Smartphones and Social Media: Children

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of smartphones and social media on children.

In this country, we often take the physical safety of our children for granted, but imagine if our streets were so lawless that it was unsafe for children to leave their homes. Imagine if, on their daily walk to school, our children had to witness the beheading of strangers or the violent rape of women and girls. Imagine if, when hanging out in the local park, it was normal for hundreds of people to accost our child and encourage them to take their own life. Imagine if it was a daily occurrence for our children to be propositioned for sex or blackmailed into stripping for strangers. Imagine if every mistake that our child made was advertised on public billboards, so that everyone could laugh and mock until the shame made life not worth living. This is not a horror movie or some imaginary wild west; this is the digital world that our children occupy, often for hours a day.

Our kids are not okay. Since 2012, suicide rates for teenage boys in the UK have doubled. They have trebled for girls. Incidents of self-harm for 10 to 12-year-old girls have increased by 364%. Anxiety rates for the under-25s have trebled. Feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, loneliness and despair are growing among our youngest citizens. In just 15 years, childhood has been turned on its head.

These trends are not unique to the UK; they are happening across the western world and particularly in Anglophone and Nordic countries. In the first decade of this century, life was generally improving for children across the developed world. Educational attainment was rising, and depression and anxiety were stable or falling. But something happened in 2010 to change the direction of travel, and then from 2014, the decline accelerated rapidly. Whether we look at data for suicide, self-harm, gender confusion or anxiety, or at education scores across the western world, all these trends showed an inflection point in 2010 and a sharp rise from 2014. So, what happened in 2010 and 2014 to so seriously undermine children’s welfare?

As the US psychologist Professor Jonathan Haidt has charted in his recent book, “The Anxious Generation”, there is now overwhelming evidence that all these tragic trends have been caused by the rise of smartphones and social media. The iPhone with a front-facing camera was introduced in 2010, and by around 2014, smartphones and social media had become ubiquitous for children. These products were never tested on children or certified as safe for children, yet 97% of British teens now own a smartphone and half of nine-year-olds use social media. In the US, the average 11 to 14-year-old spends nine hours a day online.

Smartphones and social media affect boys and girls differently. Some platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, have particularly negative effects for girls. These apps exploit natural female tendencies for visual social comparison, but instead of just comparing themselves with classmates, girls are now judged by millions of others against often fake images of what the female body should look like. Where boys are more prone to physical aggression, girls are more likely to employ relational aggression. It is bad enough to be on the receiving end of bullying in the school playground, but when friends and strangers can send hate-filled messages at any hour of the day or night, it is unsurprising that the wellbeing of girls in particular has collapsed as a result of social media.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend, and everybody who works with her, on the amazing work that she has done? It is a remarkable achievement, and I want to thank everybody who is associated with it. I am also grateful for what was done on the Bill that became the Online Safety Act 2023, which actually provides for imprisonment for tech bosses who wilfully make mistakes and deals with the situation in the way in which my hon. Friend and I have tried to solve the problem. I congratulate her.

[Miriam Cates]

I deeply thank my hon. Friend and I will come later in my speech to some of the improvements that he himself made to the Online Safety Bill.

As well as being more susceptible to visual social comparison, girls are more susceptible to sociogenic transmission or what we might call social contagion, which explains the acute impact of trans ideology on girls. We have seen a 5,000% rise in referrals of girls to gender clinics. Girls are also, of course, more subject to sexual predation and harassment, with younger and younger girls being coaxed or threatened into sending intimate images and even filming their own sexual abuse. In 2022 the Internet Watch Foundation found 141,000 child sexual abuse images of 11 to 13-year-olds, the vast majority of which were self-generated. The front-facing smartphone camera provides the world with an open door to our little girls in their bedrooms.

