Digital Economy

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

These regulations will apply even to pornographic sites that make their initial offer free of charge. The rule is that, if a site offering a service where more than 30% of its content is pornographic does so on a commercial basis—which can be free of charge if it is backed up by advertising revenues—it comes within the scope of these regulations, whether or not it provides those services free of charge. These draft regulations will capture such sites as are of concern to my hon. Friend.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I chaired the UK Council for Child Internet Safety for two and half years. While I applaud the regulations that the Minister is bringing forward, this is scratching the surface. The problem is that these days very few young people pay to access hardcore pornography on the internet. Unless we have some form of verifiable, age-based permission such as the use of a credit card—even if that is not charged for—we are not going to prevent this from happening. Actually, the much bigger problem is on social media, with sexting and everything else that goes on. Social media companies, including ones that we have had in front of the Home Affairs Committee, are turning a blind eye to the hosting of exceedingly dangerous material that young people are accessing and normalising, and then they are transferring that to their relationships during impressionable years. We really have got to do so much better than this.

[Margot James]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has done while chairing that important body, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. I have already made clear in my answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, the Chair of the Select Committee, that we do recognise that these regulations are a first step. Although we have high expectations of what they can achieve, we are fully aware that they do not go as far as to be able to satisfy the vast majority of our concerns where social media platforms are concerned, where the majority of content is not pornographic.

I would like to reassure the House, however, that I do believe that these regulations will be more effective than my hon. Friend fears, because they will cover sites that make pornography available free of charge. As he rightly points out, the majority of young people access pornography without paying for the service. However, if they access it from a site that is predominantly pornographic and is offering a pornographic service on a commercial basis, then, whether it is free of charge or paid for, the regulations will capture both. I would like to reassure him that these regulations will bring into scope the sites about which he is concerned that currently provide these services free of charge.

My hon. Friend will also be reassured to know, when I go on to explain a little more about the actual process of age verification, that it is not simply a matter of being able to offer a credit card. The rigour of age verification provision will be stricter than that. That will also help to counter the growing trend of young people accessing pornography before they attain the age of 18.