a very broad range of stakeholders to draw up a code of practice on the way that negotiations should work going forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

Q We hear a lot about how technology can benefit people and that the Government need to harness technology to do just that. Indeed, some data sharing is already going on in the delivery of Government services. Can you describe how the measures in the Bill will provide greater legal certainty and clarity in that area because we want to make sure we are doing things in the right way? Your thoughts in that regard would be helpful.

Elizabeth Denham: This Bill is an enabler. It facilitates data sharing for the improvement of Government services. I think the public welcome that and they expect seamless Government services in some cases. The idea that all data must stay in ivory towers or silos does not make sense when building digital delivery services. That said, we all know that trust and transparency are critical to maintaining the public’s trust in data sharing.

The transparency that needs to be clear in the Bill is on two levels. First, at the point of data collection and in ways that are easy for citizens to access, they should understand the purpose of and how their data will be shared, and they should have the ability to challenge that.

Secondly, there needs to be another layer of safeguards and transparency scattered throughout some of the draft codes of practice, but not in the Bill. That is the transparency that comes from privacy impact assessments, from reviews by our office, and from Parliament looking at revised codes of practice. It is really important that we pay attention to both those levels. Civil society is going to pay attention to published privacy impact assessments; but right now there is no consistency across all the codes of practice for those kinds of safeguards. I believe that some improvements are needed to the Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Q I wanted to just go back to age verification, if you do not mind, Mr Wood. You made a good deal in your evidence and in your response to my colleague’s earlier question about the concerns that you have—and I get those. Can you push this a bit further and say what you would think was an adequate system of evidence providing for age verification? What would work?

Steve Wood: I will qualify the answer by saying we come at it from a data protection perspective, so our interest is making sure that the personal data of those individuals who would be going through that process is protected, rather than the wider policy issues relating to verification of access to that content; our the key concern is to make sure that the verification system does not lead to disclosure of information if it is not necessary. As tools like federated identity management have developed, it is often possible to use another service—another third party service—to verify the identity of the individual, which could be done using a variety of third party services that are out there. That means that the site owner that provides that pornography service would not need to collect and see all the details about the individual’s age and so on, but that that is provided by a secure, accredited third party service.

The Government’s Verify service has taken some good steps in looking at these different solutions about how identity management can now be developed using these third party services; so it is that sort of approach that we are looking to, rather than a very open-ended approach, as I said earlier, allowing a wide range of information. As to the level and standard of identity, I think that is a different question, but we are really focused on making sure the personal data collected is the bare minimum to make that requirement work.

Digital Economy Bill (Fourth sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Claire Perry]

I accept the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I did sit until recently on the inter-ministerial Committee looking at how to upgrade the digital services right across the country.

It is clear that Ofcom is taking its responsibilities very seriously, both to report on the number of premises that are connected and to tighten up on some of the issues where broadband companies advertise the maximum speed a customer might ever get if connected rather than the average speed. Ofcom is a very good regulator under Ms White’s chairmanship and it is absolutely stepping up to the plate.

I am afraid that I cannot support the amendment or the new clause because they are stuck in the past, looking at how we push out a good solution rather than empowering consumers to pull through the best solution that works for them. That solution might look very different in my constituency of Devizes from how it might in Cheshire or the highlands of Scotland. We have made decent progress but it is not far enough. I applaud the Government for bringing forward both the USO as an underlying obligation and the flexibility to amend that as technology changes.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I rise to support the amendments under discussion and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley for an excellent speech and for leading the debate, particularly on amendment 82.

I want to ask this of the Committee. Do we want to be ambitious? For me, this is about ambition. Do we want an economy that has the nuts and bolts, the things we require, to make it fit for the 21st century and the challenges it is already throwing up? Do we want our tech and creative industries, such as those that operate in my constituency of Bristol West, to be able to perform their functions, or do we want them to move away?

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I hope the hon. Lady does not mean to talk down the UK digital success story of 12.4% of GDP. I am sure she is aware that that is the largest in the G20 and compares with a European average of just 5.7%. We need to keep the progress going but we already have huge achievements, have we not?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes, of course, I agree but I do not want that to slow down. I am ambitious because of that record and want it to continue, if possible, at an exponential rate of growth. Having such a low level of ambition in the USO will, I think, hold back the success stories that the hon. Gentleman so rightly talks about and that I have in my constituency. The medical and university sectors and researchers throughout industry all say to me that the issue is both upload and download speeds, as well as ensuring that they can compete with their competitors in Europe and beyond. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley said, the European ambition is for 100 megabits per second—10 megabits is just a fraction of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Although the Committee is going really well and everyone is doing great, we are now straying slightly into Second Reading territory. Let us keep our comments focused on the amendments and new clause in hand and we will all get along swimmingly.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Thank you, Mr Streeter. I do not have much else to say, but I say to the hon. Lady that I do indeed know her constituency well because one of my sisters was born in Devizes. She mentions 91% and Wiltshire Council’s excellent commitment, but what about the other 9%?

Before I sit down, I refer briefly to what Vodafone’s Paul Morris said in one of the oral evidence sessions last week. He said:

“I do not think that 10 megabits is enough for most small businesses”.––[Official Report, Digital Economy Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 16, Q26.]

If it is not enough—if a telecoms provider acknowledges that it is not enough, and if tech companies in the creative industries and others in my constituency are telling me that it is not enough—I do not understand what would be so wrong with having an annual report to measure how we are doing. I thank you for allowing me the time to make that point, Mr Streeter, and I commend the amendment to the Committee.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Before I make a brief remark, I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I fully support the spirit of the amendments and new clause, but I am not entirely sure whether the Committee should support it. Surely it is the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s job to hold BDUK and the Department to account for their progress. I told you I would be brief, Mr Streeter.

Digital Economy Bill (Sixth sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 20th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley for making such a clear and cogent argument for why the Bill needs further amendment. As I think she said—I am sure that she will correct me if I am wrong—we want to ensure that the Government stick to their manifesto commitment to protect children from all forms of online pornography. That will take consistency and a depth of modesty about the extent of our various levels of knowledge about how the internet works.