Boys are less affected by visual and social comparison, but where social media destroys the self-confidence of teenage girls, gaming and porn rewire the brains of adolescent boys. Having 24-hour access to pornography superficially satisfies the sexual desires of young men, but it leaves them isolated, lacking in relationship skills and, tragically, searching for more and more extreme material to become aroused. The average age for encountering online pornography, much of which is violent, degrading and deeply disturbing, is 13 years old, just when boys are forming their expectations about sex. Nearly half of young people now believe that girls expect sex to involve violence.

Multiplayer video games hack into boys’ competitiveness and physical aggression. Again, the games superficially fulfil natural male desires, but they leave boys lonely, withdrawn from the real world, lacking in real skills and unable to find enjoyment or stimulation away from the screen. For boys and girls, time spent on social media represents an enormous opportunity cost. Hours of doomscrolling are hours not spent gaining physical and relational experiences that will equip them with the resilience they need for real life. We have substituted a phone-based childhood for a play-based childhood with tragic consequences.

Even our schools do not provide a safe haven. Recent research by Policy Exchange found that only 11% of secondary schools have an effective phone ban, with the overwhelming majority of children still able to access their devices at school. Interestingly, the schools that had implemented an effective ban were significantly more likely to be rated outstanding by Ofsted and achieved on average one or two grades higher at GCSE, despite being more typically in deprived areas.

Forty-three per cent of older teenagers say social media has distracted them from school work enough to impact their grades. One child told a Parentkind survey:

“I can't focus on my school homework because every 5 minutes I get distracted and go back onto my phone. Occasionally, I’ll see triggering content on social media such as suicide or gory images.”

Social media offers constant, instant gratification, with a dopamine hit and a new distraction every few seconds. Is it any wonder that children are less and less able to concentrate and focus on the intellectually demanding task of academic learning? For the first time ever, IQ is falling across the western world. Programme for international student assessment data shows that maths, reading and science scores have all declined since 2014.

Some question the causal relationship between social media and smartphones and the decline in adolescent wellbeing. Many blame the financial crash in 2008. But why would those trends affect only the under-25s? Some blame the UK Conservative Government, but how can localised economic, political or social conditions account for the collapse in childhood wellbeing across the western world all at the same time?

Online Safety Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

As I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) will agree, may I say how much we appreciate what the Government have done in relation to the matter just referred to? As the Minister knows, we withdrew our amendment in the House of Commons after discussion, and we had amazingly constructive discussions with the Government right the way through, and also in the House of Lords. I shall refer to that if I am called to speak later, but I simply wanted to put on record our thanks, because this will save so many children’s lives.

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) for all their work on this. I hope that this debate will show that we have listened and tried to work with everybody, including on this important part of the Bill. We have not been able to capture absolutely everything that everybody wants, but we are all determined to ensure that the Bill gets on the statute book as quickly as possible, to ensure that we start the important work of implementing it.

We have amended the Bill to bolster its provisions. A number of topics have been of particular interest in the other place. Following engagement with colleagues on those issues, we have bolstered the Bill’s protections for children, including a significant package of changes relating to age assurance. We have also enhanced protections for adult users.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

I commend my hon. Friend for her remarks. May I point out that there is a provision in European legislation—I speak as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee—called the data services protection arrangements? They have nothing to compare with what we have in the Bill. That demonstrates the fact that when we legislate for ourselves we can get it right. That is something people ought to bear in mind.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point that out. Much of the European legislation on this was taken from our own draft legislation, but has not gone anywhere near as far in the protections it offers.

We know that the internet is magnificent and life changing in so many ways, but that the dark corners present such a serious concern for children and scores of other vulnerable people. I associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on the child protection campaigners who have worked so incredibly hard on this issue, particularly those who have experienced the unimaginable tragedy of losing children as a result of what they have seen in the online world. To turn an unspeakable tragedy of that nature into a campaign to save the lives of others is the ultimate thing to do, and they deserve our massive thanks and gratitude.

