Climate Action and Extinction Rebellion

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I was not at the Durham miners’ gala where those pledges were made, but, with the exception of some Opposition Members, I think there is general cross-party support for phasing out coal, which is the dirtiest form of fossil fuel, as a power-generation source. Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is also, I believe, against nuclear power, so that would leave an awfully big hole in the thermal generation part of the energy system.

I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who will know from his own constituency of Selby and Ainsty that some of these transitions can be difficult, involving job losses. This is why it is such a challenge for other countries, and why the transition we have to make has to be just and fair, and has to ensure that people’s jobs are maintained and new jobs are created.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The Minister asks what would be the point of her declaring a climate change emergency. Well, it is because it is an emergency. It is an emergency right now and it is an emergency across the world—glaciers are melting, seas are rising—and the Minister knows this. I just do not understand, and I do not think people watching or my constituents in Bristol West will understand, what is stopping her declaring a climate change emergency and then treating the problem as an emergency.

[Claire Perry]

Let me try to help the hon. Lady and her constituents. I do not see the point of saying anything unless we take action to solve the problem. We are now realising that we have a massive, growing problem with our global emissions, affecting the balance of our economy. We in this country lead the world in trying to solve this problem. I accept that we need to go further and faster, but I want to focus on actions rather than simply standing here and saying, “I have said a few things—job done.” Let us focus on actions, not words.

Climate Change Policy

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

Indeed I can offer the hon. Lady that assurance. I have regular ministerial quadrilaterals—in this case with the civil servants, who do an excellent job representing Northern Ireland on many issues, including climate change progress and deal or no-deal planning, so the system is working. Obviously, we would like to see political leadership as well in Northern Ireland, but the process is working, and the market mechanisms that have been put in place are delivering the CO₂ reductions that we want to see.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady might be sick of hearing me ask the same question over and over again, so I will try to ask it in a different way. She says that she wants action and not words, and I agree with her, but the two are not mutually exclusive. She comes up with lots of ideas and, as she said, there is a lot in the various documents that she has referred to, so why not have actions and words? Powerful words often lead to much more powerful action. This is an emergency, and today’s young people feel a sense of urgency. They need to see leadership coming from within this room, so will the Minister please think again and declare a climate emergency?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady will get the same answer, but she gets points for persistency. I am still waiting for my vegan meal to be delivered to the Houses of Parliament, by the way. The point still stands that it does not matter what we all stand up and say; what matters is that we go out of here and do. I know that she is passionate about this on behalf of her constituents and the country that she is proud to represent, and we are delivering and will continue to deliver. I want to be the Minister who actually commits us to a course of action, not just to a slogan that sounds good on a T-shirt.

Net Zero Carbon Emissions: UK’s Progress

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My right hon. Friend makes the point well about some of the things that the Government can actually do. So much of this is about a combination of the public and the private sector working together, but there are absolutely parts of the equation on which the Government can and must lead, such as through legislation and incentives. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Of course the role of Government is to set ambition and to lead. I wish to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who was in his place earlier. He, along with many other Members in this place from all parties, has contributed so much time and ingenuity over the past few years to come up with these policies. I accept the hon. Lady’s point about the calculation, but that is the basis on which that chart is calculated. The consumption emissions of all countries are not necessarily allocated. The point is that, on that basis, we have led the world, and that is something on which we should absolutely focus.

I will talk about some of the other things that we have delivered—things, I hope, that the hon. Lady will feel pleased about for once. Last year was a record year for the generation of power from renewables. We were at 32%. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady is heckling like one of the gilets jaunes. I wish that she would listen and behave like the elder stateswoman that she could be. We have had the world’s first floating offshore wind platform in operation. We have set out an auction structure for offshore wind. [Interruption.] Offshore wind is rather important in decarbonising our energy. We also had the first set of coal-free days in our energy generation since the industrial revolution, which has allowed us to take global leadership in the Powering Past Coal Alliance to encourage 80 other countries, states, cities and companies to operate in a coal-free way.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

I will give way briefly to the hon. Lady.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Minister very much for giving way. I know that she is very short of time. Although I welcome all of those achievements, does she not agree that, if we really are to meet the highest possible necessary carbon neutral targets, we need to invest more and more in renewables and less and less in fossil fuels?

[Claire Perry]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. That is why I am about to bring forward the offshore wind sector deal that sets out how we will continue to drive that capacity. It is why we are spending almost £6 billion over the course of this Parliament—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I have here a card with my hon. Friend’s title—he is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on self-build, custom and community housebuilding and placemaking, and he speaks with such knowledge and enthusiasm on this subject. He is quite right, and that is why we have set up the clean growth mission, why we have set out clear standards to drive up the energy efficiency of all homes to at least band C by 2035 and why we can no longer see new homes—particularly new build homes—that are off the gas grid being built with fossil fuel heating; we want that out by 2025.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

But does the Minister not agree that the two aims can be brilliantly combined if we have an ambition to become a world leader in renewable energy and to increase investment in research and development in tidal and wave energy—two resources we have in abundance—to take them rapidly to commercial stability and create the jobs of the future?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that our renewable energy build is already over 30%, which is why we were able to get off coal earlier than many other developed countries. The problem with the tidal projects that we debated so extensively this year was that we were being asked to fund the most expensive power station that this country had ever built, with very few jobs created, and it was simply too expensive to burden consumers with. That is why we have said that the door is always open to innovation, but it has to be funded at the right price.