The hon. Member for Devizes made a good speech, and I am grateful to her for making the argument about on-demand films, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley also did, but the hon. Lady said—please correct me if I am wrong—that there were not many providers of free online pornography. I must respectfully disagree. Given the existence of peer-to-peer sharing and other forms of availability—my hon. Friend mentioned Tumblr and other social media websites—I am afraid that it is incredibly easy, as my nephews and nieces have confirmed, sadly, for a young person to access free online pornographic content in ways that most of us here might not even understand.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I am happy to clarify. My focus was on the Government’s intention to capture free and commercial pornography. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is a plethora of free stuff out there, and she is right to focus on the harm that it causes.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. I understand from an intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West that the reason why we were not allowed to remove the words “on a commercial basis” was that they were deemed out of scope. As I understand it, the word “economy”, if we stick to the letter of it, includes transactions for which there is no financial payment. There are transactions involved, and the word “digital” is in the title of the Bill, so I think it unfortunate that the amendment was not agreed to. Taking out the words “on a commercial basis” would have done a great deal to make consistent across all platforms and all forms of pornographic content available online the restrictions that we are placing on commercial ones.

I support the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend to the wording of clause 15(5)(a) and (6), for reasons that have already been given, and I want to add to the arguments. Hon. Friends and Members may have read the evidence from Girlguiding. As a former Guide, I pay tribute to the movement for the excellent work that it has done. It has contributed a profound and well-evidenced understanding of what young women are saying about online pornography. I will pick out a couple of statistics, because they make arguments to which I will refer in interventions on later clauses. That will make my speeches less long.

In the 2016 girls’ attitudes survey, half of the girls said that sexism is worse online than offline. In the 2014 survey, 66%, or two thirds, of young women said that they often or sometimes see or experience sexism online. It is a place where young women routinely experience sexism, and part of that sexism is the ubiquity of pornography. In 2015, the survey found that 60% of girls aged 11 to 21 see boys their age—admittedly, some of those are over the age of 18, but they are still the girls’ peers—viewing pornography on mobile devices or tablets. In contrast, only 27% of girls say that they see girls their age viewing pornography. The majority of those young women say from their experience that children can access too much content online and that it should be for adults only. In the survey, we see a certain degree of concord among young women in the Girlguiding movement, Opposition Members and the Government manifesto, which pledged, as my hon. Friend said, to exclude children from all forms of online pornography.

The 2015 Girlguiding survey also found that those young women felt that pornography was encouraging sexist stereotyping and harmful views, and that the proliferation of pornography is having a negative effect on women in society more generally. Those young women are the next generation of adults.

I have worked with young men who have already abused their partners. In my former job working with domestic violence perpetrators, I worked with young men of all ages; for the men my age, their pornography had come from the top shelf of a newsagent, but the younger men knew about forms of pornography that those of us of a certain age had no understanding of whatever. They were using pornography in ways that directly contribute to the abuse of women and girls, including pornography that is filmed abuse. I shall come back to that point later, but we need to recognise that young men are getting their messages about what sex and intimacy are from online pornography. If we do not protect them from online pornography under the age of 18, we are basically saying that there are no holds barred.

The hon. Member for Devizes and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley mentioned loopholes. When we leave loopholes, it creates a colander or sieve for regulation. Yes, the internet is evolving and, yes, we in this Committee Room probably do not know every single way in which it already provides pornography, and certainly not how it will in future, but that is a good reason to provide a strong regulatory framework when we have the chance. We have that chance now, and we should take it. If it remains the case that removing the words “on a commercial basis” is deemed outside our scope, which I find very sad—I think it is a missed opportunity, and I hope the House can return to it at some point and regulate the free content—we must definitely ensure that we are putting everything else that we possibly can on a level playing field. That means that the regulation of video on demand has to be consistent and that we have to close any other loophole we can spot over the next few days.

I hope Opposition amendments will make the Government think about the manifesto commitment they rightly made—I am happy to put on the record that I support it—and take the opportunity to stick to it. Young women want that; young men need it, because my experience of working with young men who have abused their partners and ex-partners is that they felt that they were getting those messages from pornography; and we as a society cannot afford to ignore this problem any longer. We have a chance to do something about it, so let us take that opportunity.

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

It is great to hear that outbreak of support for the Conservative party manifesto.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I must have it clearly on the record that I supported that commitment only: not the whole Conservative manifesto, just the bit that says “We want to protect all children from all online pornography.”

[Matt Hancock]

I am sure our powers of persuasion will extend that support in the future. The outbreak of support for our manifesto is welcome; this is an incredibly important area, and I am proud to lead the Front-Bench effort to deal with underage people’s access to adult material by introducing age verification. I want to respond in detail to the points made, because it is important we get this right.

Before I come to the specific amendments, I will deal with commercial providers. The measures in the Bill will apply equally to all commercial providers, whether their material is paid for directly or appears on free sites that operate on a different business model. “Commercial” has quite a broad meaning, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes said. If a provider makes money from a site in any way, whether or not it makes a profit, it can be caught by the legislation. That is the right distinction, because it targets those who make money and are indifferent to the harm their activities may cause to children.

--- Later in debate ---

The amendments and new clause 7 would apply the Bill’s age verification requirements to on-demand audio-visual media services under UK jurisdiction, meaning that we would end up with a double regulation. They would also amend the existing age verification requirement that applies to providers of those services to cover material that the British Board of Film Classification would describe as “18 sex works”, as well as R18 and equivalent. I want to be crystal clear about the aim: it is to have complementary regimes as between on-demand material regulated by Ofcom and material to be regulated by the BBFC, so that although the regulator may be different, the result is the same.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Forgive me, but the Minister just gave a lot of information, and I want to clarify something. Whichever regulator is doing it, will the effect of the legislation as he would like to see it put R18 films and 18-rated films on on-demand services at the same level of age verification? I am not clear on that point.

[Matt Hancock]

The aim is that even though the regulator may be different in those two cases, the result would be the same. I can give the hon. Lady that assurance. The Bill will do that without having double regulation. As we discussed earlier with regard to a different part of the Bill, having double regulation in the same area can lead to confusion and worse outcomes, rather than clarity and better outcomes.

A service that falls within part 4A of the Communications Act 2003—that is to say, one that is outwith the proposals —must not contain any specially restricted material, unless that material is made available in a manner that secures that persons under the age of 18 will not normally see or hear it. Specially restricted material includes R18 material and other material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of 18. Our intention is that such other material should include material that the BBFC would describe as 18 sex works. I think that answers precisely the point that the hon. Lady was making.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government’s own age verification regulator recommends that the amendments be made to the Bill. We very much hope that the Government will consider accepting them.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am a little puzzled as to what the hon. Member for Devizes has against requiring ISPs to block porn sites. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley said, they are already required to block other sites. If we require ISPs to block sites that offend copyright laws, I really do not understand the problem with requiring them to block sites that provide pornography to children.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

The hon. Lady may catch my eye later.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I defer to the hon. Lady. She mentioned something she is going to say in due course; I look forward to hearing it. Nevertheless, I stand by my comments. We need to be clear about whether we are going to fail to require ISPs to do something that we already require them to do for copyright infringement and other forms of pornography involving children. I fail to see what the problem is. Having a blocking injunction available to the regulator would give them another tool to achieve the aim that we have all agreed we subscribe to, which is being able to block pornography from being seen by children and young people.