I am also grateful to so many of our noble colleagues who have shaped the Bill using their unique knowledge and expertise. I would like to mention a few of them and welcome the changes they brought, but also thank the Minister and the Government for accepting so many of the challenges they brought forward and adapting them into the Bill. We all owe a massive debt of gratitude to Baroness Kidron for her tireless campaign for children’s protections. A children’s safety stalwart and pioneer for many years, virtually no one else knows more about this vital issue. It is absolutely right that the cornerstone and priority of the Bill must be to protect children. The Minister mentioned that the statistics are absolutely horrible and disturbing. That is why it is important that the Secretary of State will now be able to require providers to retain data relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse, ensuring that law enforcement does not have one hand tied behind its back when it comes to investigating these terrible crimes.

I also welcome the commitment to the new powers given to Ofcom and the expectations of providers regarding access to content and information in the terrible event of the death of a child. The tragic suicide of Molly Russell, the long and valiant battle of her dad, Ian, to get access to the social media content that played such a key role in it, and the delay that brought to the inquest, is the only example we need of why this is absolutely the right thing to do. I know Baroness Kidron played a big part in that, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid).

I am still concerned that there are not enough protections for vulnerable adults or for when people reach the cliff-edge of the age of 18. People of all ages need protection from extremely harmful content online. I am still not 100% convinced that user empowerment tools will provide that, but I look forward to being proved wrong.

I welcome the news that Ofcom is now required to produce guidance setting out how companies can tackle online violence against women and girls and demonstrate best practice. I am thankful to the former Equalities Minister, Baroness Morgan of Cotes, for her work on that. It is a vital piece of the puzzle that was missing from the original Bill, which did not specifically mention women or girls at all as far as I can remember.

It is important to stay faithful to the original thread of the Bill. To futureproof it, it has to be about systems and processes, rather than specific threats, but the simple fact is that the online world is so much more hostile for women. For black women, it is even worse. Illegal activity such as stalking and harassment is a daily occurrence for so many women and girls online. Over one in 10 women in England have experienced online violence and three in 10 have witnessed it. We also know that women and girls are disproportionately affected by the abuse of intimate images and the sharing of deepfakes, so it is welcome that those will become an offence. I also welcome that controlling and coercive behaviour, which has been made a recognised offence in real life, will now be listed as a priority offence online. That is something else the Government should take pride in.

I thank Baroness Merron for bringing animal welfare into the scope of the Bill. All in-scope platforms will have proactive duties to tackle content amounting to the offence of causing unnecessary suffering of animals. I thank Ministers for taking that on board. Anyone who victimises beings smaller and weaker than themselves, whether children or animals, is the most despicable kind of coward. It shows the level of depravity in parts of the online world that the act of hurting animals for pleasure is even a thing. A recent BBC story uncovered the torture of baby monkeys in Indonesia. The fact that individuals in the UK and the US are profiting from that, and that it was shared on platforms like Facebook is horrifying.

In the brief time left available to me, I must admit to still being a bit confused over the Government’s stance on end-to-end encryption. It sounds like the Minister has acknowledged that there is no sufficiently accurate and privacy-preserving technology currently in existence, and that the last resort power would only come into effect once the technology was there. Technically, that means the Government have not moved on the requirement of Ofcom to use last resort powers. Many security experts believe it could be many years before any such technology is developed, if ever, and that worries me. I am, of course, very supportive of protecting user privacy, but it is also fundamentally right that terrorism or child sexual exploitation rings should not be able to proliferate unhindered on these channels. The right to privacy must be trumped by the need to stop events that could lead to mass death and the harm of innocent adults and children. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said, that is also against their terms of service. I would therefore welcome it if the Minister were to make a couple of comments on that.

I also welcome the changes brought forward by Baroness Morgan of Cotes on the categorisation of harm. I, too, have been one of the long-standing voices over successive stages of the Bill saying that a platform’s size should not be the only measure of harm. Clearly, massive platforms, by definition of their reach, have huge potential to spread harmful content, but we know that online platforms can go viral overnight. We know there are some small but incredibly pernicious platforms out there. Surely the harmful content on a site should be the definer of how harmful it is, not just its size. I welcome the increased flexibility for the Secretary of State to set a threshold based on the number of users, or the functionality offered, or both. I would love to know a little more about how that would work in practice.

