Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is very good to see the full team back on the trading standards amendments. I congratulate all three noble Lords on their championing of trading standards. They need the powers that are being argued for in these amendments; they are the unsung champions of the consumer, and we should support them.

My main purpose in rising is to speak to Amendments 69, 91, 92 and 152. As regards Amendment 69, on misleadingly similar parasitic packaging, it was encouraging to hear the Minister confirm in Committee that the prohibition of misleading actions in Clause 224 and the banned practice in paragraph 14 of Schedule 19 will address the long-standing unaddressed practice of misleadingly similar packaging.

However, those provisions matter little if they are not enforced. During consultations and the debate on the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the then Government stressed that public enforcement would be effective and efficient. This has not proved to be the case, with just one enforcement action by trading standards in 2008—albeit a successful one. If shoppers are to be protected from this misleading practice, there must be a realistic expectation that the Bill’s provisions will be enforced.

Historically, the Government have placed the duty on public enforcers. That is unrealistic, as trading standards face diminishing resources. The CMA stated clearly that misleadingly similar packaging is a consumer protection, not an IP, issue, following its investigation of the groceries market in 2008. Yet is has undertaken no hard or soft enforcement and did not include it in its recent scrutiny of the grocery sector; there is no sign that it will take a different approach in the future. There are no other realistic public enforcement options available. For the Bill to make a difference, it is essential that affected branded companies are granted powers to bring civil cases using the Bill’s provisions on the specific practice of misleadingly similar packaging alone. It has been ignored by public enforcers for the last 15 years, despite the many examples that appear year on year. Granting affected brand owners such powers would mean that shoppers would have the protection envisaged by the Bill, and affected brand owners would have more effective redress at no cost to the taxpayer.

Amendments 91 and 92 concern an area of concern for the retail industry, expressed by its representative body, the British Retail Consortium, in which I was an active participant more years ago than I care to remember. The well-established and well-used primary authority system enables a business to request assured advice from a primary authority that it has appointed. Provided that the business follows the advice, it cannot be prosecuted by any local authority for its actions. Under the Bill, the CMA will receive additional powers on consumer protection, whereby it will move to administrative fines that are potentially very high. I am informed that the CMA currently refuses either to provide assured advice of its own or to accept primary authority advice. It says that it may not agree with the advice and that it would be too costly, ignoring the fact that it is at a cost to the business. That undermines the primary authority system and will do so even further when the CMA receives its new fining powers because businesses will feel unable to rely totally on primary authority advice for what they are doing in the overlapping areas.

The amendments attempt to deal with that, either by requiring the CMA to provide assured advice itself, as set out in Amendment 91, or, perhaps more practically, by accepting primary authority advice as binding up to the point that it may be repealed if it is shown to be inaccurate, as set out in Amendment 92. That would mean that a business could rely on it for anything it does up to any repeal. It should also be remembered that the CMA can, if it wishes, act as a supporting regulator, whereby it can be called on to provide its view to a primary authority when that authority is looking at providing advice in an area of relevance and overlap to the CMA.

Finally, it should be noted that the CMA has decided to provide what is, in effect, assured advice on competition matters in the sustainability area; namely, it has agreed not to prosecute a business that seeks its advice and follows it in a small area on the competition side. This means that, in principle, the CMA does not seem to be opposed to such an approach. Green claims on the consumer side are a key area of uncertainty for business, an area where assured advice would in fact be most useful.

I turn to my final amendment, Amendment 152. As I explained in Committee, standard essential patents are patents that are necessary to implement an industry standard, such as wifi or 5G. Because the market is locked into a standard, and to prevent abuse of the market power that this situation conveys, SEP owners are required to license their SEPs on fair terms. Unfortunately, there is widespread abuse of this monopoly power by SEP holders. The principal issue raised with me by the Fair Standards Alliance is the threat of injunctions; the costs to many businesses can be ruinous. This tactic not only threatens innovation by UK businesses but represents a strategic risk for UK priorities, such as 5G infrastructure diversification and smart energy network security, by limiting the competing players. The availability of injunctions for SEPs gives foreign SEP holders the ability to prevent others in the UK from entering, succeeding and innovating in those markets.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Offord, gave a somewhat encouraging response in Committee—I keep using the word “encouraging” about his responses, although I keep hoping for better—to the effect that the Government would set out their thinking in the very near future, and that that would include the question of injunctions.

After many months of consultation, the IPO has published its 2024 forward look on this issue. It has reported its findings to Ministers and has agreed key objectives concerning SEPs. Those are

“helping implementers, especially SMEs, navigate and better understand the SEPs ecosystem and Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing … improving transparency in the ecosystem, both pricing and essentiality; and … achieving greater efficiency in respect of dispute resolution, including arbitration and mediation”.

Although the IPO has confirmed that SMEs are especially disadvantaged by the current SEP regulations, it states, disappointingly, on injunctions that

“we have concluded that we will not be consulting on making legislative changes to narrow the use of injunctions in SEPs disputes”,

with very limited justification for the decision, saying simply that it was taken after

“careful consideration of the evidence, operation of relevant legal frameworks and international obligations”.

The Coalition for App Fairness has pointed out to me that a day after the IPO announcement, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to approve its own SEP regulation. The EU framework will include the creation of an SEP register, database and essentiality checks; a defined maximum total royalty for an SEP; and an independent, expert-led conciliation process to establish the fair price for SEPs, which, crucially, will block the use of injunctions while the process is taking place. That seems entirely appropriate. The EU has proved that such a regulatory regime can be delivered; why cannot the UK Government, with all the freedom of Brexit? What is the basis for the IPO decision? What evidence, legal frameworks and international obligations prevent it from dealing with and legislating on injunctions? Why cannot the IPO likewise establish a truly fair SEP licensing ecosystem?

The least the Government can do is give more detail to the many SMEs affected by this decision. The forward look states, rather lamely:

“The IPO will continue engagement with relevant industry and institutions to continue to inform our ongoing policy development and implementation of those actions set out above”.


What on earth does that entail? That is pretty mealy-mouthed. What benefit will there be from that?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a wide-ranging group; there is good news hidden in the middle of it, and bad news—we will have to wait for the Minister to respond to get a full picture. Others have spoken in some depth and so I will not try to repeat what has been said. I certainly will not try to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, whose expertise exceeds the combination of everybody’s in the Chamber at present. On SEPs, I can only stand back in amazement that he has been able to understand what is being recommended by the IPO, let alone to have come forward with a plan that might take us a bit further down the track that we clearly ought to have gone down.

I turn first to the questions the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised, which cut to the heart of what, is in some senses, the purpose of the Bill. I am afraid that she rather weakened her case at the end by saying that it was a much broader basis for debate and discussion than could be encompassed within this Bill; I think she saw it primarily as a way of continuing a much larger battle, and I wish her well with that. In that sense, we do not need to take this forward. However, I hope that the Government are taking note of the impacts that some of the provisions in the Bill are having, in the sense that it is not achieving the aims and objectives, which I think we all share, of making sure that we reduce carbon and try to meet targets which have been set for us in the long term on this. Therefore, greenwashing will continue, but we hope that it will be better in scope and that the focus will be more across the range of government activity.

On imitation packaging, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement- Jones, said, we have also been discussing this for a number of years in various Bills as they have come forward, and it is good that the assertion now is that in Clause 224 and Schedule 19, there will be help. However, the question is, of course, enforcement. I would be grateful if, when the Minister comes to respond, he could give us a bit more information about how that might happen in practice.

The questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, and supported by “the team”, as it was described, are a continuation of debates and discussions we have been having in this House for as long as I have been here—and I certainly have participated in them. It is good to see the government amendments in as far as they go, but the three remaining questions, as raised in Amendments 99, 100 and 101, need answers. I hope the Minister will expand on where the Government have taken us so far and give us some assurances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Minister has a full brief about the nature of the available enforcement. Will he write to me to provide a few more particulars and give more assurance in this respect?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it is important that we unpick the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, which I think was touched on but not addressed by the Minister. If we rely on civil remedies, we are not really addressing the problem that there is, in effect, an opportunity, for those who wish to, to exercise criminality; this surely cannot be left to the civil courts.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

The Minister is very generous.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I think there is quite a lot of meat in what the Minister said just now, both in respect of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and my amendment.

I appreciate that we have a set of moving parts here, including the response to the consultation on smarter regulation, improving consumer price transparency and product information for consumers, which came out this morning.

The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was quite interesting. However, if what the Minister said about the conduct requirements in Clause 20 is to be put into effect, I suggest that he has to bring forward amendments on Report which reflect the response to the consultation. I do not think this can be done just as a sort of consumer protection at the back end of the Bill; it has to be about corporate conduct, and at the Clause 20 end of the Bill.

Obviously, we will all read the words of the Minister very carefully in Hansard. It is interesting. I have written down: “Why are we kicking the tyres on Clause 20?” As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, this is absolutely central to the Bill. Basically, it could not be more important; getting this clause right from the outset will be so important. This is why not only we but the CMA will be poring over this, to make sure that this wording absolutely gives it the powers that it needs.

I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. These are very important powers, and we have to make sure that they are used properly, but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, that the powers are there. Otherwise, what are we spending our time here in Committee doing, if we are going to put forward a Bill that is not fit for purpose? We have to make sure that we have those powers. I like what the Minister had to say in reference to the Clause 20(3)(a) provision. Again, when people look at Pepper v Hart and so on, that will be an important statement at the end of the day.

We have certainly managed to elicit quite a useful response from the Minister, but we want more. We want amendments coming down the track on Report which reflect some of the undertakings in the response to the consultation on consumer price transparency and product information for consumers.

The only other thing to say—exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has said—is that comments about the consultation are that it was half a loaf. There is a whole lot more to be said on drip pricing. We have a discussion coming down the track on that, and we will reserve our fire until then.

Online Safety (List of Overseas Regulators) Regulations 2024

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. We all welcome the fact that the Bill is now an Act, of course. In a sense, these regulations are the first swallow of spring. We have many more affirmative SIs to come, I have no doubt, along with the codes of conduct that will eventually come to us in their final form. Like the Minister, I very much hope that we will proceed at speed in how we implement the terms of the Act.

Although this SI looks quite narrow in what it is about, it raises the whole question of co-operation between regulators. It is not just going to be about Ofcom helping overseas regulators, as set out in the regulations, in what they do; obviously, the Communications Act provisions will be important as well. It would be useful if the Minister could give us an idea of the areas of co-operation between the regulators that he thinks would be particularly fruitful. For instance, relationships with the Irish regulator will be extremely important in understanding how the DSA is working for it. How might its redress mechanism work? The DSA has explicit redress mechanisms under it whereas we are going to be working towards that in future; that is quite a long way away.

As the Minister will recall, other aspects are still somewhat inchoate under the Act. There is the question of research, which is an important area. How is that working? How are the other regulators seeing it operate? There is also the app store aspect, the other area of the Act that is not quite there in the way that its other parts are. It would be useful if the Minister could give us an idea of the areas that Ofcom will be working on.

I very much welcome the Minister’s assurances about the use of personal data and the kind of information that will be available. I assume that this will be of some importance, and that these case studies will involve some of the category 1 platforms to be discussed between the regulators. They will be helpful in making sure that, on an international basis, we see conformity by these large platforms to the kinds of regulation that are being installed. Does the Minister have an idea about the scale of the exchange of information that will be required? Clearly, it will require some resource by Ofcom in making security absolutely certain and being able to deliver on the assurances that the Minister has given.

Finally, it would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether other candidates will be coming down the track. Clearly, this instrument sets out the key regulators. Might others come along that are a speck in the eye, or does the Minister think that we have pretty much settled who the key regulators are and that, for the moment, they will be the ones with which we will co-operate under the terms of this SI?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in welcoming this SI, and I thank the Minister for his kind comments about the work that went into the Bill. I share with him our pleasure that it is now in force and up and running; this instrument is proof positive that it is indeed so. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I have many questions about what is happening, but certainly no objections to what is proposed.