Green GB Week and Clean Growth

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

When we talk about climate change, it can seem like an incredibly powerful threat that we are all completely powerless to deal with, but that is simply not true. We have already cut our emissions by 30-odd per cent. since 1990. In fact, the last time emissions were as low as this in the UK, Queen Victoria was on the throne. We can do it and we can lead the world in doing it, but there is no complacency. We are not doing this to give ourselves a birthday cake and a pat on the back. We are doing this because we think there is much more opportunity, and we can push the world to go further by showing that it is possible.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

May I gently invite the Minister to come share a meal with me at some point? I say that because I wish to encourage her, after promising to consider using an electric vehicle, to go one further and consider a meat-free day every week. Alternatives to meat are available; there is a very tasty meat-free “chicken” stir-fry in my fridge right now. This is not something we have to do every day. She is very welcome to come and try out what going meat-free would involve. The serious point is that going meat-free or reducing the amount of meat we eat one day a week makes a huge contribution to reducing our emissions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

Of course, the whole House will shortly be able to pass the price cap Bill, which will assist all consumers with the cost of energy, and this comes on top of the prepayment meter and vulnerable consumers price caps that are in place. We are determined to continue supporting vulnerable consumers through such things as the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and repurposing the very large energy company obligation scheme to tackle fuel poverty.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

T2. Will the Secretary of State please think of the 150,000 homes that it would power, the thousands of jobs that it would create, the supply chain business that it would support in Wales and the west, and the climate change that it would tackle, and get off the fence and announce Government support for Swansea Bay tidal lagoon today?

[Claire Perry]

I have always admired the hon. Lady’s passion. Again, as I have said multiple times, we absolutely are very keen to scrutinise this deal. It has to deliver the low-carbon energy we all want and the jobs we all want at a price that is affordable for the consumers we all represent.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

I want to make three points, and I will not detain the House for too long. First, I want to set out for the benefit of the Front Benchers the concern that I still feel about some definitional points; secondly, I want to talk about how far we have come; and, thirdly, I want to echo what has been said about how cross-party working can deliver in this place.

Both Ministers have received a letter from me on the part 3 amendments. I understand how we have reached the current position. We expressed concern during various briefings about the fact that definitional questions about the difference between “prohibited” and “extreme” were not thrashed out in Committee. I commend Ministers for the very productive Committee proceedings. Despite what the Opposition Front-Bench team have said, I think that the Bill was greatly improved by the current ministerial team, who showed a real willingness to engage, listen and improve the Bill. I feel strongly that we are in a much better place after Committee than we were when we started.

We have had concerns about the definition of “prohibited material”, which is now a clear, appropriate and workable definition guided by five different statutes, one of which is the Obscene Publications Act 1959. That Act gave rise to the concern about whether certain acts—I will not trouble Hansard to check whether certain terms are permissible; I will simply not use them—that were once considered to be illegal are no longer considered to be so, and thus should not be captured by the definition of “prohibited”. I think that the concern over those very specific items led the Government to narrow the focus too much to a definition of extreme pornography. That definition leaves in the middle a lot of material that is not currently captured by statute, but is considered to be anything from life-threatening, at worst, to damaging at best.

By my reading, the definition of extreme pornography makes space for two things: all but the most extreme forms of sexual violence—by that I am referring to choking pornography and multiple sexual acts on one woman or man—and non-photographic child sexual images, including animation. The latter particularly concerns us, because we have all worked hard to ensure that this whole area is outlawed, without any discussion of what is permissible. I think we would all support the complete removal of that whole area from the internet.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

It was a great privilege to work with the hon. Lady on the Committee. Does she share my concern that we do not yet have enough information or clear, research-based evidence about the long-term impact of viewing or appearing in all sorts of different types of pornography?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady has worked assiduously in this area, and I thank her for our many conversations and the improvements that we have made together to the Bill. She is quite right: in some ways we are conducting an experiment with the unknown, in terms of child-rearing and the way in which young people absorb information about the world. It is not for me to stand here and pontificate about what might or might not be harmful, but according to research that Care and others have shared with me, when people are shown images of activities that will now be permitted behind an age verification screen, between 74% and 81% favour preventing any access to them. That is the joint response from men and women, although unsurprisingly women have a stronger sense that such images should not be visible to any age group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Claire Perry]

I appreciate the Minister’s comments, and he neatly anticipates what I was going to say: I have no intention of causing trouble at this stage, because he has assured us from the Dispatch Box and in meetings of his firm commitment to making sure that these definitional questions are resolved in such a way as to enable all parties to support them.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. I want to put on record a further concern that I raised by tabling a probing amendment in Committee, but that remains unresolved. Regardless of the appearance of the acts, I am concerned about the welfare and safety of people who may have been coerced, forced or violently pushed into appearing in pornography. We may not be able to tell whether that is the case from viewing such material, and I am very concerned about the effect that that can have.

