Wednesday 6th September 2023
(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberOnline Safety Act 2023 View all Online Safety Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Amendment Paper: HL Bill 164-I Marshalled list for Third Reading - (5 Sep 2023)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I will make a brief statement on the devolution status of the Bill. I am pleased to inform your Lordships’ House that both the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru have voted to grant consent for all the relevant provisions. For Scotland, these provisions are the power to amend the list of exempt educational institutions, the power to amend the list of child sexual exploitation and abuse offences and the new offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. For Wales, the provisions are the power to amend the list of exempt educational institutions, the false communications offence, the threatening communications offence, the flashing images offences and the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm.
As noble Lords will be aware, because the Northern Ireland Assembly is adjourned the usual process for seeking legislative consent in relation to Northern Ireland has not been possible. In the absence of legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly, officials from the relevant UK and Northern Ireland departments have worked together to ensure that the Bill considers and reflects the relevant aspects of devolved legislation so that we may extend the following provisions to Northern Ireland: the power to amend the list of exempt educational institutions, the false communications offence, the threatening communications offence and the offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. His Majesty’s Government have received confirmation in writing from the relevant Permanent Secretaries in Northern Ireland that they are content that nothing has been identified which would cause any practical difficulty in terms of the existing policy and legislative landscape. Historically, this area of legislation in Northern Ireland has mirrored that in Great Britain, and we believe that legislating without the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly is justified in these exceptional circumstances and mitigates the risk of leaving Northern Ireland without the benefit of the Bill’s important reforms and legislative parity.
We remain committed to ensuring sustained engagement on the Bill with all three devolved Administrations as it progresses through Parliament. I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time.
Clause 44: Secretary of State’s powers of direction
Amendment 1
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that, in addition to publishing a direction under this Clause, the Secretary of State must also lay it before Parliament. Additionally the Secretary of State is required to do these things as soon as reasonably practicable. There is an exemption in certain circumstances (as to which see the next amendment to this Clause in my name).
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, His Majesty’s Government have listened carefully to the views expressed in Committee and on Report and have tabled amendments to the Bill to address concerns raised by noble Lords. Let me first again express my gratitude to my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for her constructive engagement on the Secretary of State’s powers of direction. As I said during our previous debate on this topic, I am happy to support her Amendments139 and 140 from Report. The Government are therefore bringing forward two amendments to that effect today.
Noble Lords will recall that, whenever directing Ofcom about a code, the Secretary of State must publish that direction. Amendment 1 means that, alongside this, in most cases a direction will now need to be laid before Parliament. There may be some cases where it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to withhold information from a laid direction: for example, if she thinks that publishing it would be against the interests of national security. In these cases, Amendment 2 will instead require the Secretary of State to lay a statement before Parliament setting out that a direction has been given, the kind of code to which the direction relates and the reasons for not publishing it. Taken together, these amendments will ensure that your Lordships and Members of another place are always made aware as soon as a direction has been made and, wherever possible, understand the contents of that direction. I hope noble Lords will agree that, after the series of debates we have had, we have reached a sensible and proportionate position on these clauses and one which satisfies your Lordships’ House.
I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, for her determined and collaborative work on the issue of threatening communications. Following the commitment I made to her on Report, I have tabled an amendment to make it explicit that the threatening communications offence captures threats where the recipient fears that someone other than the person sending the message will carry out the threat. I want to make it clear that the threatening communications offence, like other existing offences related to threats, already captures threats that could be carried out by third parties. This amendment does not change the scope of the offence, but the Government understand the desire of the noble Baroness and others to make this explicit in the Bill, and I am grateful to her for her collaboration.
Regarding Ofcom’s power of remote access, I am grateful to noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Allan of Hallam, my noble friend Lord Moylan and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, who unavoidably cannot be with us today, for raising their concerns about the perceived breadth of the power and the desire for further safeguards to ensure that it is used appropriately by the regulator.