We were the first country in the world to set out the ambitious target of comprehensive online safety legislation. Since then, so much time has passed. Other countries and the EU have legislated while we have refined and in the meantime so much harm has been able to proliferate. We now need to get this done. We are so close to getting this legislation over the finish line. Can the Minister assure me that we are sending out a very clear message to providers that they must start their work now? They must not necessarily wait for this legislation to be in place because people are suffering while the delays happen.

I put on record my thanks to Members of this House and the other place who have worked so hard to get the legislation into such a great state, and to Ministers who have listened very carefully to all their suggestions and expertise. Finally, I put on record my thanks to the incredible Government officials. I was responsible for shepherding the Bill for a mere 19 months. It nearly finished me off, but some officials have been involved in it right from the beginning. They deserve our enormous gratitude for everything they have done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

The length of the process we have gone through on this Bill is a good thing, because we have ended up with probably the most comprehensive legislation in the world. We have a regulator with more power, and more power to sanction, than anywhere else. It is important to get that right.

A lot of the regulation is principle-based. It is about the regulation of user-to-user services, whereby people share things with each other through an intermediary service. Technology will develop, but those principles will underpin a lot of it. There will be specific cases where we need to think about whether the regulatory oversight works in a metaverse environment in which we are dealing with harms created by speech that has no footprint. How do we monitor and scrutinise that?

One of the hardest challenges could be making sure that companies continue to use appropriate technology to identify and mitigate harms on their platforms. The problem we have had with the regime to date is that we have relied on self-reporting from the technology companies on what is or is not possible. Indeed, the debate about end-to-end encryption is another example. The companies are saying that, if they share too much data, there is a danger that it will break encryption, but they will not say what data they gather or how they use it. For example, they will not say how they identify illegal use of their platform. Can they see the messages that people have sent after they have sent them? They will not publicly acknowledge it, and they will not say what data they gather and what triggers they could use to intervene, but the regulator will now have the right to see them. That principle of accountability and the power of the regulator to scrutinise are the two things that make me confident that this will work, but we may need to make amendments because of new things that we have not yet thought about.

[Sir William Cash]

In addition to the idea of annual scrutiny raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), does my hon. Friend think it would be a reasonably good idea for the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to set up a Sub-Committee under its Standing Orders to keep any eye on this stuff? My hon. Friend was a great Chairman of that Select Committee, and such a Sub-Committee would allow the annual monitoring of all the things that could go wrong, and it could also try to keep up with the pace of change.

[Damian Collins]

When I chaired the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, we set up a Sub-Committee to consider these issues and internet regulation. Of course, the Sub-Committee has the same members. It is up to the Select Committee to determine how it structures itself and spends its time, but there is only so much that any one departmental Select Committee can do among its huge range of other responsibilities. It might be worth thinking about a special Committee, drawing on the powers and knowledge of both Houses, but that is not a matter for the Bill. As my hon. Friend knows, it is a matter of amending the Standing Orders of the House, and the House must decide that it wants to create such a Committee. I think it is something we should consider.

We must make sure that encrypted services have proper transparency and accountability, and we must bring in skilled experts. Members have talked about researcher access to the companies’ data and information, and it cannot be a free-for-all; there has to be a process by which a researcher applies to get privileged access to a company’s information. Indeed, as part of responding to Ofcom’s risk registers, a company could say that allowing researchers access is one of the ways it seeks to ensure safe use of its platform, by seeking the help of others to identify harm.

There is nothing to stop Ofcom appointing many researchers. The Bill gives Ofcom the power to delegate its authority and its powers to outside expert researchers to investigate matters on its behalf. In my view, that would be a good thing for Ofcom to do, because it will not have all the expertise in-house. The power to appoint a skilled person to use the powers of Ofcom exists within the Bill, and Ofcom should say that it intends to use that power widely. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that Ofcom has that power in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

As we reflect on the Bill today, it is important to say that it has been improved as it has progressed through the Parliament. That is due in no small measure to Members from across the parties—both here and in the other place—who have engaged very collegiately, and to individuals and groups outside this place, particularly the Samaritans and those who have lived experience of the consequences of the dangers of the internet.