[Claire Perry]

Mr Stringer, I assume that, like me, you sometimes have the feeling that you have sat down before you have finished what you are saying. I apologise to the Committee. I am rarely short of words, but in this case I was.

I want to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Bristol West and clarify exactly what we have asked and should be asking internet service providers to do. In doing so, I shall refer to the new EU net neutrality regulations, which, despite the Brexit vote, are due to come into force in December. They cause many of us concerns about the regime that our British internet service providers have put in place, which I believe leads the world—or, at least, the democratic free world; other countries are more draconian—in helping families to make these choices. We do not want all that good work to be unravelled.

Our current regime falls foul of the regime that the European Union is promoting, and unless the Government make a decision or at least give us some indication relatively quickly that they will not listen to that, we may have an issue in that all the progress that we have made may run out by December 2016. I would be grateful if the Minister told us what the Government are doing to get the new legislation on the statute book in line with the schedule set out by his colleague Baroness Shields last December.

We have an effective voluntarily filtering arrangement. I believe—I think that this point is in the scope of ancillary service providers—that we intend to capture internet service providers as part of the general suite of those responsible for implementing over-18 verification, but I want the Government to make crystal clear that they are aware of the responsibilities of internet service providers and intend for the regulator to include them in the basket of those that they will investigate and regulate.

The big missing link in all this has been getting content providers that provide material deemed to be pornographic to do anything with that material. The difference is that content providers of, say, gambling sites have always been required to have age-verification machinery sitting on their sites.

The hon. Member for Bristol West is quite right that we want ISPs to be captured under this regulatory regime, but I am keen to hear from the Minister that all the work that we have done with ISPs that have voluntarily done the socially and morally responsible thing and brought forward family-friendly filters will not be undone by December 2016, when the EU net neutrality regulations are intended to come into place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

As the regulator said, the proposals here mark a huge step forward in tackling the problem. We have to make a balanced judgment: there is a balance to be struck between the extra powers to block and the need to ensure that they are proportionate. The powers are not a silver bullet; sites that were actively trying to avoid the Bill’s other enforcement measures would also be able to actively avoid these measures. It is questionable how much additional enforcement power they would bring, given those downsides.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I must press the Minister to consider that children’s charities have told us that this is one of the most important amendments to the Bill. The Minister says that porn sites could simply move their URLs, but that is not a reason not to take a stand by giving the regulator the power that it has asked for and that children’s charities have particularly asked for.

[Matt Hancock]

Children’s charities and the regulator have asked for action to solve the problem of needing age verification. That is what the Bill delivers. The question of how to enforce that is incredibly important; there are different considerations to be made, and I think the Bill has ended up with the correct balance.

--- Later in debate ---

I want to state on the record again that we are disappointed that there is no indication in part 4 about the identity of the regulator. The legislation refers to a regulator as though there will be one across all stages of the notification and enforcement process; it has come as quite a surprise to learn that there will two regulators and that the Government cannot offer the Committee any indication about who they will be.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

My hon. Friend is making a series of excellent points which I hope the Minister can answer. We keep discovering that there are gaps, inconsistencies and potential confusion in the Bill. She has referred to the witnesses who gave evidence last week. Does she agree that it is really important that we focus carefully on the gaps that children’s charities such as the NSPCC have identified?

[Louise Haigh]

Obviously, I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We appreciate that the Government have consulted extensively with partners and representatives of all the relevant stakeholders, but it is not clear to us why they have not allowed ISPs that ultimate backstop power to block. For that reason, and to meet the objective of tackling providers outside the UK, we support amendments tabled by the hon. Lady the Member for Devizes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

Yes. I raised this with the gentleman from the British Board of Film Classification, I believe, and I questioned his assertion about the top 50 websites. He said that the process would not stop there but proceed to the next 50, but if those 50 content providers are constantly moving all over the place, it will be rather like a game of whack-a-mole. Unless we have a sufficiently large mallet to give the mole a whack early on—[Interruption.] This is a serious business, and if I am sounding a bit jocular, that is not meant to take away from the serious issue. If we do not have the tools to address those who are deliberately not complying, and those who do not wish to comply with the regulations that we are putting in place to protect our children, I fear that we will be chasing after them too much.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley is right that there will also be the danger that investigative authorities use too many of their resources to go after this, when there are other things they need to go after as well. We need to put the tools at the disposal of the investigative and enforcement authorities, to give them the opportunity to make as clean an attack as possible on the providers that are not complying with the desire of this House.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I will return to the evidence on this point to make clear why I support what the hon. Member for Devizes is trying to do. In his evidence last week, the NSPCC’s Alan Wardle—I think I have got that right—said quite clearly:

“I think that is why the enforcement part is so important…so that people know that if they do not put these mechanisms in place there will be fines and enforcement notices, the flow of money will be stopped and, crucially, there is that backstop power to block if they do not operate as we think they should in this country. The enforcement mechanisms are really important to ensure that the BBFC can do their job properly and people are not just slipping from one place to the next.”––[Official Report, Digital Economy Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 47, Q108.]

So what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley has just said is summed up very well by the NSPCC in its official evidence, and I hope that the Minister will have an answer for the NSPCC as well as for this Committee.

[Matt Hancock]

I am thankful for the opportunity to respond. I will actually respond to the points made about these amendments, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, rather than the reiteration of the blocking debate, which we have had and will no doubt have again on further clauses.

First, clause 17 clearly makes provision for the Secretary of State to designate more than one person as a regulator. Secondly—a crucial point—the complexity in regulation is deciding who is satisfying the rules and who is not, and that is for the BBFC to determine, whereas issuing fines is essentially a matter of execution and could be fulfilled by a variety of bodies. We will come forward with more detail on that in due course.