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Lady raises an important point about such material, which is easily available and, in some cases, marketed for commercial purposes. Many of us believe—evidence is emerging to back this up—that it may be extremely damaging to people who view it, particularly if they are underage, as well as to those who are coerced into performing such acts. I hope that the hon. Lady shares my relief and satisfaction about the fact that Ministers accept that, and that they are prepared to continue to consider the question of who this material is harmful to.

That brings me neatly to my second point, which is to emphasise quite how far we have come. I pay tribute to many colleagues, some of whom are not in the Chamber. Some, like the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), are standing down. With me, she led the cross-party inquiry into the original question about what we should do in this space. In the face of much prevarication and pushback—not from within this place, but primarily from the industry—we managed to deliver a result that was effective and proportionate. I thank all colleagues, including Ministers and shadow Ministers, for continuing to work with such commitment.

I want to refer to the recent conversations that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has had about banning extremist material or making its dissemination more difficult. In this space, none of us is a technological expert—with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who can probably claim to be one—but I think that we understand what our constituents want. Whenever we want to change something in this space, we get the response, “Oh, don’t trouble your little heads about the internet,” or, “You innocent people know nothing about this, so how can you possibly stand up and talk about stopping extremist material or preventing children from accessing material online? You do not really understand that the internet is a special place and it should be different.” I have never understood why we should allow the internet to be a special form of content dissemination when we willingly accept self-regulation and Government regulation of other forms of media distribution.

What has been so good about the journey we have been on since 2012 is that we have seen an increase in corporate social responsibility, as my hon. Friend said. We have seen internet service providers—led, I might say, by TalkTalk and Sky, which were then joined rapidly by the others—really going out there to put in place family-friendly filters and to invest in education about online safety. I was delighted to see that the proposed changes for PSHE—personal, social and health and economic education—include conversations about how our young people can be safe digital citizens online.

I want to report back from a visit I recently conducted to the wonderful Internet Watch Foundation in Cambridge. It has benefited substantially from increased funding from the industry as the result of the work that we have all done. That work has enabled it to go into places such as the dark web, where it knows that people are exchanging child abuse imagery, and to block that material and take it down. It is extremely grateful for the work the Government have continued to do and the support it has received from right across the House.

However, I share the concerns raised by my hon. Friend. I still think that companies out there are hiding behind their legal jurisdiction in the United States, and therefore their adherence, as it were, to a very different set of freedom of speech standards. Secondly, they are giving the slightly shoulder-shrugging response, “Well, if you make it illegal, we will comply,” which is not the way to build Government and consumer confidence in their platforms. I am afraid that time is running out for companies such as Facebook to be saying, “We’re really sorry that a video of a man hanging his 18-month-old baby was on the internet.” If the company can be so clever as to make an advert for a specific colour of shoes, which I had browsed once, that will follow me around the internet almost in perpetuity, I think it has the technology—the pictorial and IP addressing technology—to deal with that. It would probably say, “Look, she does not know the right words,” but I am a politician, not a technologist. I think that the industry is stuffed full of very clever people who could make this change happen if they wanted to, and they should stop looking for individual or collective Governments to force them to do so.

Finally, I want once again to put on record my thanks to all Members who have campaigned with me. Together we have really made a difference. I also thank Ministers, who have really taken this seriously and worked very hard to deliver real progress. Should I be lucky enough to be re-elected in a few weeks’ time, I guess I will be happy to continue this journey, particularly in relation to the definitional clarity that would enhance this space even further.

Lords amendment 1 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendment 1.

Lords amendment 2 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment 2.

Lords amendments 3 to 39 agreed to.

Lords amendment 40 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 40.

Lords amendments 41 to 236 agreed to.

Lords amendments 237 to 239 disagreed to.

Lords amendments 240 and 241 agreed to.

Lords amendment 242 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment 242.

Lords amendments 243 to 245 agreed to.

Amendment (a) made to Lords amendment 246.

Lords amendment 246, as amended, agreed to.

Lords amendments 247 to 289 agreed to, with Commons financial privilege waived in respect of Lords amendments 248 to 254.

Digital Economy Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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 ---

[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.

Digital Economy Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

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?

Digital Economy Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

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.

Digital Economy Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Thangam Debbonaire and Claire Perry

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.