People from my constituency have also been involved, including the family of Joe Nihill, whom I have mentioned previously. At the age of 23, Joe took his own life after accessing dangerous suicide-related online content. His mother, Catherine, and sister-in-law, Melanie, have bravely campaigned to use the Online Safety Bill as an opportunity to ensure that what happened to Joe so tragically does not happen to others. I thank the Minister and his team for meeting Joe’s mother, his sister-in-law and me, and for listening to what we had to say. I recognise that, as a result, the Bill has improved, in particular with the Government’s acceptance of Lords amendment 391, which was first tabled by Baroness Morgan of Cotes. It is welcome that the Government have accepted the amendment, which will enable platforms to be placed in category 1 based on their functionality, even if they do not have a large reach. That is important, because some of the worst and most dangerous online suicide and self-harm related material appears on smaller platforms rather than the larger ones.

I also welcome the fact that the Bill creates a new communications offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm and makes such content a further priority for action, which is important. The Bill provides an historic opportunity to ensure that tackling suicide and self-harm related online content does not end with this Bill becoming law. I urge the Government to listen very carefully to what the Samaritans have said. As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister asked, will the Government commit to a review of the legislation to ensure that it has met the objective of making our country the safest place in the world in which to go online? Importantly, can the Government confirm when the consultation on the new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm will take place?

As I mentioned in an intervention, it is clear that the Government want to tackle harmful suicide and self-harm related content with the Bill, but, as we have heard throughout our discussions, the measures do not go far enough. The Samaritans were correct to say that the Bill represents a welcome advance and that it has improved recently, but it still does not go far enough in relation to dangerous suicide and self-harm online content. How will the Government engage with people who have lived experience—people such as Melanie and Catherine—to ensure that the new laws make things better? Nobody wants the implementation of the Bill to be the end of the matter. We must redouble our efforts to make the internet as safe a place as possible, reflect on the experiences of my constituents, Joe Nihill and his family, and understand that there is a lot of dangerous suicide and self-harm related content out there. We are talking about people who exploit the vulnerable, regardless of their age.

I urge all those who are following the progress of the Bill and who look at this issue not to make the mistake of thinking that when we talk about dangerous online suicide and self-harm related content, it is somehow about freedom of speech. It is about protecting people. When we talk about dangerous online material relating to suicide and self-harm, it is not a freedom of speech issue; it is an issue of protecting people.

[Sir William Cash]

Has the hon. Gentleman noted, I hope with satisfaction, that the Government yesterday and today have made statements on a strategy for preventing suicide nationally, and that what he is saying—which I agree with—will be implemented? It has just been announced, it is very important and it is related to the Bill.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is important that the Government have announced a strategy: it is part and parcel of the ongoing work that is so necessary when we consider the prevalence of suicide as the leading cause of death among young men and women. It is a scourge across society. People should not make the mistake of thinking that the internet merely showcases awful things. The internet has been used as a tool by exploitative and sometimes disturbed individuals to create more misery and more instances of awful things happening, and to lead others down a dangerous path that sometimes ends, sadly, in them taking their own lives.

I thank the Minister for his engagement with my constituents, and the shadow Minister for what she has done. I also thank Baroness Kidron, Baroness Morgan and hon. Members who have engaged with this issue. I urge the Government to see the Bill not as the end when it comes to tackling dangerous online content related to suicide and self-harm, but as part of an important ongoing journey that we all work on together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

As others have done, I welcome the considerable progress made on the Bill in the other place, both in the detailed scrutiny that it has received from noble Lords, who have taken a consistent and expert interest in it, and in the positive and consensual tone adopted by Opposition Front Benchers and, crucially, by Ministers.