The helpful Explanatory Memorandum explains that the context for this instrument is

“the global nature of service providers”

and how they operate. In that sense, I recognise that there are some gaps as regards the areas from where difficulties and troubles might come. For instance, Poland and parts of the eastern European bloc are thought to be centres from which emanate quite a lot of damage and a certain amount of material that is almost certainly illegal, yet I see no reference to any organisation—maybe there is none—that might be able to help Ofcom explore what is happening there. I am also concerned about Canada, because it hosts the biggest—I think—pornography company in the world. Again, I would have thought it would be helpful to Ofcom to be able to contact a collaborative organisation in Canada to work with, but I do not see one in the list.

That leads me on to another, related point. There is, and has been for some time, a network of likeminded organisations with which Ofcom has worked well in the past. There is a list of them on its website. Not all of them are in the Government’s proposals before us, and I wonder whether that in any way reflects a clash of views by the Government. Perhaps the Minster will comment on why we do not see Korea or South Africa, for instance. I would have thought that at least those with which Ofcom has a good working relationship at the moment should have been close to appointment. Perhaps there is some sort of competition there or element that I am not aware of. Any light that could be shed on that would be helpful.

Paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum attached to the SI very helpfully specifies that these regulations have certain minimum standards by which they are judged—a point picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I felt they were very appropriate to the ones that the Minister mentioned, including the bespoke regulatory framework itself,

“whether its autonomy is protected in law; and whether the … jurisdiction that empowers them, upholds international human rights”.

These are all good things, and I am pleased to see them mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum and referenced in his speech.

That raises the question: what happens if any of these organisations depart from these standards? Will another procedure or SI be required to remove them from the list, or would they just cease to be part of the group with which Ofcom discusses things? It would be helpful to have on the record some idea of what the procedure would be if that were required.

My last two points are relatively small. There is a hint that more regulators will be considered and brought forward. That is good; I think we are all in favour of more places, since, as has been said, this is a global issue. What is the timing of that, roughly? Perhaps we could have some speculative ideas about it.

Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, pointed out, this is the first of many SIs coming forward for consideration by the House. In Committee on the Bill, we discussed at length how Parliament could be involved. This SI is probably not a very good example of that, but in the codes of practice considerable work will be required by Parliament to make sure that the affirmative resolutions are properly researched and discussed.

The proposal we made, which was accepted by the noble Viscount’s colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, was the Parkinson rule: that the statutory instruments would, in fact, be offered to the standing committees. I do not think that would have been necessary for this instrument; I just wonder whether that is still in progress and whether it is the Government’s intention to honour the idea announced at the Dispatch Box that the legwork for many of the substantial SIs that will come forward could be done with advantage by the committees, which would inform the debates required in both Houses before these instruments can be approved. I look forward to hearing from the noble Viscount whether that is likely to happen.

Design Right, Artist’s Resale Right and Copyright (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Monday 20th November 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty; I wholeheartedly agree with everything that he said. I should say from the outset that we on these Benches support both sets of regulations, which will, I hope, gladden the Minister’s heart as we start debating them.

There are, however, a number of points to be made in relation to them. I very much support what the noble Earl had to say about DACS, the not-for-profit visual artists’ rights management organisation. It recently helpfully published a report that highlights the pivotal role that artists’ resale rights play in supporting artists and the wider art market. As the noble Earl said, they have been somewhat controversial in the past, but, now that they have been included in trade agreements, I feel confident that they are now bolted fully into our intellectual and moral property rights. They are an absolutely vital source of income for many artists. The noble Earl talked about more than £120 million in ARR royalties, directly benefiting more than 6,000 artists and their heirs. Artists selling at the lower end of the art market benefit in particular from ARR: two-thirds of ARR payments in 2021 were less than £500 and 10% of artists received ARR royalties for the first time that year.

I will not repeat most of the rest of what the noble Earl had to say, just that I very much agree with a great deal of what he said. More than 90 countries worldwide have implemented some form of ARR legislation so we are in good company as regards what I see as this moral right. We have heard about the trade agreements; it would be useful to get from the Minister an idea of which agreements we have included this in. Christian Zimmermann, the CEO of DACS is definitely worth quoting. He said:

“The Artist’s Resale Right is more than a legislative mandate—it is a commitment to fairness, a recognition of the value of artists’ contributions, and an indispensable support for artists and their estates.”


The Minister may notice that I have used pounds sterling in my figures throughout so, naturally, I support that aspect of these regulations and, of course, the other aspects that are provided for in the regulations.

The Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 are, in many senses, a much weightier aspect of the regulations we are considering today. I am grateful to the Alliance for Intellectual Property and the British Brands Group for providing briefings and, indeed, their strong views on these issues. I know that the Minister will have heard many of their arguments in person but I want to put on record those views, with which, I should say, I and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Intellectual Property strongly agree.

Members of both groups strongly consider that the status quo will deliver the strongest overall outcomes for shoppers, business and the UK economy. Following the UK’s departure from the EU, the UK Government now have control over the exhaustion regime. As the Alliance for Intellectual Property says, the importance of the decision on which exhaustion regime the Government choose cannot be underestimated. Although it seems a technical area of policy, it will have a real-life impact on businesses, consumers and regulatory authorities across the UK. Exhaustion regimes have the greatest impact on export-driven UK sectors as they underpin their ability to determine when, how and what goods to sell in international markets and at what price.

The noble Earl quoted the publishing sector. Industries of that kind are particularly successful at exporting; for example, the UK book sector derives 60% of its income from exports. We have heard that the Government have consulted on which regime the UK should select. In January 2022, the Government made an interim decision to select a UK+ regime that would maintain existing protections. As we have heard, this statutory instrument is being introduced by the Government relating to that interim decision. As the Minister said, though, the Government have not made a final decision on which regime to choose but are likely to announce their decision in the next few months. I hope that the Minister will give us some idea of the time in which he expects that decision to be made.

The British Brands Group believes that advice from officials is to make the interim decision permanent—at least, that is its impression—which would be widely welcomed. I want to take this opportunity to voice support for the interim decision and express concerns regarding any shift to an international regime that might arise in future. I am not going to explain what the alternatives are; I do not think I need to. National exhaustion is one alternative and international exhaustion is another; neither is practical nor attractive.

The current regime is regional exhaustion, an approach that has been working well for 50 years. Rights are exhausted once goods are placed on the UK or EU market, although they can be used to prevent the distribution of goods placed on markets outside those countries. This status quo operates well, as we know; it strikes us on these Benches and those organisations as proportionate, hence our strong support. The SI rightly provides for an IP exhaustion regime meaning that the holders of trademarks would not be able to object to the further distribution of their goods once they are placed on the market in the UK and the EU. They would, however, be able to object to imports from other countries.

The Government’s decision on the UK’s future exhaustion regime will be among the most important taken in relation to intellectual property policy during this Parliament. Its impact will affect businesses, consumers and regulatory authorities across the UK; as I have said, it will particularly affect export-driven UK sectors as it underpins their ability to determine how and what goods to sell in international markets and at what price.

Any shift to an international regime would also affect many of the UK’s leading design and branded goods companies. This would make it significantly more difficult to launch new products in countries around the world as those firms would not be able to vary pricing at launch for fear of those products re-entering the UK. A move to an international regime would also lead to consumer confusion since product and regulatory standards differ across countries internationally. Any “free for all” in parallel imports to the UK would undermine the UK’s product standards regulatory framework and would create uncertainty and confusion for the public.

Opponents of maintaining the status quo and supporters of an international regime suggest that there would be a reduction in pricing for consumers from an increase in parallel imports. Where parallel imports occur currently, in contravention of our regime, prices are not lower. As an example, you occasionally see bottles of Coca-Cola with foreign language labelling in some small shops but at the same pricing as compliant products.

We believe that the retail supply chain, including wholesalers and parallel importers, would therefore be the major beneficiary, rather than the UK public. The cost-benefit equation is likely to be between established creative industry sectors that find their home in the UK market but could choose to move elsewhere against a parallel import sector that does not currently exist and would not even need to be located on UK shores, nor to create UK jobs.

In summary, an international exhaustion regime would represent a significant policy shift away from innovation and growth. It would weaken competition, harm consumers and not help lower consumer prices, in our view. The SI as drafted sustains the current exhaustion regime until the Government confirm their long-term policy approach. The most recent government consultation identified no evidence at all to support a change in regime, so this debate is important.

I hope that the Minister, IPO and others in government resist calls for any change that could reduce IP rights holders’ ability to influence the distribution of their products in markets outside the EU and weaken their IP rights. A change in the UK’s trademark exhaustion regime would be a significant policy shift negatively affecting consumers, brand owners, UK exporters and public enforcement agencies, while not reducing inflation. I hope the Minister has got my message that this would not be a welcome change away from the current exhaustion regime.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I apologise for my slightly late arrival at the Committee. I hope that it was not noted too carefully, but we are doing two SIs as one group and I was here for the whole second part. I hope that that qualifies me to speak.

Also, it would be a terrible shame not to recapture the spirit of a few years ago, when a little group of three of four colleagues, including the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, debated a number of issues to do with intellectual property that came up at that time. It was interesting that a group from within the confines of Parliament then was able to get together and become quite expert at some of these issues. We had some very enjoyable debates and some of these issues have played out again today. Those who benefited from going on that journey gained a lot of knowledge and expertise, so I am not able to stun the Committee with some new insights; they have largely been covered by those who have built up their expertise from the same route that I have been on, so what I would say would be otiose.

I will congratulate both the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for covering the points I would otherwise have made and piggyback on them to save the time of the Committee, which is a good thing.

However, it is interesting that we are still talking about issues that were live three or four years ago. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, remembers them with some interest. We are still not clear what distinguishes our particular configuration of design rights. I still worry about those and hope that the department is working on a way forward with some of them. We had some clarity when we were thinking, within the EU context, of a way of trying to balance the difference between those which operated within the UK only and those that were being developed in Europe but were not able to go back to that. I do not think we quite got over the variations that can occur between the triad of patent, trademark and intellectual property in other forms, because they bump into each other. Although they have been dealt with rather well within these statutory instruments, there are occasions when they point in different directions and it is very hard to get a sense of the Government’s policy on them. There is still a need to do more work on that.

In turning to the SIs before us today, I want to raise a very narrow point on design right, ARR and copyright, from the Explanatory Memorandum. Although the noble Viscount touched on this in his introduction, he did not spend a lot of time on it. It is a question of broadly taking forward the arrangements that existed before we left the EU and making them slightly up to date as we go forward. I have no problem with the Design Right (Semiconductor Topographies) Regulations 1989, which were notably not mentioned by my two colleagues nor dealt with in any detail. That is a sensible move forward. We covered ARR and the copyright tribunal rules in some detail. That is a good change and an important way forward.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State, when seeking to exercise certain powers in the Bill, to provide the relevant Select Committees of both Houses with draft regulations and impact assessments, among other things. I should admit up front that this is a blatant attempt to secure an Online Safety Bill version of what I have called the “Grimstone rule”, established in the international trade Bill a few years ago. Saving his blushes, if the ideas enshrined in the amendment are acceptable to the Government, I hope that the earlier precedent of the “Grimstone rule” would ensure that any arrangements agreed under this amendment would be known in future as the “Parkinson rule”. Flattery will get you many things.

The Bill places a specific consultation requirement on the Government for the fee regime, which we were just talking about, categorisation thresholds, regulations about reports to the NCA, statements of strategic priorities, regulations for super-complaints, and a review of the Act after three years—so a wide range of issues need to be put out for consultation. My context here, which is all-important, is a growing feeling that Parliament’s resources are not being deployed to the full in scrutinising and reviewing the work of the Executive on the one hand and feeding knowledge and experience into future policy on the other. There is continuing concern about the effectiveness of the secondary legislation approval procedures, which this amendment would bear on.

Noble Lords have only to read the reports of the Select Committees of both Houses to realise what a fantastic resource they represent. One has only to have served on a Select Committee to realise what potential also exists there. In an area of rapid technical and policy development, such as the digital world, the need to be more aware of future trends and potential problems is absolutely crucial.

The pre-legislative scrutiny committee report is often quoted here, and it drew attention to this issue as well, recommending

“a Joint Committee of both Houses to oversee digital regulation with five primary functions: scrutinising digital regulators and overseeing the regulatory landscape … scrutinising the Secretary of State’s work into digital regulation; reviewing the codes of practice laid by Ofcom under any legislation relevant to digital regulation … considering any relevant new developments such as the creation of new technologies and the publication of independent research … and helping to generate solutions to ongoing issues in digital regulation”—

a pretty full quiver of issues to be looked at.