I think the whack-a-mole analogy inadvertently made the point, which is that when we are trying to deal with a problem on the internet, where people can move about, we can deal with the mainstream of the problem, which comes from reliable providers of adult material, who are already engaged and want to ensure they comply with the law. In future, once this measure becomes law, refusing to put age verification on adult material will be illegal, so we will be dealing with illegal activity. That will mean that the vast majority of people will comply with the law, and we heard that very clearly in the evidence session. The question then is how to deal with non-compliance and on the internet we know that that is very difficult. The proposals are to deal with non-compliance by disrupting business models and by imposing financial penalties.

I understand what my hon. Friend is trying to do. She is trying to strengthen the imposition of financial controls. Inadvertently, however, her amendments would reduce the regulator’s discretion by obliging the it to apply sanctions when they are available, and they would remove the power to apply financial penalties to non-UK residents.

We want to be able to fine non-UK residents—difficult as that is—and there are international mechanisms for doing so. They do not necessarily reach every country in the world, but they reach a large number of countries. For instance, Visa and other payment providers are already engaged in making sure that we will be able to follow this illegal activity across borders.

Therefore, while I entirely understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, the amendments would inadvertently have the effect of removing the ability to apply an enforcement notice to a UK resident, although I am certain that that is not what she intended. So I resist the amendment but I give her the commitment that we have drafted the clause in such a way as to make it as easy as possible for the enforcement regulator to be able to take the financial route to enforcement.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, the provisions do extend to Scotland, with necessary modifications to Scottish law. I am sure that he, like me, will have seen clause 17(5) and clause 20(11)(b), which refer to modifications needed to be consistent with Scottish law. On the basis of that information, I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman has lost his opportunity for that because the deadline for tabling amendments has passed. We should have an enduring assessment of the effectiveness of the Bill and an ongoing review of how effective the policy is. Select Committees have an important role to play in doing that. I resist the amendment on the grounds that it is impractical, because of the timings I have discussed, and because it is far better that such matters are reviewed constantly, rather than just on a one-off.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

In my experience, ongoing reviews tend to mean never. If you do not have a deadline or target, that gives you the scope just to say, “We are doing it and will carry on doing it for some time,” without there ever being a point at which you say, “Here’s a review.” An annual review is such an easy thing to which to commit; why not do it?

[The Chair]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady that I am not going to do anything with regard to the Bill. She should return to using normal parliamentary speech.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I apologise.

[Matt Hancock]

We thought you might be the regulator for part 4, Mr Stringer.

I suppose this is the difference between the two sides of the House: for the Opposition, an ongoing review means never; for the Government, an ongoing review means always.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

We promised to return to the topic of enforcement and blocking, and we have reached it today. That is very good; it suggests that our progress on the Bill is excellent.

The purpose of these amendments and new clause 6 is to clarify and strengthen the enforcement process. We have already discussed fruitfully how clause 20 will be used, particularly for sites based overseas, and I was reassured by what the Minister said, but I want to turn to the “what ifs”. What happens if the regulator acts, has clarity about whether they are imposing a fine or an enforcement notice, and nothing actually happens—none of the sanctions in the current regime leads to a website imposing age verifications? I welcome what the Bill says about involving a direct relationship between not just the regulator and the platform or the website, but the payment providers. As the Minister said, cutting off the business model—the cash flow—is a very effective way of making enforcement happen.

I have a series of questions relating to the process. First, it is not clear when the regulator will inform providers that such a contravention is happening. Some questions were asked about how long it will be and what the time period will be, but when does the regulator actually issue a notice? Amendment 75 states that the regulator has a power to issue a notice under clause 22 when an enforcement notice has been issued and the contravention has not yet ceased. I think websites ought to be given the opportunity to respond to the regulator’s intervention before the payment providers and ancillary services are involved. That process should be very clear. It is the same if we have an issue with service provision at home: we know what our rights are, what period of time we have to complain and what happens when that period expires.

Secondly, as I read the Bill—I am in no way setting myself up as somebody who understands every aspect of the legal jargon—there appears to be no requirement for the regulator to inform the payment providers and ancillary services of a contravention. It may just be implicit, but amendment 66 would make it mandatory for the regulator to inform the payment providers and ancillary services if there were a contravention. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am pleased that we have returned to enforcement and compliance, and I hope we are going to spend more time on blocking. The hon. Lady’s amendment uses the term “ancillary service provider”, to which she referred earlier. I would be very grateful if she spent some time spelling out in a bit more detail what an ancillary service provider is. Does it include ISPs? I think she alluded to that earlier, but I am not sure. Can she help clear up the confusion with some detail, please?

[Claire Perry]

I apologise if I have caused any confusion. I will let the Minister specify exactly what he thinks. In tabling these amendments, I wanted to ensure that as wide a group of people and companies as possible is involved in doing something we all think is very valuable—implementing these age verification mechanisms. As I read the Bill as drafted, it does not contain a clear distinction between ISPs and ancillary service providers; they are included in the same bucket. I want to clarify that I think that both ISPs and ancillary service providers—in my mind, ancillary service providers are the platforms that we discussed by name earlier—have a duty and a legal responsibility to ensure that the age-verification mechanisms are in place.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Lady will have to forgive me. We are going to hear from the Minister shortly, but I would like to know if, in her amendment, ancillary service providers definitely include internet service providers. I know it is a difference of just one word, but I would be grateful for her clarification.

[Claire Perry]

Yes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady again allowing me to intervene. I apologise for interrupting her sentence; that was not my intention. I am pleased to see her amendments. This discussion is helping me and perhaps all of us to come to some form of understanding. I have a little metaphor in mind. If a cinema was allowing children to see pornography, we would hold the ticket seller responsible, as well as the organisation running the cinema, but not the bus driver who drove the bus the child took to get to the cinema. Does that metaphor help?

[Claire Perry]

It depends whether the bus driver was paid for by the cinema. That is the point. Businesses pop up. There might be a bespoke Odeon cinema. My point is that we need to ensure that the regulator has as much flexibility as possible to respond to changing definitions. The current definition of an ancillary service provider is quite clear, although I would like the Minister to clarify it, but my amendment would try to future-proof the definition.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

In raising the issue of whether the bus driver was paid for by the cinema, the hon. Lady has helped me to hit on something else. Are we not considering the role of search engines in this matter and whether they are driving things or complicit? I do not know the answer to that question. She has raised a helpful analogy in response to my analogy.

