Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Report stage
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, as others have said, this has been a very interesting tour d’horizon of some of the points in the Bill that we still need to resolve. I will not go over too much of the detail that has been raised because those points need a response from the Minister when he responds.

I will start with the use of “chairman” in several places throughout the Bill. We do not understand what is going on here. My noble friend Lady Merron wanted to deal with this but she unfortunately is not here, so I have been left holding the issue, and I wish to pursue it vigorously.

It is probably not well known but, in 2007, the Government decided that there ought to be changes in the drafting of our laws to make them gender-neutral as much as possible. Since 2007, it has been customary practice to replace words that could be gender-specific with those which are not. The Drafting Guidance, which is issued and should be followed by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, says that gender-neutral drafting requires

“avoiding gender-specific pronouns (such as ‘he’) for a person who is not necessarily of that gender”,

and avoiding gender-specific nouns

“that might appear to assume that a person of a particular gender will do a particular job or perform a particular role (eg ‘chairman’)”.

The guidance provides another bit of extra information:

“The gender-specific noun most likely to be encountered is ‘chairman’. ‘Chair’ is now widely used in primary legislation as a substitute”,


and we should expect to see it. Why do we not see it in this Bill?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My wife, who is chairman of a number of things, objects to “chair” as “furniturism”. She likes to be referred to as a person and not a thing.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I respect the noble Lord’s point. I did not make a specific proposal; I simply asked why the Bill was framed in circumstances that are not those required by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel.

Moving on, Amendment 288A, which addresses the issue of multiple characteristics, is welcome. I am grateful to the Minister for it. However, it is a rather odd solution to what should be a very straightforward question. We have the amendment—which, as I said, we welcome—because it was pointed out that the new overarching objective for this Bill that has been brought forward by government amendment refers to issues affecting those who have a characteristic. It uses the word “characteristic” without qualification, although I think most of us who have been involved in these debates and discussions realise that this is an oblique reference to the Equality Act 2010 and that, although they are not set out in the Bill, the characteristics concerned are probably those that are protected under the Equality Act. I think the Minister has some problem with the Equality Act, because we have crossed swords on it before, but we will not go back into that.

In referencing “a characteristic”, which is perfectly proper, we did not realise—but it has been pointed out—that under the Interpretation Act it is necessary to recall that in government legislation when the singular is mentioned it includes the plural unless it is specifically excluded. So we can assume that when references are made to “a characteristic”, they do in fact mean “characteristics”. Therefore, by logic, moving forward to the way to which it is referred in the Bill, when a person is referred to as having “a characteristic” it can also be assumed that the reference in the Bill applies to them having more than one characteristic.

However, grateful as I am to the Minister for bringing forward these amendments, which we accept, this is not quite the point that we were trying to get across. I invite the Minister, when he comes to respond, to explain a little more about the logic behind what I will propose. We are fairly convinced—as I think are most people who have been involved in these discussions—that social media companies’ form of operation, providing the materials and service that we want, is gendered. I do not think there is any doubt about that; everybody who has spoken in this debate has at some stage pointed out that, in many cases, those with protected characteristics, and women and girls in particular, are often picked on and singled out. A pile-on—the phrase used to mean the amplification that comes with working on the internet—is a very serious concern. That may change; it may just be a feature of today’s world and one day be something that does not happen. However, at the moment, it is clearly the case that if one is in some way characterised by a protected characteristic, and you have more than one of them, you tend to get more attention, aggravation and difficulty in your social media engagement. The evidence is so clear that we do not need to go into it.

The question we asked in Committee, and which we hoped we would get a response to, was whether we should always try to highlight the fact that where we are talking about people with more than one characteristic, it is the fact that there is a combination, not that it is a plural, that is the matter. Being female and Jewish, which has been discussed several times from the Dispatch Box by my noble friend Lady Merron and others, seems to be the sort of combination of characteristics which causes real difficulties on the internet for the people who have them. I use that only as one example; there are others.

If that is the case then it would have been nice to have seen that specifically picked up, and my original drafting of the amendment did that. However, we have accepted the Government’s amendment to create the new overarching objective, and I do not want to change it at this stage—we are past that debate. But I wonder whether the Minister, when he comes to respond, could perhaps as a grace note explain that he accepts the point that it is the doubling or tripling of the characteristics, not the plurality, that matters.

