Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act 2023 to protect internet users from (a) suicide and (b) self-harm content on artificial intelligence platforms.

Every death by suicide is a tragedy, and the government is deeply concerned about the role that online content can play in facilitating suicide and self-harm. This government is committed to keeping people safe online. For the first time, platforms now have a legal duty to ensure that they are protecting users from illegal content and, in particular, safeguarding children from harmful content. But we have gone further still. We have made self-harm and cyber-flashing, and now strangulation, priority offences. We will go further still by backing Ofcom to make sure that enforcement is robust too.

Some chatbots, including live search and user-to-user engagement, are in scope of the Online Safety Act 2023, and we want to ensure that enforcement against them, where relevant, is robust. The Secretary of State has commissioned work to make sure that, if there are any gaps in the legislation, they will be looked at fully and robust action will be taken too.