I hope that when he responds to this debate, the Minister will agree that ongoing parliamentary scrutiny would be helpful in providing reassurances that the implementation of the regime under the Bill is going as intended, and that the Government would also welcome a system under which Parliament, perhaps through the Select Committees, can contribute to the ways suggested by the Joint Committee. I say “perhaps”, because I accept that it is not appropriate for primary legislation to dictate how, or in what form, Parliament might offer advice in the manner that I have suggested; hence the suggestion embedded in the amendment—which I will not be pressing to a Division—which I call the “Parkinson rule”. Under this, the Minister would agree at the Dispatch Box a series of commitments which will provide an opportunity for enhanced cross-party scrutiny of the online safety regime and an opportunity to survey and report on future developments of interest.

The establishment of the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and its Select Committee means that there is a new dedicated Select Committee in the Commons. The Lords Communications and Digital Committee will continue, I hope, to play a vital role in the scrutiny of the digital world, as it has with the online safety regime to date. While it would be for the respective committees to decide their priorities, I hope the Government would encourage the committees in both Houses to respond to their required consultation processes and to look closely at the draft codes of practice, the uses of regulation-making powers and the powers of direction contained in the Bill ahead of the formal processes in both Houses. Of course, it could be a specialist committee if that is what the Houses decide, but there is an existing arrangement under which this “Parkinson rule” could be embedded. I have discussed the amendment with the Minister and with the Bill team. I look forward to hearing their response to the ideas behind the amendment. I beg to move the “Parkinson rule”.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Here is an opportunity for the Minister to build a legislative monument. I hope he will take it. The reason I associate myself with it is because the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—who has been sparing in his quoting of the Joint Committee’s report, compared with mine—referred to it and it all made very good sense.

The amendment stumbles only in the opinion of the Government, it seems, on the basis that parliamentary committees need to be decided on by Parliament, rather than the Executive. But this is a very fine distinction, in my view, given that the Government, in a sense, control the legislature and therefore could will the means to do this, even if it was not by legislation. A nod from the Minister would ensure that this would indeed take place. It is very much needed. It was the Communications and Digital Committee, I think, that introduced the idea that we picked up in the Joint Committee, so it has a very good provenance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. My noble friend has spoken very cogently to Amendment 258ZA, and I say in answer to the question posed by the noble Baroness that I do not think this is designed to make big tech companies content. What it is designed to do is bring this out into the open and make it contestable; to see whether or not privacy is being invaded in these circumstances. To that extent it airs the issues and goes quite a long way towards allaying the concerns of those 80 organisations that we have heard from.

I am not going to repeat all the arguments of my noble friend, but many noble Lords, not least on the opposite Benches, have taken us through some of the potential security and privacy concerns which were also raised by my noble friends, and other reasons for us on these Benches putting forward these amendments. We recognise those concerns and indeed we recognise concerns on both sides. We have all received briefs from the NSPCC and the IWF, but I do not believe that essentially what is being proposed here in our amendments, or indeed by the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, are designed in any way to prevent Ofcom doing its duty in relation to child sexual abuse and exploitation material in private messaging. We believe that review by the ICO to ensure that there is no invasion of privacy is a very useful mechanism.

We have all tried to find solutions and the Minister has put forward his stab at this with the skilled persons report. The trouble is, that does not go far enough, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said. Effectively, Ofcom can choose the skilled person and what the skilled person is asked to advise on. It is not necessarily comprehensive and that is essentially the major flaw.

As regards the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, it is interesting that the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself said:

“We are concerned by the extent and seriousness of CSEA content being shared online. But these proposed measures may be a disproportionate infringement on millions of individuals’ right to privacy where those individuals are not suspected of any wrongdoing”.


It goes on to say:

“We recommend that Ofcom should be required to apply to an independent judicial commissioner—as is the case for mass surveillance under the Investigatory Powers Act”.


I am sure that is the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, put forward his amendments; if he put them to a vote, we would follow and support. Otherwise, we will put our own amendments to the House.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been—since we first got sight of the Bill and right the way through—one of the most difficult issues to try to find balance and a solution. I know that people have ridiculed my attempt to try and get people to speak less in earlier amendments. Actually, in part it was so we could have a longer debate here—so the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, should not be so cross with me, and I hope that we can continue to be friends, as we are outside the Chamber, on all points, not just this one.

Talk is not getting us to a solution on this, unfortunately. I say to the Minister: I wonder whether there is a case here for pausing a little bit longer on this, because I still do not think we have got to the bottom of where the balance lies. I want to explain why I say that, because, in a way, I follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, in worrying that there are some deeper questions here that we have not quite got the answers to. Nothing in the current amendments gets us to quite the right place.

I started by thinking that, if only because Ofcom was being seen to be placed in a position of both being a part of the regulatory process, but also having the rights to interpose itself into where this issue about encryption came up, Ofcom needed the safety of an external judicial review along the lines of the current RIPA system. That has led us to my Amendments 256, 257 and 259, which try to distil that sensibility into a workable frame for the Bill and these issues. I will not push it to a vote. It is there because I wanted to have in the discussion a proper look at what the RIPA proposal would look like in practice.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. Beyond peradventure my noble friend Lord Allan and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, have demonstrated powerfully the perils of this clause. “Lawyers’ caution” is one of my noble friend’s messages to take away, as is the complexities in making these judgments. It was interesting when he mentioned the sharing for awareness’s sake of certain forms of content and the judgments that must be taken by platforms. His phrase “If in doubt, take it out” is pretty chilling in free speech terms—I think that will come back to haunt us. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, the wrong message is being delivered by this clause. It is important to have some element of discretion here and not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, a cliff edge. We need a gentler landing. I very much hope that the Minister will land more gently.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a good debate. It is very hard to see where one would want to take it. If it proves anything, it is that the decision to drop the legal but harmful provisions in the Bill was probably taken for the wrong reasons but was the right decision, since this is where we end up—in an impossible moral quandary which no amount of writing, legalistic or otherwise, will get us out of. This should be a systems Bill, not a content Bill.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard some very well-rehearsed lines during the debate today, with the usual protagonists. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter is that the Press Recognition Panel is as frustrated as many of us on these Benches and other Benches at the failure to implement a post-Leveson scheme of press regulation. Despite many efforts, it has never been fully put into effect.

I do not think I need to repeat a great deal of what has been said today. For instance, the record of IPSO, which the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, talked about, has been very well tracked by Hacked Off. This is not a proposal for state regulation—which is so often, if you like, the canard placed on it.

If not this Bill, which Bill? The media Bill is not going to tackle issues such as this, as my noble friend Lord McNally said. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has pointed out, this Bill has been a series of conversations —extremely fruitful conversations—but in this particular direction it has borne no fruit at all.

I must admit that, throughout my looking at the draft Bill and continuing to look through its various versions, this opt-out for news publishers has remained a puzzle. The below-the-line opt-out for the mainstream news media always strikes me as strange, because there is no qualification that there should be any curation of that below-the-line, user-generated content. That is peculiar, and it is rather like somebody in the last chance saloon being rewarded with a bouquet. It seems a rather extraordinary provision.

My noble friend Lord Allan rightly pointed to some of the dangers in the new provisions, and indeed in the provisions generally, for these services. I hope the Minister has at least some answers to give to the questions he raised. Progress on this and the scheme that the PRP was set up to oversee, which is still not in place, remain a source of great division across the parties and within them. There is still hope; it may be that under a different Government we would see a different result.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I was unfortunately unable to attend round 1 of this debate—I had to leave. My noble friend Lord Knight has absented himself from hearing what I am going to say about his remarks, so he must fear that he had got his lines wrong. I apologised to him for leaving him a bit exposed, because we had not quite anticipated how the conversation would go, but I think he did as well as he could, and I repeat the lines he said: this is not the right Bill to rerun the arguments about the Leveson report. I still believe that. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, does not think the media Bill is; maybe it is not, but at least we can make sure that the debate is properly argued.

It is interesting that, although we clearly have well-defined positions and antipathies present in the debate, a number of things have been said today that will be helpful, if we manage to get a little closer, in trying to resolve some of the issues outstanding. If I am still around and involved in it, I will approach this by trying to see what we can do together rather than the rights and wrongs of positions we have adopted before. It has worked for this Bill: we have achieved huge changes to the Bill because we decided from the start that we would try to see what was the best that could come out of it. That is the instinct I have as we go forward to any future debate and discussion, whether or not it is on the media Bill.

The puzzling thing here is why this is such a continuing concern that it needs to be brought into to any opportunity we have to discuss these areas. The sense we had in the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which discussed this to some extent but not in quite the same range as we have tonight, or even in Committee, was that the issues raised in this Bill were really about protecting freedom of expression. At that stage, the Bill still had the legal but harmful clauses in it so perhaps had had less exposure to those issues in the debate we had. I still think it is primarily about that. I still have real concerns about it, as have been raised by one or two people already in our discussion. I do not think the recognised news provider definition is a good one; I do not think the definition of a journalist is a good one. The pre-legislative scrutiny committee wanted an objective test of material based around public interest, but the Government would not accept that, so we are where we are. We must try to ensure that what works is what we have in the Bill in relation to the topics before it.

The primary purpose must be to ensure material that will inform and enhance our knowledge about democracy, current affairs and issues that need to be debated in the public space, so it is clearly right that that which is published by recognised journalists—quality journalists is another phrase that has been used—should be protected, perhaps more than other material, but at the fringes there are still doubts as to whether the Bill does that.

I had taken it that in the amendments I signed up to, government Amendments 158 and 161, the material we were talking about was from recognised news publishers, not material self-generated in social media. I am looking hard at the Minister hoping he will be able to come to my aid when he comes to respond. The issue here is about making sure that material that was not originally broadcast but is still provided by a recognised news publisher is protected from being taken down, and it would not have been if those amendments were not made. I hope that is the right interpretation. That was the basis on which I signed up for them; I do not know quite where it leaves me if that is wrong.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we are dangerously on the same page this evening. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about demonstrating the need for an independent complaints mechanism. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, captured quite a lot of the need to keep the freedom of expression aspect under close review, as we go through the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, have raised an important and useful debate, and there are some crucial issues here. My noble friend captured it when he talked about the justifiable limitations and the context in which limitations are made. Some of the points made about the Public Order Act offences are extremely valuable.

I turn to one thing that surprised me. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, quoted the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which said it had reservations about the protection of freedom of expression in the Bill. As we go through the Bill, it is easy to keep our eyes on the ground and not to look too closely at the overall impact. In its briefing, which is pretty comprehensive, paragraph 2.14 says:

“In a few cases, it may be clear that the content breaches the law. However, in most cases decisions about illegality will be complex and far from clear. Guidance from Ofcom could never sufficiently capture the full range or complexity of these offences to support service providers comprehensively in such judgements, which are quasi-judicial”.


I am rather more optimistic than that, but we need further assurance on how that will operate. Its life would probably be easier if we did not have the Public Order Act offences in Schedule 7.

I am interested to hear what the Minister says. I am sure that there are pressures on him, from his own Benches, to look again at these issues to see whether more can be done. The EHRC says:

“Our recommendation is to create a duty to protect freedom of expression to provide an effective counterbalance to the duties”.


The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, cited this. There is a lot of reference in the Bill but not to the Ofcom duties. So this could be a late contender to settle the horses, so to speak.

This is a difficult Bill; we all know that so much nuance is involved. We really hope that there is not too much difficulty in interpretation when it is put into practice through the codes. That kind of clarity is what we are trying to achieve, and, if the Minister can help to deliver that, he will deserve a monument.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

It is always nice to be nice to the Minister.

I will reference, briefly, the introduction of the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, which I signed. They were introduced extremely competently, as you would expect, by my noble and learned kinsman Lord Hope. It is important to get the right words in the right place in Bills such as this. He is absolutely right to point out the need to be sure that we are talking about the right thing when we say “freedom of expression”—that we do mean that and not “freedom of speech”; we should not get them mixed up—and, also, to have a consistent definition that can be referred to, because so much depends on it. Indeed, this group might have run better and more fluently if we had started with this amendment, which would have then led into the speeches from those who had the other amendments in the group.