[Claire Perry]

How long has the Committee got to hear about search engines? The hon. Lady raises a fascinating point. It was through a very strong cross-party effort and with the leadership of the former Prime Minister that we got the search engines to do some compelling things. Let me give her an example. It was clear that search engines in Europe were happy to allow terms to be typed in that could only lead to sexual images of child abuse being returned. I had the important but unenviable job, as the Prime Minister’s special adviser on the issue, of sitting down with the parents of April Jones, the little girl murdered in Wales, and trying to explain to them why, when their daughter’s killer typed in “naked little girls in glasses”, they received an image. It took many levels of conversation, including a personal conversation between me and the head of Google Europe, saying, “How do you as a parent feel about this? I don’t care about you saying ‘We serve up everything at all times’; I don’t care that the search terms themselves are not illegal. What I care about is your duty. You have a duty to do no evil, and in my view, you are breaching that.”

This is why I am so proud of what the Government have done. With all that effort and by recruiting Baroness Shields, who has been a worthy addition, we got the internet service providers not only to not return illegal imagery but, with the help of experts, not to return anything at all to a whole series of search terms that were found to be used by paedophiles in particular. I am sure that the hon. Lady will have seen that the Government then went further. It all comes down to what is legal. Your porn is my Saturday night viewing. [Laughter.] Theoretically.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I urge the hon. Lady to consider re-wording what she just said, for my sake and for hers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I defer to my hon. Friend’s knowledge. Of course we all agree that certain instances of countries taking things down are utterly abhorrent; I am thinking of information about human rights in China, or about female driving movements in Saudi Arabia. We do not want to be in the business of over-specifying what search engines can deliver. We have not even touched on Tor, the dark web or the US State Department-sponsored attempts to circumvent the public internet and set up some rather difficult places to access, which have increasingly been used for trafficking illegal material.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

We need to keep hold of the search engine issue for a moment, because search engines are part of the process. To restate the bus driver analogy, a search engine is also like a sign saying to adults, and children, “You can go here to see pornography”.

[Claire Perry]

I think we will let the Minister talk about that. Again, think about the practical series of keystrokes. Let us take gambling for a moment. It is quite a good analogy, because we mandated in the Gambling Act 2005 that there should be age verification. The search engine host provides access to a site, and users must go through an age verification mechanism. Age verification is incumbent on the site, and the service provider is legally responsible. I shall let the Minister discuss search engines in his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

They should be treated the same in that the same provisions in the Bill should be applied to each, but each performs a different role and ISPs are inevitably more closely connected to the provision of content because the content goes through an ISP, whereas a search engine may or may not be the route through which content is found. For implementation, it is clear that that is for the regulator to decide within the provisions set out in the Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I refer the Minister to the point made by the hon. Member for Devizes, who mentioned the murder of April Jones and the fact that her killer was able to type certain words into a search engine that I cannot bear to repeat. Search engines have the power to change their algorithm—we know they do.

[Matt Hancock]

The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes was making is that, owing to her work, the search engines made precisely those sorts of changes on a voluntary basis. At the request of the Government and others, they now undertake millions of changes to their algorithms and millions of take-downs for both child porn and terrorist-related purposes. That system is working well, and it does not need to be underpinned by regulation.

There is then a wider question. I am straying to the limits of order to discuss this, but my hon. Friend very effectively argued that the principle that the internet should provide the freedom that it provides within the framework of a regulated structure. We agree with that, and we are providing for some of that regulated structure in this Bill. There is a first amendment-type argument, if we are thinking about it in an American way, that the internet is free and laissez-faire and that we should not regulate it. There are people who say, for instance, that we should not recreate national jurisdictional boundaries on the internet and that we should not regulate it, that it should be completely free. We reject that argument, which is why we are prepared to introduce legal requirements on age verification for the provision of information over the internet in the UK jurisdiction. We reject the argument because, at a principled level, the freedoms that we enjoy are freedoms that do not harm others, which applies offline just as much as it applies online. Because the internet is relatively new, we are still in the early days of applying such a principle to the internet. That is a much bigger debate than in clause 22, and therefore I should not go into further detail.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I believe that the Minister has just answered the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West on whether a search engine is an ancillary service provider. The Minister acknowledges that search engines, as well as ISPs, should be considered as such.

[Matt Hancock]

All I did was set out the principles behind the Government’s response to the amendments to clause 22. The Committee must know those principles in order to understand the direction that we are taking on regulation.

I will move on to some of the other points that were made. I will respond to new clause 18 and amendment 79.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I hope I can provide some assurances to the perfectly reasonable questions from the hon. Lady. The clause is not an attempt to wriggle out of our manifesto commitment. We will deliver our manifesto commitment in full, and the Bill does that.

The clause provides discretion for the regulator to exercise its functions in a targeted way. It is needed so that the regulator does not break its statutory duties if it goes after the big providers first. As it set out in evidence, the regulator wants to go for the big providers first, and then move on to the smaller and then move on to the next. I want to allow for that to happen, so we need a clause such as this.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

If I am not mistaken, the Minister just said “in a targeted way”. I fail to understand how phrases such as “a large number” or “a large amount” are in any way targeted.

[Matt Hancock]

The clause gives discretion to the regulator. If the regulator went after the big porn sites first, it would not have the vires to distinguish and go after those who do the most harm earliest. It is important that it has the ability to make the legislation work in practice.

Digital Economy Bill (Seventh sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)]

New clause 3 is about protecting content owners from copyright infringement. Most of the discussion we have heard today has centred on online platforms and their particular abuse of music content. However, has the Minister considered the connected issue of the newspaper industry? Historically, newspapers used revenue from advertising to help support their news-gathering operation, and to provide a vital service, especially in regional and local communities—I am sure that Members on both sides of the Committee will have experienced that service in their constituencies. Today, there is a concern that some online platforms are benefiting from such news-gathering, but are not always paying for it in the most appropriate way. That raises questions about the sustainability of the newspaper industry and the vital service it provides. Has the Minister considered the connected issue of newspapers? Will he share any thoughts with the Committee?

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of these amendments and new clauses, and to add a bit of colour and flavour to some of the arguments that have already been made. We often talk about rights holders, but we need to be aware that behind those rights holders are individual artists, musicians and technical people. It is not just about my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West; it is about the technical people involved in any recording, film or e-book. Many people are involved in those processes, and every time we deny their right to be paid, we are denying them the right to continue working in the way that we would want them to work.

Which of us here has not skipped gaily around the Palace of Westminster, at least in our imagination, with a song in our heart or a tune in our head? Maybe that is just me. Most of us have a favourite film, and we have music at special family occasions. A poem will be read at a funeral and a song will be danced to at a wedding, and all the people involved in producing them need to be paid properly for their work.