It seems that there are very few Members of this House who have not had ministerial responsibility for the Bill at some point in what has been an extraordinarily extensive relay race as it has moved through its legislative stages. The anchor leg—the hardest bit in such a Bill—has been run with dedication and skill by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who deserves all the praise that she will get for holding the baton as we cross the parliamentary finish line, as I hope we are close to doing.

I have been an advocate of humility in the way in which we all approach this legislation. It is genuinely difficult and novel territory. In general, I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and her Ministers—the noble Lord Parkinson and, of course, the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)—have been willing to change their minds when it was right to do so, and the Bill is better for it. Like others who have dealt with them, I also thank the officials, some of whom sit in the Box, some of whom do not. They have dedicated—as I suspect they would see it—most of their lives to the generation of the Bill, and we are grateful to them for their commitment.

Of course, as others have said, none of this means that the Bill is perfect; frankly, it was never going to be. Nor does it mean that when we pass the Bill, the job is done. We will then pass the baton to Ofcom, which will have a large amount of further work to do. However, we now need to finalise the legislative phase of this work after many years of consideration. For that reason, I welcome in particular what I think are sensible compromises on two significant issues that had yet to be resolved: first, the content of children’s risk assessments, and secondly, the categorisation process. I hope that the House will bear with me while I consider those in detail, which we have not yet done, starting with Lords amendments 17, 20 and 22, and Lords amendment 81 in relation to search, as well as the Government amendments in lieu of them.

Those Lords amendments insert harmful “features, functionalities or behaviours” into the list of matters that should be considered in the children’s risk assessment process and in the meeting of the safety duties, to add to the harms arising from the intrinsic nature of content itself—that is an important change. As others have done, I pay great tribute to the noble Baroness Kidron, who has invariably been the driving force behind so many of the positive enhancements to children’s online safety that the Bill will bring. She has promoted this enhancement, too. As she said, it is right to recognise and reflect in the legislation that a child’s online experience can be harmful not just as a result of the harm an individual piece of content can cause, but in the way that content is selected and presented to that child—in other words, the way in which the service is designed to operate. As she knows, however, I part company with the Lords amendments in the breadth of the language used, particularly the word “behaviours”.

Throughout our consideration of the Bill, I have taken the view that we should be less interested in passing legislation that sounds good and more interested in passing legislation that works. We need the regulator to be able to encourage and enforce improvements in online safety effectively. That means asking the online platforms to address the harms that it is within their power to address, and to relate clearly the design or operation of the systems that they have put in place.

The difficulty with the wording of the Lords amendments is that they bring into the ambit of the legislation behaviours that are not necessarily enabled or created by the design or operation of the service. The language used is

“features, functionalities or behaviours (including those enabled or created by the design or operation of the service) that are harmful to children”—

in other words, not limited to those that are enabled or created by the service. It is a step too far to make platforms accountable for all behaviours that are harmful to children without the clarity of that link to what the platform has itself done. For that reason, I cannot support those Lords amendments.

However, the Government have proposed a sensible alternative approach in their amendments in lieu, particularly in relation to Lords amendments 17 and Lords amendment 81, which relates to search services. The Government amendments in lieu capture the central point that design of a service can lead to harm and require a service to assess that as part of the children’s risk assessment process. That is a significant expansion of a service’s responsibilities in the risk assessment process which reflects not just ongoing concern about types of harm that were not adequately captured in the Bill so far but the positive moves we have all sought to make towards safety by design as an important preventive concept in online safety.

I also think it is important, given the potential scale of this expanded responsibility, to make clear that the concept of proportionality applies to a service’s approach to this element of assessment and mitigation of risk, as it does throughout the Bill, and I hope the Minister will be able to do that when he winds up the debate.

[Sir William Cash]

My right hon. and learned Friend has mentioned Ofcom several times. I would like to ask his opinion as to whether there should be, if there is not already, a special provision for a report by Ofcom on its own involvement in these processes during the course of its annual report every year, to be sure that we know that Ofcom is doing its job. In Parliament, we know what Select Committees are doing. The question is, what is Ofcom doing on a continuous basis?