The noble Baroness is not present today, but not for bad news: for good news. Her daughter is graduating and she wanted to be present at that; it is only right that she should do that. She will be back to pick up other aspects of the devolution issues she has been following very closely, and I will support her at that time.

The debate on freedom of expression was extremely interesting. It raised issues that, perhaps, could have featured more fully had this been timetabled differently, as both noble Lords who introduced amendments on this subject said. I will get my retaliation in first: a lot of what has been asked for will have been done. I am sure that the Minister will say that, if you look at the amendment to Clause 1, the requirement there is that freedom of expression is given priority in the overall approach to the Bill, and therefore, to a large extent, the requirement to replace that at various parts of the Bill may not be necessary. But I will leave him to expand on that; I am sure that he will.

Other than that, the tension I referred to in an earlier discussion, in relation to what we are made to believe about the internet and the social media companies, is that we are seeing a true public square, in which expressions and opinions can be exchanged as freely and openly as they would be in a public space in the real world. But, of course, neither of those places really exists, and no one can take the analogy further than has been done already.

The change, which was picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, in relation to losing “legal but harmful”, has precipitated an issue which will be left to social media companies to organise and police—I should have put “policing” in quotation marks. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, the remedy for much of this will be an appeals mechanism that works both at the company level and for the issues that need rebalancing in relation to complexity or because they are not being dealt with properly. We will not know that for a couple of years, but at least that has been provided for and we can look forward to it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, as it is a real contrast. We have one set of amendments which say that the net is too wide and another which say that the net is not wide enough, and I agree with both of them. After all, we are trying to fine-tune the Bill to get it to deal with the proper risks—the word “risk” has come up quite a lot in this debate—that it should. Whether or not we make a specific exemption for public interest services, public information services, limited functionality services or non-commercial services, we need to find some way to deal with the issue raised by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in their amendments. All of us are Wikipedia users; we all value the service. I particularly appreciated what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron: Wikipedia does not push its content at us—it is not algorithmically based.

What the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said, resonated with me, because I think he has found a thundering great hole in the Bill. This infinite scrolling and autoplay is where the addiction of so much of social media lies, and the Bill absolutely needs systemically and functionally to deal with it. So, on the one hand, we have a service which does not rely on that infinite scrolling and algorithmic type of pushing of content and, on the other hand, we are trying to identify services which have that quality.

I very much hope the Minister is taking all this on board, because on each side we have identified real issues. Whether or not, when we come to the light at the end of the tunnel of Amendment 245 from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, it will solve all our problems, I do not know. All I can say is that I very much hope that the Minister will consider both sets of amendments and find a way through this that is satisfactory to all sides.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, much like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I started off being quite certain I knew what to say about these amendments. I even had some notes—unusual for me, I know—but I had to throw them away, which I always do with my notes, because the arguments have been persuasive. That is exactly why we are here in Parliament discussing things: to try to reach common solutions to difficult problems.

We started with a challenge to the Minister to answer questions about scope, exemptions and discretion in relation to a named service—Wikipedia. However, as the debate went on, we came across the uncomfortable feeling that, having got so far into the Bill and agreed a lot of amendments today improving it, we are still coming up against quite stubborn issues that do not fit neatly into the categorisation and structures that we have. We do not seem to have the right tools to answer the difficult questions before us today, let alone the myriad questions that will come up as the technology advances and new services come in. Why have we not already got solutions to the problems raised by Amendments 281, 281A and 281B?

There is also the rather difficult idea we have from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of dark patterns, which we need to filter into our thinking. Why does that not fit into what we have got? Why is it that we are still worried about Wikipedia, a service for public good, which clearly has risks in it and is sometimes capable of making terrible mistakes but is definitely a good thing that should not be threatened by having to conform with a structure and a system which we think is capable of dealing with some of the biggest and most egregious companies that are pushing stuff at us in the way that we have talked about?

I have a series of questions which I do not have the answers to. I am looking forward to the Minister riding to my aid on a white charger of enormous proportions and great skill which will take us out without having to fall over any fences.

If I may, I suggest to the Minister a couple of things. First, we are stuck on the word “content”. We will come back to that in the future, as we still have an outstanding problem about exactly where the Bill sets it. Time and again in discussions with the Bill team and with Ministers we have been led back to the question of where the content problem lies and where the harms relate to that, but this little debate has shown beyond doubt that harm can occur independent of and separate from content. We must have a solution to that, and I hope it will be quick.

Secondly, when approaching anybody or anything or any business or any charity that is being considered in scope for this Bill, we will not get there if we are looking only at the question of its size and its reach. We have to look at the risks it causes, and we have to drill down hard into what risks we are trying to deal with using our armoury as we approach these companies, because that is what matters to the children, vulnerable people and adults who would suffer otherwise, and not the question of whether or not these companies are big or small. I think there are solutions to that and we will get there, but, when he comes to respond, the Minister needs to demonstrate to us that he is still willing to listen and think again about one or two issues. I look forward to further discussions with him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I shall be brief, my Lords, because I know we have a Statement to follow. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I certainly share his concern about the rise of incel culture, and this is a very appropriate point to raise it.

This is all about choices and the Minister, in putting forward his amendments, in response not only to the Joint Committee but the overwhelming view in Committee on the Bill that this was the right thing to do, has done the right thing. I thank him for that, with the qualification that we must make sure that the red and amber lights are used—just as my noble friend Lord Allan and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, qualified their support for what the Minister has done. At the same time, I make absolutely clear that I very much support the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I was a bit too late to get my name down to her amendment, but it would be there otherwise.

I very much took to what the right reverend Prelate had to say about the ethics of the online world and nowhere more should they apply than in respect of children and young people. That is the place where we should apply these ethics, as strongly as we can. With some knowledge of artificial intelligence, how it operates and how it is increasingly operating, I say that what the noble Baroness wants to add to the Minister’s amendment seems to be entirely appropriate. Given the way in which algorithms are operating and the amount of misinformation and disinformation that is pouring into our inboxes, our apps and our social media, this is a very proportionate addition. It is the future. It is already here, in fact. So I very strongly support Amendment 174 from the noble Baroness and I very much hope that after some discussion the Minister will accept it.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I want to make it very clear that I think the House as a whole welcomes the change of heart by the Government to ensure that we have in the Bill the two sides of the question of content that will be harmful to children. We should not walk away from that. We made a big thing of this in Committee. The Government listened and we have now got it. The fact that we do not like it—or do not like bits of it—is the price we pay for having achieved something which is, probably on balance, good.

The shock comes from trying to work out why it is written the way it is, and how difficult it is to see what it will mean in practice when companies working to Ofcom’s instructions will take this and make this happen in practice. That lies behind, I think I am right in saying, the need for the addition to Amendment 172 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, which I have signed, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford. Both of them have spoken well in support of it and I do not need to repeat those points.

Somehow, in getting the good of Amendments 171 and 172, we have lost the flexibility that we think we want as well to try to get that through. The flexibility does exist, because the Government have retained powers to amend and change both primary priority content that is harmful to children and the primary content. Therefore, subject to approval through the secondary legislation process, this House will continue to have a concern about that—indeed, both Houses will.

Somehow, however, that does not get to quite where the concern comes from. The concern should be both the good points made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell—I should have caught him up in the gap and said I had already mentioned the fact that we had been together at the meeting. He found some additional points to make which I hope will also be useful to future discussion. I am glad he has done that. He is making a very good point in relation to cultural context and the work that needs to go on—which we have talked about in earlier debates—in order to make this live: in other words, to make people who are responsible for delivering this through Ofcom, but also those who are delivering it through companies, to understand the wider context. In that sense, clearly we need the misinformation/disinformation side of that stuff. It is part and parcel of the problems we have got. But more important even than that is the need to see about the functionality issues. We have come back to that. This Bill is about risk. The process that we will be going through is about risk assessment and making sure that the risks are understood by those who deliver services, and the penalties that follow the failure of the risk assessment process delivering change that we want to see in society.

However, it is not just about content. We keep saying that, but we do not see the changes around it. The best thing that could happen today would be if the Minister in responding accepted that these clauses are good—“Tick, we like them”—but could we just not finalise them until we have seen the other half of that, which is: what are the other risks to which those users of services that we have referred to and discussed are receiving through the systemic design processes that are designed to take them in different directions? It is only when we see the two together that we will have a proper concern.

I may have got this wrong, but the only person who can tell us is the Minister because he is the only one who really understands what is going on in the Bill. Am I not right in saying—I am going to say I am right; he will say no, I am not, but I am, aren’t I?—that we will get to Clauses 208 and 209, or the clauses that used to be 208 and 209, one of which deals with harms from content and the other deals with functionality? We may need to look at the way in which those are framed in order to come back and understand better how these lie and how they interact with that. I may have got the numbers wrong—the Minister is looking a bit puzzled, so I probably have—but the sense is that this will probably not come up until day 4. While I do not want to hold back the Bill, we may need to look at some of the issues that are hidden in the interstices of this set of amendments in order to make sure that the totality is better for those who have to use it.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I too must declare my interests on the register—I think that is the quickest way of doing it to save time. We still have time, and I very much hope that the Minister will listen to this debate and consider it. Although we are considering clauses that, by and large, come at the end of the Bill, there is still time procedurally—if the Minister so decides—to come forward with an amendment later on Report or at Third Reading.

We have heard some very convincing arguments today. My noble friend explained that the Minister did not like the DPP solution. I have looked back again at the Law Commission report, and I cannot for the life of me see the distinction between what was proposed for the offence in its report and what is proposed by the Government. There is a cigarette paper, if we are still allowed to use that analogy, between them, but the DPP is recommended—perhaps not on a personal basis, although I do not know quite what distinction is made there by the Law Commission, but certainly the Minister clearly did not like that. My noble friend has come back with some specifics, and I very much hope that the Minister will put on the record that, in those circumstances, there would not be a prosecution. As we heard in Committee, 130 different organisations had strong concerns, and I hope that the Minister will respond to those concerns.

As regards my other noble friend’s amendment, again creatively she has come back with a proposal for including reckless behaviour. The big problem here is that many people believe that, unless you include “reckless” or “consent”, the “for a laugh” defence operates. As the Minister knows, quite expert advice has been had on this subject. I hope the Minister continues his discussions. I very much support my noble friend in this respect. I hope he will respond to her in respect of timing and monitoring—the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned the need for the issue to be kept under review—even if at the end of the day he does not respond positively with an amendment.

Everybody believes that we need a change of culture—even the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, clearly recognises that—but the big difference is whether or not we believe that these particular amendments should be made. We very much welcome what the Law Commission proposed and what the Government have put into effect, but the question at the end of day is whether we truly are making illegal online what is illegal offline. That has always been the Government’s test. We must be mindful of that in trying to equate online behaviour with offline behaviour. I do not believe that we are there yet, however much moral leadership we are exhorted to display. I very much take the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, about the violence against women and girls amendment that the Government are coming forward with. I hope that will have a cultural change impact as well.

As regards the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I very much take the point she made, both at Committee and on Report. She was very specific, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, and was very clear about the impact, which as men we severely underestimate if we do not listen to what she said. I was slightly surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, really underestimates the impact of that kind of abuse—particularly that kind of indirect abuse.

I was interested in what the Minister had to say in Committee:

“In relation to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 268, the intentional encouragement or assistance of a criminal offence is already captured under Sections 44 to 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007”.—[Official Report, 22/6/23; col. 424.]


Is that still the Government's position? Has that been explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who I would have thought was pretty expert in the 2007 Act? If she does not agree with the Minister, that is a matter of some concern.

Finally, I agree that we need to consider the points raised at the outset by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and I very much hope that the Government will keep that under review.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate that in a curious way moves us from the debate on the first group, which was about the high level of aspiration for this Bill, for the work of those involved in it and indeed for Parliament as a whole, down to some of the nitty-gritty points that emerge from some of the Bill’s proposals. I am very much looking forward to the Minister’s response.