I am also grateful to technology companies for the constructive engagement they have had with officials over the summer. As I set out on Report, the intention of our policy is to ensure clarity about Ofcom’s ability to observe empirical tests, which are a standard method for understanding algorithms and consequently for assessing companies’ compliance with the duties in the Bill. They involve taking a test data set, running it through an algorithmic system and observing the output.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I do not know how everyone has spent their summer, but this feels a bit like we have been working on a mammoth jigsaw puzzle and we are now putting in the final pieces. At times, through the course of this Bill, it has felt like doing a puzzle in the metaverse, where we have been trying to control an unreliable avatar that is actually assembling the jigsaw—but that would be an unfair description of the Minister. He has done really well in reflecting on what we have said, influencing his ministerial colleagues in a masterclass of managing upwards, and coming up with reasonable resolutions to previously intractable issues.
We are trusting that some of the outcome of that work will be attended to in the Commons, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, has said, particularly the issues that she raised on risk, that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, raised on children’s safety by design, and that my noble friend Lady Merron raised on animal cruelty. We are delighted at where we think these issues have got to.
For today, I am pleased that the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on Secretary of State powers, which we supported, have been addressed. I also associate myself with her comments on parliamentary scrutiny of the work of the regulator. Equally, we are delighted that the Minister has answered the concerns of my noble friend Lady Kennedy and that he has secured the legislative consent orders which he informed us of at the outset today. We would be grateful if the Minister could write to us answering the points of my noble friend Lord Rooker, which were well made by him and by the Delegated Powers Committee.
I am especially pleased to see that the issues which we raised at Report on remote access have been addressed. I feel smug, as I had to press quite hard for the Minister to leave the door open to come back at this stage on this. I am delighted that he is now walking through the door. Like the noble Lord, Lord Allan, I have just a few things that I would like clarification on—the proportional use of the powers, Ofcom taking into account user privacy, especially regarding live user data, and that the duration of the powers be time- limited.
Finally, I thank parliamentarians on all sides for an exemplary team effort. With so much seemingly falling apart around us, it is encouraging that, when we have common purpose, we can achieve a lot, as we have with this Bill.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, let me first address the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I am afraid that, like my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston, I was not aware of the report of your Lordships’ committee. Unlike her, I should have been. I have checked with my private office and we have not received a letter from the committee, but I will ask them to contact the clerk to the committee immediately and will respond to this today. I am very sorry that this was not brought to my attention, particularly since the members of the committee met during the Recess to look at this issue. I have corresponded with my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, who chairs the committee, on each of its previous reports. Where we have disagreed, we have done so explicitly and set out our reasons. We have agreed with most of its previous recommendations. I am very sorry that I was not aware of this report and have not had the opportunity to provide answers for your Lordships’ House ahead of the debate.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
The report was published on 31 August. It so happens that the committee has been forced to meet in an emergency session tomorrow morning because of government amendments that have been tabled to the levelling-up Bill, which will be debated next Wednesday, that require a report on the delegated powers, so we will have the opportunity to see what the Minister has said. I am very grateful for his approach.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The committee will have a reply from me before it meets tomorrow. Again, I apologise. It should not be up to the committee to let the Minister know; I ought to have known about it.
I am very grateful to noble Lords for their support of the amendments that we have tabled in this group, which reflect the collaborative nature of the work that we have done and the thought which has been put into this by my ministerial colleagues and me, and by the Bill team, over the summer. I will have a bit more to say on that when I move that the Bill do now pass in a moment, but I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken at this stage for highlighting the model of collaborative working that the Bill has shown.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, asked for an update on timetables. Some of the implementation timetables which Ofcom has assessed depend a little on issues which may still change when the Bill moves to another place. If she will permit it, once they have been resolved I will write with the latest assessments from Ofcom, and, if appropriate, from us, on the implementation timelines. They are being recalculated in the light of amendments that have been made to the Bill and which may yet further change. However, everybody shares the desire to implement the Bill as swiftly as possible, and I am grateful that your Lordships’ work has helped us do our scrutiny with that in mind.
The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked some questions about the remote viewing power. On proportionality, Ofcom will have a legal duty to exercise its power to view information remotely in a way that is proportionate, ensuring, as I said, that undue burdens are not placed on businesses. In assessing proportionality in line with this requirement, Ofcom would need to consider the size and resource capacity of a service when choosing the most appropriate way of gathering information. To comply with this requirement, Ofcom would also need to consider whether there was a less onerous method of obtaining the necessary information.