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have three more speakers. I ask that colleagues bear that in mind so that I can bring in the Minister.

[Sir William Cash]

I would like to mention a very long journey in relation to the protection of children, because to my mind that is right at the heart of the Bill’s social value. I think it was Disraeli who said:

“The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.”

If we get it right in the early stages of their lives and we provide legislation that enables them to be properly protected, we are likely to get things right for the future. The Bill does that in a very good way.

The Bill also reflects some of the things in which I found myself involved in 1977—just over 45 years ago—with the Protection of Children Bill when Cyril Townsend came top of the private Member’s Bill ballot. I mention that because at that time we received resistance from Government Ministers and others—I am afraid I must say that it was a Labour Minister—but we got the Bill through as the then Prime Minister James Callaghan eventually ensured it did so. His wife insisted on it, as a matter of fact.

I pay tribute to the House of Lords. Others have repeatedly mentioned the work of Baroness Kidron, but I would also like to mention Lord Bethell, Baroness Morgan and others, because it has been a combined effort. It has been Parliament at its best. I have heard others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), make that point. It has been a remarkably lengthy but none the less essential process, and I pay tribute to those people for what they have done.

In retrospect, I would like to mention Baroness Lucy Faithfull, because back in 1977-78 I would not have known what to do if she had not worked relentlessly in the House of Lords to secure the measures necessary to protect children from sexual images and pornographic photography—it was about assault, and I do not need to go into the detail. The bottom line is that it was the first piece of legislation that swung the pendulum towards common sense and proportionality in matters that, 45 years later, have culminated in what has been discussed in the Bill and the amendments today.

I pay tribute to Ian Russell and to the others here whose children have been caught up in this terrible business. I pay specific tribute to the Secretary of State and the Minister, and also the Health Secretary for his statement yesterday about a national suicide strategy, in which he referenced amendments to the Bill. Because I have had a lot to do with him, I would like to pay tribute to Richard Collard of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who has not been mentioned yet, for working so hard and effectively.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) for her work to help get the amendments through. The written ministerial statement came after some interesting discussions with the Minister, who was a bit surprised by our vehemence and determination. It was not chariots of fire but chariots on fire, and within three weeks, by the time the Bill got to the House of Lords, we had a written ministerial statement that set the tone for the part of the Bill that I discussed just now, to protect children because they need protection at the right time in their lives.

The NSPCC tells us that 86% of UK adults want companies to understand how groomers and child abusers use their sites to harm children, and want action to prevent it by law. I came up with the idea, although the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) gave us a lot of support in a debate in this House at the time, and I am grateful to her for that. The fact that we are able to come forward with this legislation owes a great deal to a lot of people from different parts of the House.

I very much accept that continuing review is necessary. Many ideas have been put forward in this debate, and I am sure that the Minister is taking them all on board and will ensure that the review happens and that Ofcom acts accordingly, which I am sure it will want to. It is important that that is done.

I must mention that the fact we have left the European Union has enabled us to produce legislation to protect children that is very significantly stronger than European Union legislation. The Digital Services Act falls very far short of what we are doing here. I pay tribute to the Government for promoting ideas based on our self-government to protect our voters’ children and our society. That step could only have been taken now that we have left the European Union.

Research by the NSPCC demonstrates that four in five victims of online grooming offences are girls. It is worth mentioning that, because it is a significant piece of research. That means that there has to be clear guidance about the types of design that will be incorporated by virtue of the discussions to be had about how to make all this legislation work properly.

The only other thing I would like to say is that the £10-million suicide prevention grant fund announced yesterday complements the Bill very well. It is important that we have a degree of symmetry between legislation to prevent suicide and to ensure that children are kept safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

I will follow on from the remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), who talked powerfully about the impact of online pornography, particularly on children who see it.