In a sense, where the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, ends, I want to start. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, did a good job of introducing the points made previously by his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, in relation to those unfortunate exercises of public comment on businesses, and indeed individuals, that have no reason to receive them. There does not seem to be a satisfactory sanction for that. In a sense he was drawn by the overarching nature of Clause 1, but I think we have established between us that Clause 1 does not have legal effect in the way that he would like, so we would probably need to move further forward. The Government probably need to pick up his points in relation to some of the issues that are raised further down, because they are in fact not dissimilar and could be dealt with.

The key issue is the one that my noble friend Lady Kennedy ended on, in the sense that the law online and the law offline, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, seem to be at variance about what you can and cannot do in relation to threats issued, whether or not they are general, to a group or groups in society. This is a complex area that needs further thought of the nature that has been suggested, and may well refer back to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. There is something here that we are not tackling correctly. I look forward to the Government’s response. We would support movement in that area should that agreement be made.

Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, whom I am tempted to call my noble friend because he is a friend, has just moved out of his seat—I do not need to give him a namecheck any more—but he and I went to a meeting yesterday, I think, although I have lost track of time. It was called by Luke Pollard MP and related to the incel movement or, as the meeting concluded, what we should call the alleged incel movement, because by giving it a name we somehow give it a position. I wanted to make that point because a lot of what we are talking about here is in the same territory. It was an informal research-focused meeting to hear all the latest research being done on the group of activities going under the name of the alleged incel movement.

I mention that because it plays into a lot of the discussion here. The way in which those who organise it do so—the name Andrew Tate has already been mentioned—was drawn into the debate in a much broader context by that research, particularly because representatives from the Home Office made the interesting point that the process by which the young men who are involved in this type of activity are groomed to join groups and are told that by doing so they are establishing a position that has been denied to them by society in general, and allegedly by women in particular, is very similar to the methods used by those who are cultivating terrorism activity. That may seem to be a big stretch but it was convincing, and the argument and debate around that certainly said to me that there are things operating within the world of social media, with its ability to reach out to those who often feel alone, even if they are not, and who feel ignored, and to reach them in a way that causes them to overreact in the way they deal with the issues they face.

That point was picked up by others, including my noble friend Lady Kennedy and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, in relation to the way in which the internet itself is in some way gendered against women. I do not in any sense want to apportion blame anywhere for that; it is a much more complex issue than single words can possibly address, but it needs to be addressed. As was said in the meeting and has been said today, there are cultural, educational and holistic aspects here. We really do not tackle the symptoms or the effects of it, but we should also look at what causes people to act in the way they have because of, or through the agency of, the internet.

Having said that, I support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Allan, and I look forward to the Government’s response to them. Amendment 5B raises the issue that it will be detrimental to society if people stop posting and commenting on things because they fear that they will be prosecuted—or not even prosecuted but attacked. The messages that they want to share will be lost as a result, and that is a danger that we do not want to encourage. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, made powerful points about the way in which the offence of cyberflashing is going to be dealt with, and the differences between that and the intimate image abuse that we are coming on to in the next group. It may well be that this is the right way forward, and indeed we support the Government in the way that they are going, but it is important to recognise her point that we need a test of whether it is working. The Government may well review the impact of the Bill in the normal way of things, but this aspect needs particular attention; we need to know whether there are prosecutions and convictions and whether people understand the implication of the change in practice. We need publicity, as has been said, otherwise it will not be effective in any case. These issues, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, are important. We will have other opportunities to discuss them, but at this stage we should at least get a response to that.

If it is true that in Northern Ireland there is now a different standard for the way in which cyberflashing offences are to be undertaken—taking into account the points made very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the worry about encouraging more offences for which crimes may not necessarily be appropriate at this stage, particularly the one about recklessness—do the Government not have a slight problem here? In the first case, do we really accept that we want differences between the various regions and nations of our country in these important issues? We support devolution but we also need to have a sense of what the United Kingdom as a whole stands for in its relationship with these types of criminal offence, if they are criminal. If that happens, do we need a better understanding of why one part of the country has moved in a particular way, and is that something that we are missing in picking up action that is perhaps necessary in other areas? As my noble friend Lady Kennedy has also said, some of the work she has been doing in Scotland is ahead of the work that we have been doing in this part of the United Kingdom, and we need to pick up the lessons from that as well.

As I said at the beginning, this is an interesting range of amendments. They are not as similar as the grouping might suggest, but they point in a direction that needs government attention, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s comments on them.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I absolutely take what the noble Lord is saying, and I am not saying that the platforms do not have responsibility. Of course they do: the whole Bill is about the platforms taking responsibility with risk assessment, adhering to their terms of service, transparency about how those terms are operating, et cetera. It is purely on the question of whether they need to be reporting that content when it occurs. They have takedown responsibilities for illegal content or content that may be seen by children and so on, but it is about whether they have the duty to report to the police. It may seem a relatively narrow point, but it is quite important that we go with the framework. Many of us have said many times that we regret the absence of “legal but harmful” but, given where we are, we basically have to go with that architecture.

I very much enjoyed listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. There is no opportunity lost in the course of the Bill to talk about ChatGPT or GPT-4, and that was no exception. It means that we need to listen to how young people are responding to the way that this legislation operates. I am fully in favour of whatever mechanism it may be. It does not need to be statutory, but I very much hope that we do not treat this just as the end of the process but will see how the Bill works out and will listen and learn from experience, and particularly from young people who are particularly vulnerable to much of the content, and the way that the algorithms on social media work.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I am so sorry. With due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, reminded me that his Amendments 202ZA and 210A, late entrants into the miscellaneous group, go very much with the grain that we are trying to get in within the area of encryption. We had quite a long debate about encryption on Clause 110. As ever, the noble Lord has rather cunningly produced something that I think will get us through the eye of the free speech needle. They are two very cunning amendments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. Free expression, my Lords, not free speech.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Freedom of expression.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to be extremely brief given the extremely compelling way that these amendments have been introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and contributed to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I thank her for her comments about my noble friend Lady Parminter. I am sure she would have wanted to be here and would have made a very valuable contribution as she did the other day on exactly this subject.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has illustrated, we have a very different view of risk across this Committee and we are back, in a sense, into that whole area of risk. I just wanted to say that I think we are again being brought back to the very wise words of the Joint Committee. It may sound like special pleading. We keep coming back to this, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and I are the last people standing on a Thursday afternoon.

We took a lot of evidence in this particular area. We took the trouble to go to Brussels and had a very useful discussion with the Centre on Regulation in Europe and Dr Sally Broughton Micova. We heard a lot about interconnectedness between some of these smaller services and the impact in terms of amplification across other social media sites.

We heard in the UK from some of the larger services about their concerns about the activities of smaller services. You might say “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” but they were pretty convincing. We heard from HOPE not Hate, the Antisemitism Policy Trust and Stonewall, stressing the role of alternative services.

Of course, we know that these amendments today—some of them sponsored by the Mental Health Foundation, as the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said, and Samaritans—have a very important provenance. They recognise that these are big problems. I hope that the Minister will think strongly about this. The injunction from the noble Lord, Lord Allan, to consider how all this is going to work in practice is very important. I very much hope that when we come to consider how this works in practical terms that the Minister will think very seriously about the way in which risk is to the fore— the more nuanced approach that we suggested—and the whole way that profiling by Ofcom will apply. I think that is going to be extremely important as well. I do not think we have yet got to the right place in the Bill which deals with these risky sites. I very much hope that the Minister will consider this in the quite long period between now and when we next get together.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a good little debate with some excellent speeches, which I acknowledge. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I was looking at the Joint Committee’s report. I concluded that one of the first big issues we discussed was how complicated the categorisation seemed in relation to the task that was being set for Ofcom. We comforted ourselves with the thought that if you believe that this is basically a risk-assessment exercise and that all the work Ofcom will subsequently do is driven by its risk assessments and its constant reviewing of them, then the categorisation is bound to fall down because the risks will reveal the things that need to happen.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, alongside others, I very much welcome government Amendment 135A and how the Minister introduced it. But there is a big “but” as regards much of the rest of what he said. I very much welcome that this will be included as a priority offence, and I join other noble Lords in that—but there is still a view out there that women and girls are being short-changed by the Bill. The other day, we had a debate on the Violence Against Women and Girls Code of Practice, and the same feeling about the cyberflashing offence was very much there, which is why I strongly support Amendments 269 and 270, which would alter the nature of Clause 167.

The equivalence between online and offline was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Burt—I also regret that my noble friend Lady Featherstone has not been with us for some time—and she introduced extremely clearly and well that this kind of cyberflashing offence leads to other and worse offences in both the offline and the online worlds, as we have seen.

Like others, I am in debt to Professor McGlynn for her analysis of the proposed offence. We had evidence from UCL and the Bumble survey, and there is of course also the YouGov survey that shows that nearly half of young women aged 18 to 24 have been sent an unwanted penis image—that is an extraordinary figure. So all of the evidence of this offence is there.

We have heard differing views on the offence—the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Stowell, are on the side of the status quo on the nature of the offence. The fact is that the Government’s proposal covers only some cases of cyberflashing, where motivated by a desire to cause “distress” or for “sexual gratification” with recklessness about causing distress.

I am not a criminal lawyer, but, in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, you have to show intent beyond reasonable doubt—that is where the onus on the victim arises. There is a very high barrier in a criminal offence. My noble friend made that point clearly, and the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, was absolutely right that, of course, if you make it a criminal offence, where the issue is about consent rather than intent, you can always be more lenient when an offence does not seem so egregious, where there is clear misunderstanding or where there are other mitigating factors—that is what happens under the criminal law.

This is all about proving the motive—that is the real problem; it is technically called mens rea or the intent—so we need a clear message, as my noble friend said. I believe that we are squandering an opportunity here; it could be a real opportunity for the Government to send a much more powerful signal that the Bill is about protecting women and girls, despite the very welcome addition of abuse under Amendment 135A.

The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, put her point extremely well. She made a very good case for another addition to the armoury of user-empowerment tools. Although I disagree with her about the ambit of the cyberflashing offence, she proposed something which would be extremely useful to add.

We ought to take heed from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, given her legal background. She referred to the Law Commission’s rather inconsistent approach. The very welcome proposal to extend the way that revenge porn events will apply seems to be extremely sensible. I am afraid that, in the battle of the professors, I prefer what Professor McGlynn is saying to what Professor Lewis is saying; that is the choice that I have made.

Following the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, talked about this issue, we need to call men to account. That is something that the Government need to pay heed to.

That is all I want to say on this subject. This is not just a technical aspect—it is not just a question of whether or not we accept the Law Commission’s advice in this particular case—it is about the difficulty that young women, in particular, will find in enforcing this offence, and we need to be very mindful of that.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very good and well-focused debate. We have focused deeply on the particular issue I will focus on in my speech about why there is a difference in the Government’s approach to what seem to be, on the surface, very similar instances of the evidence we have all been looking at, and are convinced by, that, in some way, the internet, as currently constructed, is gendered against women. Something must be done about that.

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this group. Amendment 135A is very well-drafted and appropriate for what we are doing. I have very little to comment on it. It is a difficult area, but I am glad that the Government are putting their money where their mouth was on this issue and that we are seeing some action coming forward.

My noble friend Lady Merron would have been speaking to our amendments in this group, but, unfortunately, she has been taken off for some treatment to her leg, which seems to have been slightly twisted. They follow on from the meeting that the Minister mentioned with Professor Lewis from the Law Commission, when she very expertly introduced this whole topic, explaining very carefully, and with great care and concern, the reasons why the Law Commission has proposed, and the Government have accepted, that the new law to be brought in on cyberflashing needs to be different. My problem with that was that it seemed, by the end of it, that the rationale for doing it differently from other offences of a similar nature and type was more to do with the fact that there were good reasons for having the ability to send dick pics—let us call them that, even though it is a horrible term to use.