Moving back to the clauses that have been raised by others speaking in this debate, and who have made points that need to be responded to, I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about the need for some form of engagement between domestic regulators if we are going to get the best possible solution to how the internet is regulated as we go forward. We have never said that there had to be a new super-regulator and we never intended that there should be powers taken to change the way in which we do this. However, some form of co-operation, other than informal co-operation, is almost certainly going to be necessary. We do not want to subtract from where we are in relation to how our current regulators operate—they seem to be working well—but we worry that the legal powers and support that might be required in order to do that are not yet in place or, if they are in place, are based on somewhat archaic and certainly not modern-day regulatory practice.

Is this something that the committees of the Houses might consider? Perhaps when we come to other amendments around this, that is something we might pick up, because I think it probably needs further consideration away from the Bill in order to get the best possible solution. That is particularly true given, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, says, so many of these regulators will now have experience of working together and might be prepared to share that in evidence or in appearances before such a committee.

Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, we have an amendment in this group. It is nice to be described as the radical party—I thought we had lost that tag. To be vigorous and radical with a proposal to delete a clause is always a good thing. However, our intention was exactly the same as that of the noble and learned Lord. The issues raised by the Constitution Committee needed a further outing, and he has expressed them in such a brilliant way that I see no need to add to that. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I beg the House’s pardon, but there is a little bit of a problem here, given that this is exactly the time that we in this country should be very careful about our international obligations. As we are busy trying to untangle ourselves from entirely sensible international obligations because of very un-sensible policies, this is the moment to make sure we do not make any other mistakes, and I hope very much that we will pass this amendment.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for this concession. I entirely agree with her that nobody in this House thought that the Government were not going to do this. We understood that there was no malice aforethought in any sense at all, but it is surprising how people can make malice if they can find a way of doing it, and many people were suggesting that, in some way, the Government were taking control over this independent body, which would be unacceptable internationally. That is why we made the point, and I, for one, am very pleased that the Government have accepted it. I thank my noble friend for the courteous way in which she has dealt with this and, indeed, the detailed answer that she has given us.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this is a strange moment because exactly the same arguments and debates—indeed the same personnel—debated much the same amendment in the Deregulation Bill, as the Minister has explained. The result on that occasion was that the EHRC was not excluded from the Deregulation Bill. In a sense, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, are entirely correct. I think that we as a House are convinced that the Government do not wish any ill on the EHRC and wish to see its “A” status preserved. We have excluded it from this Bill—which had a small but important adjunct of policy which bit on the EHRC—but we have not excluded it from the Deregulation Bill, which covers a much larger area. Obviously the Minister has skills way beyond those with which she came into this House—and there were many when she arrived. She has gained in strength and capacity. She has been able to do the impossible in going round the magic circle of Cabinet committees in a record-breaking time and I congratulate her on this amendment.

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Thursday 5th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, there have been moments during the debates on this Deregulation Bill when I have been forced to ask the Government why on earth they are bothering to get rid of some bits and pieces when they will not have any effect at all. That is why I find myself particularly encouraged by the amendment here.

We can draw the sort of people who do not like busking very simply: they are general kill-joys. I have always thought that life is divided between those who are life enhancers and those who are life destroyers. One of the problems is that many life destroyers are worthy, honourable and decent members of society, but they are deeply boring and therefore entirely to be opposed. My problem with this amendment is that it does not go far enough. It is a disgrace that there are so many bits from Acts which can be used against buskers by local authorities and by the Metropolitan Police.

I draw my noble friend’s attention to the phrase “busking-related offences”. I have spent some time, since we last discussed this, trying to imagine an offence which was busking related and not an offence in any other way. I am quite an imaginative person and I do not have too pure a mind but, even putting those two things together, I have so far been unable to discover any offence which is both busking related and not covered by something else in the statute. To go back to “So who said it?”, I may now say something which many will object to, for it was said by the police —well, they would, would they not? The Metropolitan Police always have a reason for leaving any way which enables them to do what they want.

I spent hours and hours discussing the simple business of applying to the space outside your Lordships’ House the same rules as were applied by the House of Commons to the space outside it. I cannot tell your Lordships how much of that time was made up of people explaining why it was utterly impossible, and would probably cause the collapse of western civilisation, that the extent from one to the other should be done. I know that it has been a mere six or nine months since we passed that provision, but I have not noticed any real effect of the kind of major disaster since that small change. I feel that we are in the same position here. I do not know why we should have this. Indeed, because we have been over this before, in the previous debates I thought that there was no reasonable explanation as to why these two provisions should not be removed. I say to my noble friend—and he is indeed a friend—that, to dissuade us from this amendment, the following proof has to be shown.