Sadly, online pornography is increasingly violent. Many videos depict graphic and degrading abuse of women, sickening acts of rape and incest, and many underage participants. I also want to refer to the excellent study by the Children’s Commissioner, which revealed that the average age at which children first encounter pornography online is just 13 years old, and that there are 1.4 million visits to pornography sites by British children each and every month. As my right hon. Friend said, that is rewiring children’s brains in respect of what they think about sex, what they expect during sex and what they think girls want during sex. I think we will all look back on this widespread child exposure to pornography in a similar way to how we look back on children working down mines or being condemned to the poor house. Future generations will wonder how on earth we abandoned our children to online pornography.

Ending the ready availability of pornographic content to children and criminalising those who fail to protect them should surely be the most important goal of the Online Safety Bill. Indeed, that was most of the aim of part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which was never enacted. Without the Government amendments tabled in the Lords last week, which I strongly support, the Online Safety Bill would have been in danger of missing this opportunity. As my colleagues have done, I want to thank the Secretary of State and Ministers for their engagement in what has been a cross-party campaign both in this place and the other place, with Baroness Kidron and Lord Bethell leading the way, along with charities and the campaigning journalist Charles Hymas at The Daily Telegraph, who did a fantastic job of reporting it all so powerfully. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who has taught me all I ever needed to know about how to negotiate with Government.

We now have these brilliantly strengthening amendments, including, significantly, an amendment that will criminalise directors and managers if they do not comply with Ofcom’s enforcement notices in relation to specific child safety duties. That is really important, because we are talking about the wealthiest companies in the world. Just having fines will not be enough to generate the kind of culture change at board level that we need. Only potential jail terms, which have worked in the construction industry and the financial services industry, will do what it takes.

Lords amendments 141 and 142 make pornography a primary priority harm for children. Importantly, user-to-user providers, as well as dedicated adult sites, will now be explicitly required to use highly effective age verification tools to prevent children accessing them. The wording “highly effective” is crucial, because porn is porn wherever it is found, whether on Twitter, which as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford said is the most likely place for children to find pornography, or on dedicated adult sites. It has the same effect and causes the same harm. It is therefore vital that tech companies will actually have to prevent children from going on their sites, and not just try hard. That is an incredibly important amendment.

[Sir William Cash]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what has really put their teeth on edge most of all is the idea that they might go to prison?

[Miriam Cates]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The impact of not taking responsibility for protecting children has to go to the very top.

Lords amendment 105 would compel Ofcom to submit its draft codes of practice within 18 months. That is an improvement on the previously lax timescale, which I welcome—along with the other significant improvements that have been made—and I repeat my gratitude to the Minister and the Secretary of State. Let us not pretend, however, that on Royal Assent our children will suddenly be safe from online pornography or any other online harms. There are serious questions to be asked about Ofcom’s capabilities to enforce against non-compliant porn sites, and I think we should look again at part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which would have allowed the British Board of Film Classification to act as the regulator.

BBC: Government Role in Impartiality

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

From my Department’s perspective, the appointment was undertaken to the letter. There have since been events that have come to light that we need to investigate, and those things are being investigated. On Mr Sharp’s ability to do the role, as I have mentioned, it is possible to hold political views and be appointed to that role. That has been the case over many years and across different flavours of Government. The question is whether that person carries out their role in an apolitical and impartial way, and I believe there is currently a BBC review as to whether those duties are being carried out in that way.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Impartiality is public purpose No. 1 of the royal charter, which I helped to negotiate in 2016. Given that guidelines simply do not work, may I suggest the setting up of an independent adjudicating body for impartiality, alongside Ofcom, given that the BBC receives £5 billion a year, largely through the licence taxpayer, and that last year out of the 430,000 complaints made to the BBC only 325 were dealt with and only 14 fully upheld?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for not only his question, but the way in which he has engaged with me over the mid-term review. I know he has a number of ideas as to how the governance and regulations of the BBC need to be changed. I look forward to engaging with him further on the mid-term review. He is right that it is looking at the complaints system, but also at editorial standards and impartiality, and I hope that we can continue to engage on these matters.