It is sometimes necessary for pictures to be sent around, and examples of that were given. For example, in a medical situation in which a doctor, perhaps during the Covid epidemic, wanted to know about a patient’s particular problem in the genital area, a picture would be helpful in diagnosis. Sending that should not be made illegal. Other reasons were given. The argument was good, but not sufficient to trump the need to have in place a set of laws relating to the way in which the internet treats women and girls in this dimension that does not come from different directions and is not confusing but complementary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

It is a very narrow point, but it is important in terms of the overall approach that we are taking on this. The Minister very accurately described the reasons that the Law Commission came up with for moving back to an intent-based rather than content-based approach. I wanted to ask him to check whether the wording in the amendment that we signed up to, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone—ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and spoken to by many people around the Chamber—would cover off those points where there is legitimate reason for this material to be circulated. I used an unfortunate phrase that I will not repeat. Are the Government happy to accept that it is possible to get around that objection by the Law Commission by making legitimate those particular explicit reasons for those pictures being circulated? I make that point only to get an admission at the Dispatch Box that the Government could get round the issue that has been mentioned, but they are still deciding to go for an intent-based approach for other reasons, which the Minister has just adumbrated and which I accept are genuine.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

It may be helpful to the Minister to just repeat the terms of the amendment itself. If you reverse the point and do not have intent, you would still need to consider

“Whether a belief is reasonable”


which

“is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps that A has taken to ascertain whether B consents”.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has absolutely hit the mark on this. This would not lead to terrible consequences and injustices because of this particular qualification.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this is unfamiliar territory for me, but the comprehensive introduction of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, has clarified the issue. I am only disappointed that we had such a short speech from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—uncharacteristic, perhaps I could say—but it was good to hear from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on this subject as well. The noble Baroness’s phrase “devolution deficit” is very useful shorthand for some of these issues. She has raised a number of questions about the Secretary of State’s powers under Clause 53(5)(c): the process, the method of consultation and whether there is a role for Ofcom’s national advisory committees. Greater transparency in order to understand which offences overlap in all this would be very useful. She deliberately did not go for one solution or another, but issues clearly arise where the thresholds are different. It would be good to hear how the Government are going to resolve this issue.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pity that we have not had the benefit of hearing from the Minister, because a lot of his amendments in this group seem to bear on some of the more generic points made in the very good speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. I assume he will cover them, but I wonder whether he would at least be prepared to answer any questions people might come back with—not in any aggressive sense; we are not trying to scare the pants off him before he starts. For example, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, intrigue me.

I used to have responsibility for devolved issues when I worked at No. 10 for a short period. It was a bit of a joke, really. Whenever anything Welsh happened, I was immediately summoned down to Cardiff and hauled over the coals. You knew when you were in trouble when they all stopped speaking English and started speaking Welsh; then, you knew there really was an issue, whereas before I just had to listen, go back and report. In Scotland, nobody came to me anyway, because they knew that the then Prime Minister was a much more interesting person to talk to about these things. They just went to him instead, so I did not really learn very much.

I noticed some issues in the Marshalled List that I had not picked up on when I worked on this before. I do not know whether the Minister wishes to address this—I do not want to delay the Committee too much—but are we saying that to apply a provision in the Bill to the Bailiwick of Guernsey or the Isle of Man, an Order in Council is required to bypass Parliament? Is that a common way of proceeding in these places? I suspect that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, knows much more about this than I do—he shakes his head—but this is a new one on me. Does it mean that this Parliament has no responsibility for how its laws are applied in those territories, or are there other procedures of which we are unaware?

My second point again picks up what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was saying. Could the Minister go through in some detail the process by which a devolved authority would apply to the Secretary of State—presumably for DSIT—to seek consent for a devolved offence to be included in the Online Safety Bill regime? If this is correct, who grants to what? Does this come to the House as a statutory instrument? Is just the Secretary of State involved, or does it go to the Privy Council? Are there other ways that we are yet to know about? It would be interesting to know.

To echo the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, we probably do need a letter from the Minister, if he ever gets this cleared, setting out exactly how the variation in powers would operate across the four territories. If there are variations, we would like to know about them.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Thursday 11th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting short debate and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, made a very simple proposition. I am very grateful to her for introducing this so clearly and comprehensively. Of course, it is all about the way that platforms will identify illegal, fraudulent advertising and attempt to align it with other user-to-user content in terms of transparency, reporting, user reporting and user complaints. It is a very straightforward proposition.

First of all, however, we should thank the Government for acceding to what the Joint Committee suggested, which was that fraudulent advertising should be brought within the scope of the Bill. But, as ever, we want more. That is what it is all about and it is a very straightforward proposition which I very much hope the Minister will accede to.

We have heard from around the Committee about the growing problem and I will be very interested to read the report that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, was talking about, in terms of the introduction of fraud into children’s lives—that is really important. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned some of the statistics from Clean Up the Internet, Action Fraud and so on, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. And, of course, it is now digital. Some 80% of fraud, as he said, is cyber-enabled, and 23% of all reported frauds are initiated on social media—so this is bang in the area of the Bill.

It has been very interesting to see how some of the trade organisations, the ABI and others, have talked about the impact of fraud, including digital fraud. The ABI said:

“Consumers’ confidence is being eroded by the ongoing proliferation of online financial scams, including those predicated on impersonation of financial service providers and facilitated through online advertising. Both the insurance and long-term savings sectors are impacted by financial scams perpetrated via online paid-for advertisements, which can deprive vulnerable consumers of their life savings and leave deep emotional scars”.


So, this is very much a cross-industry concern and very visible to the insurance industry and no doubt to other sectors as well.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on her chairing of the fraud committee and on the way it came to its conclusions and scrutinised the Bill. Paragraphs 559, 560 and 561 all set out where the Bill needs to be aligned to the other content that it covers. As she described, there are two areas where the Bill can be improved. If they are not cured, they will substantially undermine its ability to tackle online fraud effectively.

This has the backing of Which? As the Minister will notice, it is very much a cross-industry and consumer body set of amendments, supporting transparency reporting and making sure that those platforms with more fraudulent advertising make proportionately larger changes to their systems. That is why there is transparency reporting for all illegal harms that platforms are obliged to prevent. There is no reason why advertising should be exempt. On user reporting and complaints, it is currently unclear whether this applies only to illegal user-generated content and unpaid search content or if it also applies to illegal fraudulent advertisements. At the very least, I hope the Minister will clarify that today.

Elsewhere, the Bill requires platforms to allow users to complain if the platform fails to comply with its duties to protect users from illegal content and with regard to the content-reporting process. I very much hope the Minister will accede to including that as well.

Some very simple requests are being made in this group. I very much hope that the Minister will take them on board.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

It is the simple requests that always seem to evade the easy solutions. I will not go back over the very good introductory speech from the noble Baroness, which said it all; the figures are appalling and the range of fraud-inspired criminality is extraordinary. It plays back to a point we have been hammering today: if this Bill is about anything, it is the way the internet amplifies that which would be unpleasant anyway but will now reach epidemic proportions.

I wonder whether that is the clue to the problem the noble Baroness was commenting on—I think more in hope than in having any way to resolve it. It is great news that three Bills are doing all the stuff we want. We have talked a bit about three-legged stools; this is another one that might crash over. If we are not careful, it will slip through the cracks. I am mixing my metaphors again.

If the Minister would not mind a bit of advice, it seems to me that this Bill could do certain things and do them well. It should not hold back and wait for the others to catch up or do things differently. The noble Baroness made the point about the extraordinarily difficult to understand gap, in that what is happening to priority illegal content elsewhere in the Bill does not apply to this, even though it is clearly illegal activity. I understand that there is a logical line that it is not quite the same thing—that the Bill is primarily about certain restricted types of activity on social media and not the generality of fraud—but surely the scale of the problem and our difficulty in cracking down on it, by whatever routes and whatever size of stool we choose, suggest that we should do what we can in this Bill and do it hard, deeply and properly.

Secondly, we have amendments later in Committee on the role of the regulators and the possibility recommended by the Communications and Digital Committee that we should seek statutory backing for regulation in this area. Here is a classic example of more than two regulators working to achieve the same end that will probably bump into each other on the way. There is no doubt that the FCA has primary responsibility in this area, but the reality is that the damage is being done by the amplification effect within the social media companies.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to have been part of this debate and to have heard how much we are on common ground. I very much hope that, in particular, the Minister will have listened to the voices on the Conservative Benches that have very powerfully put forward a number of amendments that I think have gained general acceptance across the Committee.

I fully understand the points that the noble Lord, Lord Black, made and why he defends Clause 14. I hope we can have a more granular discussion about the contents of that clause rather than wrap it up on this group of amendments. I do not know whether we will be able to have that on the next group.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for putting forward her amendment. It is very interesting, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Bull and Lady Fraser, said, that we are trying to get to the same sort of mechanisms of risk assessment, perhaps out of different motives, but we are broadly along the same lines and want to see them for adult services. We want to know from the Minister why we cannot achieve that, basically. I am sure we could come to some agreement between us as to whether user empowerment tools or terms of service are the most appropriate way of doing it.

We need to thank the committee that the noble Baroness chairs for having followed up on the letter to the Secretary of State for DCMS, as was, on 30 January. It is good to see a Select Committee using its influence to go forward in this way.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and supported by my noble friend Lady Featherstone—I am sorry she is unable to be here today, as he said—are important. They would broaden out consideration in exactly the right kind of way.

However, dare I say it, probably the most important amendment in this group is Amendment 48 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Apart from the Clause 14 stand part notice, it is pretty much bang on where the Joint Committee got to. He was remarkably tactful in not going into any detail on the Government’s response to that committee. I will not read it out because of the lateness of the hour, but the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, got pretty close to puncturing the Government’s case that there is no proper definition of public interest. It is quite clear that there is a perfectly respectable definition in the Human Rights Act 1998 and, as the noble Viscount said, in the Defamation Act 2013, which would be quite fit for purpose. I do not quite know why the Government responded as they did at paragraph 251. I very much hope that the Minister will have another look at that.

The amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, which has the very respectable support of Justice, is also entirely apposite. I very much hope that the Government will take a good look at that.

Finally, and extraordinarily, I have quite a lot of sympathy with the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. It was all going so well until we got to Amendment 294; up to that point I think he had support from across the House, because placing that kind of duty on Ofcom would be a positive way forward.

As I say, getting a clause of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has put forward, with that public interest content point and with an umbrella duty on freedom of expression, allied to the definition from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, would really get us somewhere.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Lawyers—don’t you love them? How on earth are we supposed to unscramble that at this time of night? It was good to have my kinsman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, back in our debates. We were remarking only a few days ago that we had not seen enough lawyers in the House in these debates. One appears, and light appears. It is a marvellous experience.

I thank the Committee for listening to my earlier introductory remarks; I hope they helped to untangle some of the issues. The noble Lord, Lord Black, made it clear that the press are happy with what is in the current draft. There could be some changes, and we have heard a number of examples of ways in which one might either top or tail what there is.

There was one question that perhaps he could have come back on, and maybe he will, as I have raised it separately with the department before. I agree with a lot of what he said, but it applies to a lot more than just news publishers. Quality journalism more generally enhances and restores our faith in public services in so many ways. Why is it only the news? Is there a way in which we could broaden that? If there is not this time round, perhaps that is something we need to pick up later.

As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has said, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, made a very strong and clear case for trying to think again about what journalism does in the public realm and making sure that the Bill at least carries that forward, even if it does not deal with some of the issues that he raised.

We have had a number of other good contributions about how to capture some of the good ideas that were flying around in this debate and keep them in the foreground so that the Bill is enhanced. But I think it is time that the Minister gave us his answers.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very strange debate. It has been the tail end of the last session and a trailer for a much bigger debate coming down the track. It was very odd.

We do not want to see everything behind an age-gating barrier, so I agree with my noble friend. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, reminded us, it is all about the risk profile, and that then leads to the kind of risk assessment that a platform is going to be required to carry out. There is a logic to the way that the Bill is going to operate.

When you look at Clause 11(3), you see that it is not disproportionate. It deals with “primary priority content”. This is not specified in the Bill but it is self-harm and pornography—major content that needs age-gating. Of course we need to have the principles for age assurance inserted into the Bill as well, and of course it will be subject to debate as we go forward.