On the points regarding that and intrusion, Ofcom expects to engage with providers as appropriate about how to obtain the information it needs to carry out its functions. Because of the requirement on Ofcom to exercise its information-gathering powers proportionately, it would need to consider less onerous methods. As I said, that might include an audit or a skilled persons report, but we anticipate that, for smaller services in particular, those options could be more burdensome than Ofcom remotely viewing information.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Will my noble friend draw attention to the part of Clause 122 that says that Ofcom cannot issue a requirement which is not technically feasible, as he has just said? That does not appear in the text of the clause, and it creates a potential conflict. Even if the requirement is not technically feasible—or, at least, if the platform claims that it is not—Ofcom’s power to require it is not mitigated by the clause. It still has the power, which it can exercise, and it can presumably take some form of enforcement action if it decides that the company is not being wholly open or honest. The technical feasibility is not built into the clause, but my noble friend has just added it, as with quite a lot of other stuff in the Bill.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
It has to meet minimum standards of accuracy and must have privacy safeguards in place. The clause talks about those in a positive sense, which sets out the expectation. I am happy to make clear, as I have, what that means: if the appropriate technology does not exist that meets these requirements, then Ofcom will not be able to use Clause 122 to require its use. I hope that that satisfies my noble friend.
“(7A) If the Secretary of State considers that publishing and laying before Parliament a direction given under this section would be against the interests of national security, public safety or relations with the government of a country outside the United Kingdom—(a) subsection (7)(c) does not apply in relation to the direction, and(b) the Secretary of State must, as soon as reasonably practicable, publish and lay before Parliament a document stating—(i) that a direction has been given,(ii) the kind of code of practice to which it relates, and(iii) the reasons for not publishing it.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that in the circumstances mentioned in the amendment the Secretary of State is not required to publish and lay before Parliament a direction given under this Clause but must instead publish and lay before Parliament a document stating that a direction has been given, the code of practice to which it relates and the reasons for not publishing it.
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a technical amendment which substitutes the correct cross-references into this provision.
“(za) references to a service meeting the Category 1, Category 2A or Category 2B threshold conditions are to a service meeting those conditions in a way specified in regulations under paragraph 1 of Schedule 11 (see paragraph 1(4) of that Schedule);”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment improves the drafting to clarify that a service “meets the Category 1 threshold conditions” (for example) if the service meets them in a way set out in regulations under Schedule 11.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment improves the drafting to clarify that services which are already Category 1 services, or which meet the conditions to be a Category 1 service, do not need to be assessed by OFCOM to see if they should be included in the list which is provided for by Clause 98.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment changes the wording of one of OFCOM’s information powers. The power now refers to viewing information remotely, rather than remotely accessing a service; the power is exercisable by a person authorised by OFCOM; and the power may only be exercised in relation to information as mentioned in Clause 101(3)(a) and (b).
“(4A) An information notice requiring a person to take steps of a kind mentioned in section 101(3) must give the person at least seven days’ notice before the steps are required to be taken.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment has the effect that if a person receives a notice from OFCOM requiring them to allow OFCOM to remotely view information, they must be given at least 7 days to comply with the notice.
Member’s explanatory statement
Clause 121 is about the admissibility of statements in criminal proceedings. This amendment adds Clause 102 to the list of relevant information powers (information in connection with an investigation into the death of a child).
““age assurance” means age verification or age estimation;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds a definition of “age assurance” into this Clause.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes it clear that the threatening communications offence in Clause 182 may be committed by a person who sends a threatening message regardless of who might carry out the threat.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, in begging to move that the Bill do now pass, I add my words of thanks to all noble Lords who have been involved over many years and many iterations of the Bill, particularly during my time as the Minister and in the diligent scrutiny we have given it in recent months. The Bill will establish a vital legislative framework, making the internet safer for all, particularly for children. We are now closer than ever to achieving that important goal. In a matter of months from Royal Assent, companies will be required to put in place protections to tackle illegal content on their services or face huge fines. I am very grateful to noble Lords for the dedication, attention and time they have given to the Bill while it has been before your Lordships’ House.
The Bill will mark a significant change in children’s safety online. Last month, data from UK police forces showed that 6,350 offences relating to sexual communications with a child were recorded last year alone. These are horrifying statistics which underline the importance of the Bill in building a protective shield for our children online. We cannot let perpetrators of such abhorrent crimes stalk children online and hide behind their screens, nor let companies continue to turn a blind eye to the harm being done to children on their services. We are working closely with Ofcom to make sure that the protections for children established by the Bill are enforced as soon as possible, and we have been clear that companies should not wait for the legislation to come into force before taking action.
