Online Safety Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Let me start, like others, by saying how extraordinarily pleased I am to see the Bill return to the House today. I put on record my enormous gratitude to the many people who have worked on it, especially the families of those who have lost loved ones, organisations such as the Internet Watch foundation, of which I have been a champion for over a decade, the Mental Health Foundation, the many Ministers who have worked on this, and especially the Secretary of State, who continued to work on it through her maternity leave, and those in the other place. It was wonderful to be at the Bar of the other place, listening to Baroness Kidron, and others, when they spoke, and I thank her for being here today. I also particularly wish to thank Baroness Morgan and Lord Bethell.

A few months ago at the beginning of the year I went to one of those meetings that all MPs do, when they go and speak to politics students in their own sixth form. They normally throw loads of questions at us, but before I let them throw questions at me, I said, “Listen, I have a question I need to ask.” As a Back Bencher in this place we get asked to work on so many different issues, so I grabbed the white board and scribbled down a list of many issues that I have been asked to work on, both domestically and internationally. I gave the students each three votes and asked them what they wanted my priority to be. The issue of tackling online pornography, and the impact it was having, was way up that list.

I thank the Children’s Commissioner for the work done with young people to identify and understand that risk more. Our research asked 16 to 21-year-olds when they had first seen online pornography, and 10%—one in 10—had seen online pornography by the age of nine, and 27% had seen it by the age of 11, so more than one in four. Fifty per cent.—that is half; that is every other one of those young people—had seen online pornography before they turned 13.

It is also the case that the type of pornography they have been seeing is increasingly more violent in nature, and that is changing young people’s attitude towards sex. Young people aged 16 to 21 are more likely to assume that girls expect or enjoy sex involving physical aggression such as airway restriction—strangling—or slapping, than those who do not see such pornography. Among the respondents, 47% stated that girls expect sex to involve physical aggression, and 42% said that most girls enjoy acts of sexual aggression. Some 47% of respondents aged 18 to 21 had experienced a violent sexual act. The Children’s Commissioner also asked these young people where they were watching pornography, and the greatest number of young people were watching that pornography on Twitter—now X—not pornography platforms.

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[Paul Scully]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed, end-to-end encrypted services are in the scope of the Bill. Companies must assess the level of risk and meet their duties no matter what their design is.

[Vicky Ford]

Can the Minister confirm whether the letter I received from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) is accurate?

[Paul Scully]

I was just coming to that. I thank my right hon. Friend for the rest of her speech. She always speaks so powerfully on eating disorders—on anorexia in particular—and I can indeed confirm the intent behind the Minister’s letter about the creation and use of algorithms.

Finally, I shall cover two more points. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) always speaks eloquently about this. He talked about Brexit, but I will not get into the politics of that. Suffice to say, it has allowed us—as in other areas of digital and technology—to be flexible and not prescriptive, as we have seen in measures that the EU has introduced.

I also ask my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) to pass on my thanks and best wishes to Hollie whom I met to talk about Archie Battersbee.