There should not be this wild west of a shopping mall where people can access whatever they want for free, without proper provision for reimbursing those involved. Unfortunately, search engines in particular, but also other providers, are allowing that illegal shopping mall to exist, and so artists, writers and others involved in the creative industries are not getting their proper deserts. That is important.

The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West both mentioned economic value. I emphasise that according to the Government’s own website, the creative industries are contributing £9.6 million an hour to the UK economy. Since we sat down to work, the creative industries have contributed £9.6 million. UK music alone contributes £4.1 billion each year, which is something to think about. The creative industries are growing at twice the rate of the UK economy, at 8.9%, and we want them to continue to grow. We do not want to deny them part of their income—admittedly the minority, but it is still significant.

We tabled these amendments because we need to harmonise copyright and ensure that licensing laws work across the online and offline world. We want to help Conservative Members to fulfil their commitment in the Tory party manifesto, and new clause 3 would help

“the Government to fulfil its manifesto commitment to reduce copyright infringement and ensure search engines do not link to the worst-offending sites.”

We seem to have a degree of cross-party unity on the value of that measure. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, because there is otherwise an absence of a specific provision in the Bill to achieve this.

I want us to make sure that the good examples, such as Get it Right from a Genuine Site, are taken up and followed, to avoid the unfortunate misdemeanours of others, such as search engines that can remain nameless—we can all guess who they are and others may have already mentioned them. It is not okay for search engines to drive—wittingly or unwittingly, but they should reasonably have known—towards illegal sites.

Consumers do not want musicians, film makers and others to be robbed of their just deserts. Mostly, we want to be able to be sure that when musicians have made a piece of music we love, they get properly paid for it. It is incumbent on search engines and others to make sure that that happens, and to use the power we know they have to create their algorithms to work properly in this respect. We would not tolerate a shopping mall in which signs and property space were given to illegal shops selling illegal goods. This is the equivalent.

I am absolutely convinced that the Minister would want to honour the commitment in the Tory party manifesto to rectify that. On Second Reading, the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said,

“there may well be a case for including a legal provision encouraging providers to establish a voluntary code.”

He also said:

“we cannot allow Google and other search providers to go on allowing people access to illegal sites.” —[Official Report, 13 September 2007; Vol. 614, c. 785.]

I am convinced that the Minister will want to take up the mantle he has been thrown by the former Secretary of State and I urge him to do so.

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

What a pleasure it is finally to stand to respond to the long interventions and speeches from Labour Members. It is a joy to hear that at least some of them understand and believe in property rights. Conservative Members certainly do.

The discussion has turned into a debate not only on amendments 92 and 93 and new clauses 3 and 33 but essentially on clause stand part. I therefore hope that Committee members will understand if I explain the whole clause in my response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Quite the opposite, actually. The fact that there have not been any successful legal cases indicates that people are being very successfully scammed out of money because they are too afraid to resist the trolls who come to them saying, “You have infringed copyright.” The fact that there have not been legal cases should be a cause for concern, not complacency. The Minister might like to give that further consideration.

As we have made clear, our intention with the amendments is absolutely to support the protection of those whose intellectual property has been infringed. That is our aim, but as ever there is a balance to be struck. We want to ensure that the most vulnerable in society are not easily targeted by unscrupulous people using the fact that members of serious criminal networks engaged in copyright infringement can go to prison for 10 years under clause 26 to frighten them. Those vulnerable people may not always completely understand the law around intellectual property when they are online, and they could get a notice that could scare them into parting with some of their money. Such cases are a real problem across society in general, and this is just one area of these activities. We should be aware of the problem and be concerned about it. We should not be complacent.

As I have outlined, it is extremely unlikely that any such cases will come to court, because the people claiming that copyright infringement may have taken place are not interested in taking anyone to court. They are only interested in sending out enough notices to get a small number of people to respond and hand over their cash.

It is the same as when scammers send out millions of text messages and phone calls saying that a relative is stranded in some other country and asking for money to be sent immediately. They may say, “We have a wonderful investment that you should participate in,” or, “You as an elderly person should put your money into something, because then you can provide for your children and grandchildren. It’s a sure thing.” All those sorts of activities have become much more prevalent because of the internet, and this issue around copyright infringement is just one area of that. That is the point we are making.

I urge the Minister to go away with his officials, to think a bit more about this issue and to consider how we might be able to reduce the possibility of it becoming an even bigger problem in the future, with the 10-year sentence being used to frighten people even more than they are already being frightened by these scammers and so-called trolls.

Obviously we will not be voting on new clause 3 at this point, because that always happens at the end of Committee proceedings, as you rightly reminded us, Mr Streeter. The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty made it clear that it is not his intention to divide the Committee on his new clause when we reach that stage, but I say to the Minister that saying simply that it is not the right time for such a measure is not good enough as a response to the range of serious issues raised by Members of all parties.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I wish to ask the Minister whether he will give us some idea of the criteria by which he will assess when the right time is. I have no way of knowing for sure when that will be without an understanding of his reasoning and the reasons there might be for changing his mind in future.

[Kevin Brennan]

Obviously I cannot speak for the Minister, but he is free to say something after I have sat down. He is free to intervene now if he wants to clarify that point for my hon. Friend. It would be helpful if he did so, because I think this is exactly the right time for the measure. That is the purpose of new clause 3 and the thinking behind it. The talks have been going nowhere. As I have said, we have seen the movie several times before, and we know how it ends.

Digital Economy Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

As I have made clear in earlier contributions, I welcome the Government’s intention to protect children from the harmful effects of pornography. However, the Bill does not deal with other harmful effects. Not only can pornography be a potential source of harm to adult viewers and a way of promoting the very worst forms of gender inequality and stereotyping—both issues were discussed in a recent House of Lords debate, which I will not address—but the process of producing pornography can itself be harmful to the people involved, because of trafficking, deception, coercion and violence. New clause 5 seeks to deal with that.

The high frequency of violent scenes in pornography, in particular violence directed against women, has been well reported, although I have evidence if the Minister would like it. Testimonies from and research about people who have experienced the porn industry reveal that in many cases such scenes involve genuine violence, and that coercion is involved. There are serious questions to be asked about the level of coercion involved in pornography and what is being done to address it.

Online pornography is the easiest way for people to make, distribute, share and consume pornography, for free and commercially; I tabled the new clause because I would like to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing about the safety of people involved in the production of porn. People watching pornography would not want unwittingly to watch acts of rape, violence or coercion, but I am not convinced that there is anything like an adequate framework to prevent that.