First, it has to be shown that there is something in the presence of these provisions in the law which is unique. It should be different and cover something which nothing else covers. If we cannot prove that first thing, then of its nature the Deregulation Bill says that we should get rid of it. That is why we have a Deregulation Bill. It is what the Government have been wittering on about: how we have got to have deregulation because there are too many regulations. However, if this is a regulation that shall be kept, it must be seen to cover something which nothing else covers.

Secondly, it must be shown to cover it appropriately: in other words, not to give powers to the police, or to the miserable local authorities such as Camden, which will be misused either in an excess of energy, as certainly took place when people were bundled into a police van in Leicester Square, or by a determination to respond to any complaint, however pathetic, of the kind which explains Camden’s treatment of buskers. It has to be necessary and appropriate.

Lastly, it seems to me—and I hope that my noble friend will be able to explain this, too—that it has to be relevant to today. Many things which were appropriate to yesterday we would today find unacceptable. London is the greatest city in the world. It is the only “world city” and we are immensely lucky to live in this great city. We should be thrilled every day about London, but it is like that because of its variety and difference—its mix of different races and communities, and the like. It is the great triumph of immigration. When people talk about immigration, I tell them to come to London and see what immigration can do to a great city. It is a thrill to be here. In those circumstances, though, this great centre in the European Union—its capital, in many ways—needs as much busking as possible. There are some miserable places where more buskers would cheer us enormously. Anything that inhibits busking unnecessarily seems to be not of our day, and not of today’s London. The idea that buskers should find it more difficult in London than they do in Liverpool seems to be manifestly barmy.

I hope that my noble friend can rise to the occasion and, if he cannot answer those three things, say that he will take this away and get rid of the nonsense.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

It is really unfortunate to have drawn the straw following that contribution. The noble Lord has spoilt my day, but that was a very nice way of doing it; I thank him very much.

I was going to start with a little riff on why the true author of this amendment was being withheld from us, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned that he had not been able to be in Committee. It is an irony beyond irony that the first amendment in his name was the rather beautifully named “parasitic packaging” amendment, for which he produced a parasitic package—the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, who not only replicated every word and phrase that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would have used but did so in such a brilliant and concise way that he immediately won the hearts of all of us in Committee. We welcomed back the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, for round two, on the amendment to remove Section 73, which was not quite so successful but was pretty good, and then he went on to busking. Busking was a tour de force; it was almost as good as what we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Deben, because he listed every one of the blooming regulations—I think there were 11 of them—that we are told are inhibiting busking in our greatest world city. I have to say to him, though, that he had obviously missed three because the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has now done even more research and produced another few that he has added to the list.

I absolutely buy what the noble Lord, Lord Deben is selling today, that this is a ridiculous farrago of regulation that needs to be sorted out. There has to be some clarity about what the authorities want out of the regulations that they wish to put forward. There has to be some sense of equity between those who wish to perform and those who wish to listen, and the rights and responsibilities of neighbourhoods in terms of pollution and other things. There has to be the clarity of a single piece of legislation that everyone can refer to.

When the Minister responded in Committee, he used a ridiculous phrase, a chilling remark that I still sometimes wake up and think about in the middle of the night:

“the Metropolitan Police have a desire to retain necessary powers”.—[Official Report, 11/11/14; col. GC 48.]

Come on. It is so easy to say that, and so difficult to get up the energy to say, “Okay, let’s know what these things are”. What are these necessary powers, and what exactly is this desire that the police seem to bear in their corporate bosom to do something about those who wish to entertain and perform in a way that I would have thought to most people would be a very appropriate thing to do in such a major city?