The aim of keeping children safe online is woven throughout the Bill, and the changes that we have made throughout its passage in your Lordships’ House have further bolstered it. In order to provide early and clear guidance to companies and Ofcom regarding the content from which children must be protected, rather than addressing these later via secondary legislation, the categories of primary priority and priority content which is harmful to children will now be set out in the Bill.
Following another amendment made during your Lordships’ scrutiny, providers of the largest services will also be required to publish summaries of their risk assessments for illegal content and content which is harmful to children. Further changes to the Bill have also made sure that technology executives must take more responsibility for the safety of those who use their websites. Senior managers will face criminal liability if they fail to comply with steps set by Ofcom following enforcement action to keep children safe on their platforms, with the offence punishable with up to two years in prison.
Noble Lords have rightly raised concerns about what the fast-changing technological landscape will mean for children. The Bill faces the future and is designed to keep pace with emerging technological changes such as AI-generated pornography.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse content generated by AI is illegal, regardless of whether it depicts a real child or not, and the Bill makes it clear that technology companies will be required to identify this content proactively and remove it. Whatever the future holds, the Bill will ensure that guard rails are in place to allow our children to explore it safely online.
I have also had the pleasure of collaborating with noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House who have championed the important cause of strengthening protections for women and girls online, who we know disproportionately bear the brunt of abhorrent behaviour on the internet. Following changes made earlier to the Bill, Ofcom will be required to produce and publish guidance which summarises in one clear place measures that should be taken to reduce the risk of harm to women and girls online. The amendment will also oblige Ofcom to consult when producing the guidance, ensuring that it reflects the voices of women and girls as well as the views of experts on this important issue.
The Bill strikes a careful balance: it tackles criminal activity online and protects our children while enshrining freedom of expression in its legislative framework. A series of changes to the Bill has ensured that adults are provided with greater control over their online experience. All adult users of the largest services will have access to tools which, if they choose to use them, will allow them to filter out content from non-verified users and to reduce the likelihood of encountering abusive content. These amendments, which have undergone careful consideration and consultation, will ensure that the Bill remains proportionate, clear and future-proof.
I am very grateful to noble Lords who have helped us make those improvements and many more. I am conscious that a great number of noble Lords who have taken part in our debates were part of the pre-legislative scrutiny some years ago. They know the Bill very well and they know the issues well, which has helped our debates be well informed and focused. It has helped the scrutiny of His Majesty’s Government, and I hope that we have risen to that.
I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have made representations on behalf of families who have suffered bereavements because of the many terrible experiences online of their children and other loved ones. There are too many for me to name now, and many more who have not campaigned publicly but who I know have been following the progress of the Bill carefully, and we remember them all today.
Again, there are too many noble Lords for me to single out all those who have been so vigilant on this issue. I thank my colleagues on the Front Bench, my noble friends Lord Camrose and Lord Harlech, and on the Front Bench opposite the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. On the Liberal Democrat Benches, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Allan of Hallam—who has been partly on the Front Bench and partly behind—who have been working very hard on this.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, whom I consider a Front-Bencher for the Cross Benches on this issue. She was at the vanguard of many of these issues long before the Bill came to your Lordships’ House and will continue to be long after. We are all hugely impressed by her energy and personal commitment, following the debates not only in our own legislature but in other jurisdictions. I am grateful to her for the collaborative nature of her work with us.
I will not single out other noble Lords, but I am very grateful to them from all corners of the House. They have kicked the tyres of the Bill and asked important questions; they have given lots of time and energy to it and it is a better Bill for that.
I put on record my thanks to the huge team in my department and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, who, through years of work, expertise and determination, have brought the Bill to this point. I am grateful to the staff of your Lordships’ House and to colleagues from the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, in particular Maria White and Neil Shah, and, at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Sarah Connolly, Orla MacRae, Caroline Bowman and Emma Hindley as well as their huge teams, including those who have worked on the Bill over the years but are not currently working on it. They have worked extremely hard and been generous with their time to noble Lords for the use of our work.