The new clause is intended to probe. If this country is to lead the way in ending modern slavery and preventing exploitation, as the Prime Minister has pledged, we need to do everything we can to prevent pornographic material produced through coercion, trafficking or violence from being made in or distributed from the UK. The new clause would make it an offence to make available in the UK online pornography that involves people who have been exploited. Words to explain that are included.

There are strong links between pornography, trafficking and prostitution, as part of a complex system of exploitation within and fuelled by the global sex industry. Organised crime groups, individual traffickers and pimps exploit people to make money, and online pornography presents them with an easy opportunity to make more money by exploiting a person who is already under their control. Someone who has been trafficked or is providing sexual services might also be filmed or photographed. The development of technology has made filming and uploading material to the internet extremely easy, and production of porn is no longer limited to large commercial enterprises.

Areas of the world known to have significant problems with human trafficking, including eastern Europe, Russia and the Philippines, are also known to have growing porn industries. Professor Donna Hughes has written extensively about trends in human trafficking:

“Brothel owners, pimps, and pornography producers place orders with traffickers for the number of women they need.”

That has also been identified in the UK. A report by the POPPY Project as long ago as 2004 noted that some of the trafficked women it was caring for had been photographed or filmed naked by their traffickers, including while abuse of them was taking place.

Exploitation in internet pornography, however, is much wider than trafficking, which is why proposed new subsection (3) of the new clause sets out a broader definition of exploitative conduct. Coercion, drug use and violence, as well as poor labour conditions and low pay, have been well documented in the commercial porn industry. Evidence and first-hand testimonies from former porn industry insiders reveals that women are forced and coerced to participate in sexual acts that are often violent. They are constantly pressured for ever more extreme performances.

Many young women enter pornography as a result of coercion and deception about the realities. The young women are often extremely vulnerable. Many of them have experienced childhood sexual abuse, been in foster care or lived in poverty. Professor Hughes writes:

“Most women entering the pornography industry don’t know what they will be subjected to...they need money and are looking for opportunities. The agents, directors and producers take extreme advantage of these often naive young women. Their first experience making commercial pornography is often brutal and traumatic.”

One former porn performer from the US has said:

“When I was first introduced to my agent I told him I had no limits and would do it all. But I had NO idea what I was saying. I didn’t know about all the hardcore sex acts I would be forced to do.”

She also describes how she was threatened with being sued for large sums of money when she tried to pull out of performing in a scene, and speaks of being physically beaten on and off screen. She used alcohol and a range of prescription drugs to help her cope. Coercion in the industry goes beyond just pressuring or manipulating people to sign a contract; that is just the beginning. Coercion extends to forcing women to perform physically abusive scenes repeatedly.

Finally, I turn to the legal context. Dr Max Waltman, a researcher who has analysed the laws on pornography—including online pornography—in Sweden, Canada and the USA, as well as the political contexts in those countries, writes that

“testimonial evidence on violence, coercion, and trauma during pornography production revealed in public hearings repeatedly mirror both quantitative and qualitative data on these subjects in the lives of prostituted women around the world”.

That evidence cannot simply be discarded as unrepresentative or “anecdotal”.

Through the internet, pornographic material produced involving coercion, violence and even trafficking is accessible throughout the UK. While the viewers, distributors and host websites may not be directly involved in the coercion or violence, they are complicit in it by watching, paying for or receiving revenue by promoting the material. Viewers of pornography are not likely to be able to take action to find out the origins of the material, but promoters are. They have a responsibility to check the sources of the material they distribute. We hold supermarkets and clothes shops responsible for the conditions in their supply chains, so why not pornographers?

The clause recognises that it might not always be possible for a distributor to find out all the details of the production of material, so criminal responsibility is limited to cases where the distributor

“knows or ought to know”

that the material involved exploited persons. Nevertheless, I believe that such a clause would contribute to a greater awareness of the need to investigate the origins of pornographic material.

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires large companies to report on trafficking and forced labour in their supply chains. I would like the Minister to say whether or not that measure also applies to pornography; recent analysis found only patchy compliance with supply chain obligations. However, as I have already said, coercion in pornography extends beyond trafficking and forced labour, which is why I have tabled this new clause.

Finally, I turn again to the legal framework. Dr Waltman analysed the implications of the Swedish “sex buyer law”—the law that criminalised the demand side of prostitution while decriminalising the supply side—for the laws governing the production of pornography. He points out that, under Swedish law, the person paying for the sex act does not have to be the person having sex; it could be the producer of online pornography, paying people to have sex. Using this measure could mean that producing pornography with exploited persons was already illegal. Dr Waltman is exploring that possibility further and he has written about

“what the political obstacles are to challenge the production of pornography with real persons in Sweden. How come…the legislature did not recognize that the procuring provisions should apply to pornography production?”

Was the resistance to such an application based on law, or ideological perceptions?

I cannot answer those questions about the “sex buyer law” in Sweden, but I can pose related questions today about our own laws as they relate to online pornography, given that it is in the scope of the Bill. We already have a partial version of the Swedish “sex buyer law” in force in this country. Since April 2010, section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as inserted by section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, passed by a Labour Government, has created a new offence of paying for the sexual services of a prostitute who has been subjected to force. This legislation set down a clear line that paying for sex with someone who had been trafficked or coerced was never acceptable, and it now needs to apply to pornography.

This probing new clause is designed to find out various things. For instance, will the Government consider using existing legislation to outlaw the distribution of internet pornography involving a prostitute who has been subjected to force or to widen the scope of the legislation by replacing the word “prostitute” with “person”? That would make it clearer that nobody should pay for sex with anyone who is trafficked, whether or not they define themselves as “a prostitute” and whether or not the sex takes place within a prostitution setting or in pornography. The dividing lines for people who are coerced, trafficked and harmed in the sex industry are not felt as clearly as our laws imply they are.

I may as well place on the record that I am also in favour of a “sex buyer law” in this country, but discussion of that issue is for another debate.

Finally, I would like to hear from the Minister answers to the following questions. First, what are the Government doing to hold the makers and distributors of internet pornography to account for coercion and violence committed in the course of pornography production, from which those makers and distributors are profiting? Will the Government consider the matter of abuse, coercion and trafficking in pornography, and how to safeguard people from harm? Will they consider what regulatory or legal framework would be adequate to ensure that consumers of pornography can be sure that they are not viewing rape or sexual assault, or sexual acts taking place under or as a result of the threat of violence or actual violence?