There is technology to carry out age verification which is far more sophisticated than it ever was, so I very much look forward to that debate. We started that process in Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. I was described as an internet villain for believing in age verification. I have not changed my view, but the debate will be very interesting. As regards the tail-end of the previous debate, of course we are sympathetic on these Benches to the Wikipedia case. As we said on the last group, I very much hope that we will find a way, whether it is in Schedule 1 or in another way, of making sure that Wikipedia is not affected overly by this—maybe the risk profile that is drawn up by Ofcom will make sure that Wikipedia is not unduly impacted.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

Like others, I had prepared quite extensive notes to respond to what I thought the noble Lord was going to say about his amendments in this group, and I have not been able to find anything left that I can use, so I am going to have to extemporise slightly. I think it is very helpful to have a little non-focused discussion about what we are about to talk about in terms of age, because there is a snare and a delusion in quite a lot of it. I was put in mind of that in the discussions on the Digital Economy Act, which of course precedes the Minister but is certainly still alive in our thinking: in fact, we were talking about it earlier today.

The problem I see is that we have to find a way of squaring two quite different approaches. One is to prevent those who should not be able to see material, because it is illegal for them to see it. The other is to find a way of ensuring that we do not end up with an age-gated internet, which I am grateful to find that we are all, I think, agreed about: that is very good to know.

Age is very tricky, as we have heard, and it is not the only consideration we have to bear in mind in wondering whether people should be able to gain access to areas of the internet which we know will be bad and difficult for them. That leads us, of course, to the question about legal but harmful, now resolved—or is it? We are going to have this debate about age assurance and what it is. What is age verification? How do they differ? How does it matter? Is 18 a fixed and final point at which we are going to say that childhood ends and adulthood begins, and therefore one is open for everything? It is exactly the point made earlier about how to care for those who should not be exposed to material which, although legal for them by a number called age, is not appropriate for them in any of the circumstances which, clinically, we might want to bring to bear.

I do not think we are going to resolve these issues today—I hope not. We are going to talk about them for ever, but at this stage I think we still need a bit of thinking outside a box which says that age is the answer to a lot of the problems we have. I do not think it is, but whether the Bill is going to carry that forward I have my doubts. How we get that to the next stage, I do not know, but I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s comments on it.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction. I agree with her emphasis on the importance of internet services and the need to eliminate digital exclusion. It is hard to think what the consequences would have been if we had suffered this pandemic just 10 years ago, when our broadband services were less extensive and much slower than now.

In the name of inclusivity, I welcome the first part of today’s business, Motion A. Throughout the course of the Bill, my noble friend Lord Fox, the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Liddle, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and others have been arguing for as inclusive a definition as possible of those who could be regarded as tenants, without straying into the territory of licensees or licences. It includes those with assured shorthold tenancies or assured tenancy agreements, as well as students living in short-term lets, where a tenant has, or tenants have, exclusive possession of the let property.

We have been concerned throughout to ensure that all tenancies such as renewable tenancies are included, even if they are not, strictly speaking, leases and that there should not be any grey areas that need to be interpreted by the courts. I am pleased that the Government have now produced an even more inclusive definition than the one that I argued for on Report. My sincere thanks go to the Minister and the Bill team for their care and consideration on what we have always regarded as an important issue.

However, I do not welcome Motion B. The original purpose of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, which was strongly supported on these Benches—I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that it was introduced not at ping-pong but on Report—was to ensure that the code is fit for the purpose of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment of broadband capable of 1 gigabit per second to every home by 2025. The need for this has become even more important, particularly since the Covid-19 lockdown has demonstrated our increasing dependence on good broadband connectivity for remote working, education and many other aspects of life, as the Minister mentioned.

Sadly, it is clear that the Government are backtracking in their ambitions—the 2025 1 gigabit per second target has been watered down and the budget for rollout expenditure slashed by two-thirds. Even so, it is clear that the Electronic Communications Code needs regular review to ensure that the Government’s objective, however watered down, is met and that operators have all the rights under the code that they need.

My noble friend Lord Fox rightly commented on a universal service obligation of a miserable 10 megabits per second and I completely agree with him. However, looking to the future, I am glad that during the course of the Bill we have started a genuine debate around whether we can describe broadband as a utility and what the appropriate rights of entry are.

I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for answering what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, described as a blizzard of questions on telecoms supply chain diversification in her extremely informative letter last month. Some of the work being carried out on open RAN, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Fox, is ground- breaking for the interoperability and competitiveness of our 5G networks. It is good to see that international collaboration is regarded as essential and is ongoing.

However, at the end of the day I am left with a sense of bafflement. This has been a ridiculously modest Bill, given the challenges of the broadband and 5G rollout ahead. Of course, as the Minister has mentioned, we now have Access to Land: Consultation on Changes to the Electronic Communications Code, which was issued in January. Notwithstanding this Bill, it seems clear the Government think that further changes are needed to clarify the position on rights to upgrade and share. Why not an earlier consultation? Why were these issues not considered before this piece of legislation? Are these long-standing questions or are they thoughts that have arisen during the course of the Bill? Is there another Bill on the way? We know from the representations made that the operators are calling for other changes that are not included in the Bill or the consultation.

I have another quote from Matt Warman. In his introduction to the consultation he says:

“The government is committed to ensuring that the Code is fit for purpose in order to deliver our digital connectivity targets.”


That is excellent. A review of the kind envisaged in our amendment would have been perfect for that purpose. The Bill has taken an inordinate time to get through, but it is clear that more reforms are in the pipeline. The question remains: could we have been spending our time better and enacting a more comprehensive Bill with a wider range of revisions, instead of this piecemeal approach?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like others, I start by joining the Minister in thanking all our digital providers for the work that they have been doing during the pandemic, which, of course, will continue for some time to come. I hope that it will provide the basis for a learning experience about what it means to live in the digital economy that we all share hopes for.

As the Minister said when she introduced the Motions, this Bill is a modest one. However, when she says that it affects some 10 million people, that means that it has important implications. We never objected to the ideas behind the Bill and, indeed, wanted to help as much as we could to make sure that it became law as quickly as possible and allowed access to the digital economy that is so necessary in the modern world to people who otherwise would not have had it because of problems with their freeholder. We must accept that broadband is a utility.

I welcome the Government’s amendment. I think that the right word has been used, in that it “improves” the amendment originally moved by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on Report, which we also supported, to try to make sense of the definitions in terms of who was to be affected, whether it was leaseholders, renters or whatever. The language is much better as a result and that is good.

Unfortunately, the removal of the amendment just discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, seems to have a bit of a downside. I talked with the Minister before we got to this stage in proceedings and made it clear that we would not insist on our amendment being retained within the Bill. I think that we did that more in sadness than in a spirit of support, because it relates to important issues that have been raised in today’s debate.

The Minister was kind enough to praise our aspirations for the Bill, but she was also rather devastating in demolishing all the points that I thought that we had broadly agreed were important. She pointed out how inept our drafting was and how problematic it would have been had the amendment stayed within the Bill. Such are the joys of opposition. We are never going to achieve the skills of the draftsmen available to the Government. I wish that sometimes more credit would be given to the ideas that we have put forward, rather than worrying about their expression.

At the end of the day, I suppose that the consultation on the Electronic Communications Code announced by the Government in January does the trick on some of the issues underlying our amendment. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, said, it also exposes that fact that a large number of wider issues, often led by other departments in government, still have not been resolved. I urge the Government to push forward on the permitted development issues and on the street works, including the need for the antennae and cabinets that will be required if the 5G support for the 1 gigabit-enabled economy is ever to see the light of day.

I could delay the House with a further discussion of the need for much more ambitious targets, a better USO and more investment, but these have been covered and this Bill is not really the right place for them. I leave my comments with a question for the Minister: does she have in her mind a route map for how we are to achieve the 1 gigabit per second-enabled infrastructure? I am confident that, since this issue will not go away, we will be resuming discussion of it in the not-too-distant future.

Finally, I share the Minister’s concern that the telecoms operators, which we have praised already for the work that they have done during this pandemic, should continue to get the best tools and the best access so that they can continue to innovate and provide superfast quality broadband to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, I harbour a niggling concern, rather like the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Clement-Jones, that one problem that will get in the way of this delivery is the scope and scale of the current Electronic Communications Code. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement- Jones, said, is not the real question how we are to get beyond that to think again about how a utility as important as the internet can be allowed to be installed without the current plethora of planning and other restrictions, and control of the streetscape and the environment in which it has to be inserted, being in the hands of other departments? It seems to suggest that more work is required, but that is for another day.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

3rd reading & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and to welcome him to the select band of broadband and telecoms legislation aficionados in this House. As my noble friend Lord Fox said, on Report we welcomed the principle of the previous amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in respect of Part 4A code rights. Likewise, we welcome the Government’s Amendment 2 today.

Strangely enough, however, I do not think that the Government’s amendment is as good as the original, in terms of what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was trying to achieve. It substitutes an arguably unclear negative injunction for a positive duty, where it is clear what is intended. On these Benches, however, as my noble friend Lord Fox indicated, we understand the intention behind the amendment, but how it is interpreted when put into practice will be the test. As he also said, we have throughout been encouraged to hear of the development of open radio access networks and strongly support them.

As the noble Baroness mentioned in her letter to us, in the period between Report and today, we have seen the publication of the Government’s 5G diversification strategy. I see that now NEC acting as the systems integrator will be building a testbed for O-RAN funded by the DDCMS, the new O-RAN project. Will the Minister say when this will be up and running and is this the promised Smart RAN interoperability centre—SONIC—or a precursor to it?

What is the current status of the telecoms diversification task force and the National Telecoms Lab, and what is the status of international collaborations? When developed, these open RAN standards will provide operators with the flexibility to use different vendors and obviate the need to take out existing networks on a change of operator. By the same token, for the consumer it would mean likewise that they are not captive to any particular operator with their equipment. That is a development that we wholly welcome.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Government for their amendment. As other noble Lords have said, this was originally raised in the other place by the Labour Party and withdrawn. A similar amendment was tabled by myself and others, supported by the Liberal Democrats, and we had a good debate in Committee. It is important for the progress of the Bill as a whole that these points were picked up. It is very good that the Government have come back with a proposal. Although, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, the language is slightly different, the intention is clear and similar to what I wanted, because it deals with a real-life issue which could affect consumer choice. Despite the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I would argue that it is pro-competition and will benefit to those involved in this process.

The noble Lord, Lord Fox, raised some interesting points of detail and I look forward to the Minister’s response. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, raised some important wider points about the Bill’s narrow focus, which, of course, it cannot be blamed for, in the sense that it is what it is. It is about a particular issue which will unblock the current arrangements, in which non-responsive freeholders can hold back developments wished for by their tenants.

He also made some good points, which I hope we will not lose sight of as we look forward to further work from the Government on this issue: planning issues relating to the access required for new-generation technology; shared freeholders; questions about street works—how we synchronise them and make sure that they are effective; and the use of masts, particularly for 5G and other superstructure, which is not covered by this Bill but obviously needs wider consideration, perhaps in the next round of legislation.

As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, although a blizzard of other issues were raised in his short introduction, it is very good to have the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, with his extraordinary experience in this area, contributing to this debate. I hope he will keep on with his very focused questions. I am happy to support the amendment and look forward to the Government’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her kind words. We have enjoyed working with her over this period. The Bill has been an exemplary one in terms of making sure that the House is able to do its job and that the processes necessary to make it fit for legislation once it leaves Parliament are carried out in the best way. That can be done only if there is a spirit of mutual support and trust, and we certainly had that.

I actually took this Bill over at a relatively late stage. Most of the heavy lifting was done initially by my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, and the show was kept on the road by Dan Stevens, our legislative assistant, whose skills and expertise I have drawn on mercilessly. I join the Minister in thanking members of the Bill team, who made themselves very much available and answered our detailed questions in the private meetings that we had.

This is a small but important Bill. As the Minister said, it will affect a lot of people; it will make their lives better and give them access to what has become a utility necessary for modern living. It has been scrutinised carefully in this House, and I am confident that it will play a part in helping to achieve a gigabit-enabled economy across the whole country—something that we need as soon as possible. There remains a lot to do, as we picked up today, but it is good to hear that the consultations on the remaining issues are taking place, particularly on the rollout of 5G and the development of fibre to the home. I urge the department to up its game on this and on a number of other issues that we talked about, and I will be watching from the sidelines.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I doubt very much whether the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, could ever possibly watch from the sidelines—but that is an aside.