The Bill will make a vital difference to people’s safety online, especially children’s safety. It has been a privilege to play a part in it. I was working as a special adviser at the Home Office when this area of work was first mooted. I remember that, when this Bill was suggested in the 2017 manifesto, people suggested that regulating the internet was a crazy idea. The biggest criticism now is that we have not done it sooner. I am very grateful to noble Lords for doing their scrutiny diligently but speedily, and I hope to see the Bill on the statute book very soon. I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very kind words to everybody, particularly my Front Bench and me. I also wish him a speedy recovery from his recent illness, although I was less sympathetic when I discovered how much he has been “managing upwards”—in the words of my noble friend Lord Knight—and achieving for us in the last few days. He has obviously been recovering and I am grateful for that. The noble Lord has steered the Bill through your Lordships’ House with great skill and largely single-handedly. It has been a pleasure to work with him, even when he was turning down our proposals and suggestions for change, which he did in the nicest possible way but absolutely firmly.
Lord Bethell (Con)
I rise briefly to raise the question of access to data by academics and research organisations. Before I do so, I want to express profound thanks to noble Lords who have worked so collaboratively to create a terrific Bill that will completely transform and hold to account those involved in the internet, and make it a safer place. That was our mission and we should be very proud of that. I cannot single out noble Peers, with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, with whom I worked collaboratively both on age assurance and on harms. It was a partnership I valued enormously and hope to take forward. Others from all four corners of the House contributed to the parts of the Bill that I was particularly interested in. As I look around, I see so many friends who stuck their necks out and spoke so movingly, for which I am enormously grateful.
The question of data access is one of the loose ends that did not quite make it into the Bill. I appreciate the efforts of my noble friend the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Bill team in this matter and their efforts to try and wangle it in; I accept that it did not quite make it. I would like to hear reassurance from my noble friend that this is something that the Government are prepared to look at in future legislation. If he could provide any detail on how and in which legislation it could be revisited, I would be enormously grateful.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief and restrict myself to responding to the questions which have been raised. I will hold to my rule of not trying to thank all noble Lords who have played their part in this scrutiny, because the list is indeed very long. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said about this being a Back-Bench-driven Bill, and there are many noble Lords from all corners of the House and the Back Benches who have played a significant part in it. I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, not just for her kind words, but for her years of campaigning on this, and to my noble friend Lord Bethell who has worked with her—and others—closely on the issues which she holds dear.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Moylan who has often swum against the tide of debate, but very helpfully so, and on important matters. In answer to his question about Wikipedia, I do not have much to add to the words that I have said a few times now about the categorisation, but on his concerns about the parliamentary scrutiny for this I stress that it is the Secretary of State who will set the categorisation thresholds. She is, of course, a Member of Parliament, and accountable to it. Ofcom will designate services based on those thresholds, so the decision-making can be scrutinised in Parliament, even if not in the way he would have wished.
I agree that we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, because he addressed some of the questions raised by my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston. In brief, the provision is flexible for where the technological solutions do not currently exist, because Ofcom can require services to develop or source new solutions.
This close to the gracious Speech, I will not point to a particular piece of legislation in which we might revisit the issue of researchers’ access, as raised by my noble friend Lord Bethell, but I am happy to say that we will certainly look at that again, and I know that he will take the opportunity to raise it.
Noble Lords on the Front Benches opposite alluded to the discussions which are continuing—as I committed on Report to ensure that noble Lords are able to be part of discussions as the Bill heads to another place—on functionalities and on the amendment of my noble friend Lady Morgan on category 1 services. She is one of a cavalcade of former Secretaries of State who have been so helpful in scrutinising the Bill. It is for another place to debate them, but I am grateful to noble Lords who have given their time this week to have the discussions which I committed to have and will continue to have as the Bill heads there, so that we can follow those issues hopefully to a happy resolution.
I thank my noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe for the concessions that she wrought on Report, and for the part that she has played in discussions. She has also given a great deal of time outside the Chamber.
We should all be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grade of Yarmouth, who has sat quietly throughout most of our debates—understandably, in his capacity as chairman of Ofcom—but he has followed them closely and taken those points to the regulator. Dame Melanie Dawes and all the team there stand ready to implement this work and we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grade of Yarmouth, and to all those at Ofcom who are ready to put it into action.