Will the Government ask their advisers to look into the potential for our existing legislation to be amended—or for new legislation—to prevent trafficking, coercion, violence and abuse in the making of pornography? Will they also consider all of these questions, keeping in mind that it is entirely possible that there is no regulatory or legal framework that could adequately protect people from violence, abuse, coercion and trafficking in online or offline pornography or in prostitution, and that we may one day have to consider that there needs to be stronger legislation against both? Although the new clause is intended only to probe, I end by urging the Minister to consider the issue seriously because it matters too much. The way we treat the most vulnerable in society is a measure of how we are as a nation.

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

I want to respond to a powerful and impassioned speech by the hon. Member for Bristol West and set out why, while agreeing with much of the substance of what she says, we think that many of the issues are covered by existing legislation and why we think that enforcement is the biggest part of the challenge, as she pointed out. There are also some technical deficiencies with the proposed clause. I will deal with all those issues in the context of strongly supporting the thrust of her argument and the desire to protect vulnerable women.

New clause 5 seeks to make it a criminal offence to

“make available on the internet pornographic material on a commercial basis to persons in the United Kingdom if they know or ought to know that the production of the pornographic material involved exploited persons.”

The language is similar to that used in other parts of the Bill, but it covers quite different ground in terms of the substance. I do not want to see people exploited in this way; the question is about what is provided for through existing law and how the new clause would affect that.

The offence is targeted at persons “making available” material that may have involved exploitation, rather than the exploitation itself. We are committed to ensuring that people are not subject to exploitation; this is a technical difference in respect of the way that the law applies. Tackling exploitation is the existing basis of the work of, for example, the National Crime Agency’s child exploitation online protection command and the violence against women and girls strategy as well as the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Making sure that we implement the 2015 Act—recent legislation—and enforce it is a critical part of the work of the Home Office at the moment.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful to the Minister for reassuring me that the 2015 Act could cover what I am talking about. My concern relates to whether that is actually happening. Could the Minister expand further on that point?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course. The expansion of enforcement in respect of the 2015 Act is an important part of the work of the Home Office at the moment. The Minister who took that legislation through Parliament is now the Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, so Ministers at that Department have a good understanding of not just the legislation, but the need for enforcement.

Existing legislation, including the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, clearly makes it an offence to be in possession of “an extreme pornographic image”—which includes images depicting non-consensual sex—and to possess and distribute indecent images of children. In addition, the independent Internet Watch Foundation works to identify and remove child sexual abuse, which we discussed earlier in Committee, as well as criminally obscene content hosted anywhere in the world. We are able to take down criminally obscene content, and the approach has started to work effectively. The organisation works closely with Government, at national and local levels, and policing agencies to support investigations and prosecutions.

There are a couple of technical reasons why the new clause is deficient. First, the scope of the offence is unclear; there is no definition as to what constitutes pornographic material. It is not made clear whether the definition at clause 16 of the Bill is to be used. Similarly, it is not clear what is meant by “make available” on the internet: would that capture internet service providers who host the material or just the individual who actually uploaded it to a specific website?

Secondly, the proposed classification of the offence is summary only and the corresponding maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, a level 5 fine or both, is incongruous for an offence dealing with this kind of conduct. Other sentences for offences in this area are much more serious. For example, the proposed maximum is much lower than for other offences relating to coercive conduct, such as trafficking for sexual exploitation, which carries a maximum of life imprisonment, and the possession of extreme pornographic images, which carries a maximum of three years’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.

I am also concerned that the offence as drafted could be difficult to prosecute. In practice, it is difficult to show that a person making material available online actually knew, or should have known, that an individual featured had been exploited. There may be no link, or a very tenuous link, between these individuals and those engaged in the exploitation itself. Lastly, there are also potential territorial difficulties involved in prosecuting this offence. In the absence of any express provision to the contrary, it is presumed that any criminal offence is subject to the jurisdiction only when it is perpetrated in the UK. This is an issue that we have dealt with elsewhere in the Bill.

I applaud the hon. Lady’s intentions and have given assurances about the ongoing work in prosecuting other offences. I invite her to withdraw the motion.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Minister for his responses. My understanding is that the implementation of the Modern Slavery Act does not cover this area of work so I will be following that up with the Minister and his colleagues. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 13

Offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase excessive number of tickets

‘(1) A person commits an offence if he or she utilizes digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets over and above the number permitted in the condition of sale.

(2) A person commits an offence if he or she knowingly resells or offers to resell a ticket that the person knows, or could reasonably suspect, was obtained using digital ticket purchasing software and was acting in the course of a business.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) a person shall be treated as acting in the course of a business if he or she does anything as a result of which he makes a profit or aims to make a profit.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to—

(a) imprisonment for a period not exceeding 51 weeks,

(b) a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or

(c) both.

(5) In this section—

(a) “digital ticket purchasing software” means any machine, device, computer programme or computer software that, on its own or with human assistance, bypasses security measures or access control systems on a retail ticket purchasing platform that assist in implementing a limit on the number of tickets that can be purchased, to purchase tickets.

(b) “retail ticket purchasing platform” shall mean a retail ticket purchasing website, application, phone system, or other technology platform used to sell tickets.”

(6) Subsections (1) and (2) shall apply in respect of anything done whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’—(Nigel Adams.)

This new clause creates an offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets for an event over and above the number permitted in the condition of sale. It also creates an offence to knowingly resell tickets using such software.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause would make it an offence to use digital ticket purchasing software to purchase tickets for an event in excess of the number allowed by the retail ticket purchasing platform. It also creates an offence to knowingly resell tickets bought using such software. This is not a silver bullet. Ticket touting is a huge problem and touts use a variety of methods to obtain tickets. There is also the issue of regulation of secondary resellers. However, the new clause would address one problematic aspect: it would help to get a higher proportion of tickets into the hands of genuine fans on their first attempt.

I have told colleagues repeatedly in this place about my recent experience of trying to purchase tickets for a Green Day concert; I dread to think what a credibility hit I have caused fans by referencing the fact that I am a huge Green Day fan. The experience really did upset me. The primary ticketing website I was using, See Tickets, had been the victim of a computerised attack by organised touts using botnets. That meant that I and other fans lost out, but the tickets were available minutes later at grossly inflated prices on other sites.

The practice occurs every day on an industrial scale in all types of sporting and cultural events. Whenever tickets to popular events go on sale, they are snapped up by professional ticket touts and prices become prohibitive for many genuine fans, often hampering the ability of the artist to fill their venues.