After an unusually long gap between Report and Third Reading, we are sending the Bill back to the Commons in much better shape than when it arrived. It is still, however, a modest Bill with much to be modest about, to coin a phrase. We on these Benches have never thought that it was adequate in itself to deliver the ambition of one-gigabit-per-second broadband capability by 2025, and of course the goalposts themselves have now been moved by the Government. However, we now have the consultation on changes to the Electronic Communications Code, which is a step forward. I do hope that the Government will see the wisdom of retaining the review mechanism of the code in Clause 3, which the House inserted on Report, which can assess after that what other measures might be needed. We on these Benches will continue to press the Government on their electoral promises.

We also stressed during the passage of the Bill that we would like to see broadband treated as a utility, as with gas, water and electricity, with all the necessary and equivalent rights of entry. The last year could not have demonstrated more graphically the essential nature of good broadband to all our lives, alongside, if not ahead of, all those other utilities. We on these Benches advocate strongly for the universal service obligation to be raised to 25 or 30 megabits per second—that is, superfast levels—which should be treated as the minimum for these rural areas.

That said, I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, together with her Bill team, as ever, for their very good nature. I also thank her for her kind words, good nature and patience with us all throughout the Bill and for her willingness to listen, even if she did not always accept our arguments. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his collaboration and co-operation during the course of the Bill, which showed how we always achieve better results by cross-party working.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for raising some extremely important questions with reference to human rights abuses and modern slavery. His campaigning has clearly changed the Government’s approach and, despite what the Minister has said, it might become even more relevant in the context of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which, as we have heard, will come to this House shortly. Of course, the acid test will come next Tuesday on the Trade Bill ping-pong. This is of great significance in terms of the relationship between human rights and trade as a whole. Like him and many other noble Lords, I urge the Government to reconsider their position ahead of that vote.

Lastly, I thank Sarah Pughe in our whips’ office for her valuable help, and my noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Northover, who have contributed so knowledgeably throughout on different aspects of the Bill that they have given me a very easy run when leading on it.

Online Harms Consultation

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we welcome moves to protect children and the vulnerable online. We have been calling on the Government to introduce legislation in this area for several years. Their recent record, particularly on age verification, has been—let us call it—patchy. The Statement says that the UK will lead the way with online harms legislation, and we agree that this is a once-in-a-generation chance to legislate for the kind of internet that we all want to see—one that allows access to information, entertainment and knowledge on an unparalleled scale but at the same time keeps children and vulnerable adult citizens safe, and allows people to control the kind of content that they and those for whom they are responsible see online. Social media platforms have failed for years to self-regulate and we must not miss the opportunity afforded by the forthcoming legislation.

We welcome the announcement that Ofcom will be the regulator in this area. The duties to be allocated to it play to its founding principles, which require it to have regard to users of the services that it regulates as both consumers and citizens. We endorse the duty of care approach to regulation, which, if properly legislated for, has the potential to transform the way in which companies relate to their users. The excellent work done on that approach by the Carnegie UK Trust—in particular, Professor Lorna Woods and William Perrin—should be recognised. We support the measures announced in the Statement that seek to protect and enhance freedom of expression. In general, in so far as we can judge the Government’s current legislative intentions, there appears to be a workable and effective scheme of regulations here—but they should get on with it.

As to our concerns, does the Minister agree that the essential principle in play is that what is illegal in the real world must be illegal in the virtual world? However, the corollary is that we need to be clear that our existing laws are fit for purpose and up to date. What plans do the Government have in this complex area? The test for regulatory or criminal actions is to be “reasonably foreseeable harm” to individuals, and criminal acts. What happens to concerns about systems? If we lose focus on social networks, harms to society arising from disinformation or other threats to the integrity of the electoral process, for example, may not be in scope. That simply does not make sense. Does she agree that limiting the regulator to cases where individual harm has to be proven seems unduly restrictive?

Only the largest and riskier companies will fall into category 1. If they do, they will need to reduce the chance of harm to adults which, though not illegal, will presumably involve working with the regulator to reduce such harms as hate speech and self-harm. However, many of the most egregious examples of such activity have come from small companies. Why is size selected as a basis for this categorisation?

The financial and other penalties are welcome but there must be concerns about reach and scope, as many of the companies likely to be affected are based outwith the UK. Also, can the noble Baroness explain why the Government are not insisting on primary legislation to ensure that criminal liability will attach to senior executives for serious and repeated breaches of the law? Can she explain precisely what is meant by the move to the novel concept of “age assurance”? Age verification was the preferred option until recently. Has that now been dropped? Can we be assured that some means will be found to include fraud and financial scamming, possibly through joint action between regulators such as the FSA?

Finally, it is proposed that Ofcom will be empowered to accept “super-complaints”. That is welcome but it references the recent failure of the department to review in time the need for a similar power in the Data Protection Act. Can the noble Baroness update me on progress on that situation and confirm that this legislation could be used to redress it?

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, over three years have elapsed and three Secretaries of State have come and gone since the Green Paper, in the face of a rising tide of online harms, not least during the Covid period, as Ofcom has charted. On these Benches, therefore, we welcome the set of concrete proposals we finally have to tackle online harms through a duty of care. We welcome the proposal for pre-legislative scrutiny, but I hope that there is a clear and early timetable for this to take place.

As regards the ambit of the duty of care, children are of course the first priority in prevention of harm, but it is clear that social media companies have failed to tackle the spread of fake news and misinformation on their platforms. I hope that the eventual definition in the secondary legislation includes a wide range of harmful content such as deep fakes, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, and misinformation such as anti-vax and QAnon conspiracy theories.

I am heartened too by the Government’s plans to consider criminalising the encouragement of self-harm. I welcome the commitment to keeping a balance with freedom of expression, but surely the below-the-line exemption proposed should depend on the news publisher being Leveson-compliant in how it is regulated. I think I welcome the way that the major impact of the duty of care will fall on big-tech platforms with the greatest reach, but we on these Benches will want to kick the tyres hard on the definition, threshold and duties of category 2 to make sure that this does not become a licence to propagate serious misinformation by some smaller platforms and networks.

I welcome the confirmation that Ofcom will be the regulator, but the key to success in preventing online harms will be whether Ofcom has teeth. Platforms will need to demonstrate how they have reduced the “reasonably foreseeable” risk of harm occurring from the design of their services. In mitigating the risk of “legal but harmful content”, this comes down to the way in which platforms facilitate and even encourage the sharing of extreme or sensationalist content designed to cause harm. As many excellent bodies such as Reset, Avaaz and Carnegie UK have pointed out—as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, the latter is the begetter of the duty of care proposal—this means having the power of compulsory audit. Inspection of the algorithms that drive traffic on social media is crucial.

Will Ofcom be able to make a direction to amend a recommender algorithm, how a “like” function operates and how content is promoted? Will it be able to inspect the data by which the algorithm trains and operates? Will Ofcom be able to insist that platforms can establish the identity of a user and address the issue of fake accounts, or that paid content is labelled? Will it be able to require platforms to issue fact-checked corrections to scientifically inaccurate posts? Will Ofcom work hand in hand with the Internet Watch Foundation? International co-ordination will be vital.

Ofcom will also need to work closely with the CMA if the Government are to protect vulnerable victims of online scams, fraud, and fake and misleading online reviews, if they are explicitly excluded from this legislation. Ofcom will need to work with the ASA to regulate harmful online advertising, as well. It will also need to work with the Gambling Commission on the harms of online black-market gambling, as was highlighted yesterday by my noble friend Lord Foster.

How will this new duty of care mesh with compliance with the age-appropriate design code, regulated by the ICO? As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has mentioned, the one major fudge in the response is on age verification. The proposals do not meet the objectives of the original Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. We were promised action when the response arrived, but we have a much watered-down proposal. Pornography is increasingly available and accessible to young people on more sites than just those with user-generated content. How do the Government propose to tackle this ever more pressing problem? There are many other areas that we will want to examine in the pre-legislative process and when the Bill comes to this House.

As my honourable friend Jamie Stone pointed out in the Commons yesterday, a crucial component of minimising risk online is education. Schools need to educate children about how to use social media responsibly. What commitment do the Government have to online media education? When will the strategy appear and what resources will be devoted to it?

These are some of the yet unanswered questions before the draft legislation arrives, but I hope that the Government commit to a full debate early in the new year so that some of these issues can be unpacked at the same time as the pre-legislative scrutiny process starts.

Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Clement-Jones

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, Amendment 52, which I have signed and strongly support, is similar but different, in a crucial respect, to the one which the noble Baroness and I tabled in Committee. I am delighted that we are joined by even heavier artillery on Report. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said:

“At present it is not possible to use a digital ID as proof of age for the purchase of alcohol in the UK because there is no industry standard for digital ID… Until such a standard is agreed, the current restrictions should be upheld. I hope that my noble friend will not press her amendment. I shall finish there.”—[Official Report, 13/7/20, col. 1435.]


I am not going to repeat what I said in Committee—for which I am sure the Minister is grateful—but I know she is always open to sound argument. I want to show why her brief in Committee was not entirely accurate.

It is rather misleading to say baldly that there is no industry standard for digital ID. Back in 2016, the age verification group of the Digital Policy Alliance—which has some distinguished and knowledgeable present and former parliamentarians among its members—sponsored a publicly available specification, PAS, code of practice standard number 1296 on online age checking. This was adopted by the British Standards Institution and the independent regulator, the Age Check Certification Scheme. It is now PAS 1296:2018.

A publicly available specification is a voluntary standard intended to assist providers of age-restricted products and services online with a means to adopt and demonstrate best practice and compliance. There are easily available audit processes and services to check conformity with the PAS, involving policy, quality and technical evaluation, and an enormous number of reputable companies provide age-verification services through digital ID systems. As the noble Baroness said, in many ways the UK is leading the way in digital ID. It is active across the range of age-restricted products and services, such as DVDs, gambling, lottery tickets and scratchcards, knives, air weapons, fireworks, petrol, solvents and cigarettes, but not—perversely and uniquely—alcohol.

This is the digital ID marketplace that the Government said they wanted to build, in their call for evidence last year. Most of these companies are UK-based and many are global. Nearly all work to the standard set by PAS 1296:2018. Many of them have other forms of certification and security standards in place, such as ISO 27001. There is an active trade body, the Age Verification Providers Association, whose members—as the Minister probably knows—have just had good news from the High Court in an important judicial review case involving non-implementation of the age-verification provisions of the Digital Economy Act.

Another government department, BEIS, through its Office for Product Safety and Standards, together with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, provides training that

“will enable participants to confidently apply the PAS 1296:2018”.

Not only is there a form of auditable standard in place, but reputable training in compliance with PAS 1296.

As we pointed out in Committee, this is a strongly deregulatory measure. Retailers have noted that almost 24% of supermarket baskets contain an age-restricted item. As a result of current rules, many customers are waiting longer than necessary. This would ease any congestion, mitigate the risks of queuing, reduce the need for continual sanitisation by staff—as the noble Baroness said—and be for the benefit of all in infection control. Rather than being the last ship in the convoy, can the Home Office not steam ahead on this? The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, explained that it is essentially a pilot period only. I urge the Government to accept our amendment.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 52. I very much hope that the Government welcome the spirit of what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, even if they cannot accept the amendment today—although I hope they can. There are a number of areas in public life where we urgently need a proper age-verification system that deals directly with what an individual can and, on occasion, cannot do. Gambling and access to legal pornography are two that come to mind, but access to alcohol, whether consumed on or off the premises, is under direct consideration today.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, spoke convincingly in Committee and again this evening on the benefits that a digital ID system would bring. This was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who also explained what is happening in the digital marketplace. If, as the noble Baroness says, this boils down simply to putting ID cards, passports or driving licences on mobile phones, it is hard to see why the Government do not grab this initiative. It is already widely used, particularly for verifying age for knife sales.

There may be other work going on in the Home Office on digital ID, but I would be satisfied if the Government today confirmed that they are aware of the benefits of digital ID, supportive of the technology in principle and prepared to work with the industry to resolve any outstanding issues in the near future.