It is up to the Minister to come back on this amendment. I hope that he can step up to the mark and give us a bravura performance, on whatever instrument he chooses, but he should pick up on one point that was raised in discussion in Committee by my noble friend Lord Rooker, who said that there is an obvious and clear remedy for this. The Law Commission exists to tidy up exactly this sort of arrangement, and the Minister said that he would go off and consult on whether it was the appropriate body. First, of course, he said that it was not the appropriate body, but then he was told in no uncertain terms—because that is what my noble friend does—that the commission does indeed look at these things; it is quite happy to update, refresh and reform legislation or regulation that needs it. Surely that is the way forward, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister—in music.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Monday 12th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

In some sense this group of amendments is the continuation of the earlier debate, but it now focuses on the reports that may come from whatever system is set up for these small business appeals champions—although here they are sometimes called the “Independent Complaints Commissioner”. I am not sure where that fits into it; perhaps there is another whole area of bureaucracy that I have not yet managed to uncover.

The Bill is very helpful in setting out the duties and functions of the review process. The overall objective is to encourage the regulator to improve and to simplify the appeals and complaints processes that businesses should follow if they wish to challenge or appeal a regulatory decision. The requirements are quite onerous: annually, each reviewer—obviously we still do not know how many there will be—has to review the effectiveness of the relevant regulator’s procedures and prepare a report about his or her findings, which may include an assessment about whether those are accessible and fair, as well as recommendations for improvement. Those recommendations can go either to the Minister of the Crown—which might be relevant and appropriate, given that that most of the time that person will be making the appointment, and that would certainly have to be the case, presumably, if legislation was to follow—or they can go to the regulator themselves if it is just a simple matter of a change of procedures. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us a bit more detail on that.

On the narrower question of whether a report has to go to the Minister of the Crown simply because it involves changes in the law, this does not give quite enough depth or sketch in some of the things that will come. The reviewer may not be in a position to give a formal recommendation that there has to be a change in the law—they may say, simply, “This is something which I’ve picked up, which I think is important for small businesses, and I refer it to the Minister for appropriate action”. The appropriate action may well not necessarily be legal; it may be some form of instruction to the regulator, or that some regulatory bodies need to work closer together, or some other things. I am not trying to be difficult—the way it is expressed is just a bit narrow. If the Minister can perhaps find the words to explain that in a more rounded context, that might be helpful as we go forward.

I am moving Amendment 33D, but in this group we also have Amendments 33E, 33F and 33L. The point raised in Amendment 33E, which is minor but important, is the suggestion that the review should also reflect on any discriminatory practices that exist. We are aware—more anecdotally than evidence based, although it is still important—that there are concerns about some issues to do with diversity in other areas, which are in the law and legally applied to individuals, but we are talking about small businesses, for which there may therefore be concerns. This might be a good point to try to think harder about making sure that the way this is framed also includes the question about discrimination and wider issues to do with that area of work.

Amendment 33F suggests that there may be issues where an individual company may feel that the regulations that have been imposed are not only against them but mean that they are being discriminated against. Therefore, again, it would be helpful if consideration was given, perhaps in the regulations, to making a broader pass through this, including recommendations for mitigating steps that might be taken, if an assessment by a reviewer concludes that discrimination has taken place.

On Amendment 33L, Clause 20 places a duty on the independent complaints commissioner or small business champion to produce an annual report on his investigations under the scheme as regards the FSA regulators, which are specifically carved out in one part of the Bill—although, obviously, that is because they already carry out many of the functions that the reviewer in the Bill would carry out. However, for completeness, and to make sure that there is no gap between them, might it not be sensible just to include within the Bill a very clear inclusion paragraph that would make sure that they also have to look at unfair and discriminatory practices under the scheme? I beg to move.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to warn the Committee—and I hope that the Minister will accept this warning—of the danger of the enactment of good-heartedness for the sake of it. There is a phrase in the amendment that symbolises that. The amendment that we are discussing with the first one contains the expression,

“protecting individuals from unfair treatment and promoting a fair and more equal society”.

I am all in favour of a fair and more equal society, but I cannot think of anything that is more likely to make people feel that all this stuff is yet again a whole collection of persiflage rather than the serious matter we are talking about. This is not about small businesses; it is not what small businesses are about. It is a perfectly reasonable statement but not something that we should be putting into the Bill. I am surprised that it is in the amendment.

That enables me to say what I really wanted to say, which is that I think this is a good and necessary Bill. However, we have to remember that we also have a commitment to reducing red tape and reducing the appearance of red tape. I want to make a point about the appearance of red tape. Very often people think that something is restrictive or difficult because there is an awful lot of it. I have always believed that we ought to have a law saying that we cannot introduce any new laws unless we take away at least the same number of lines from the present laws, so as not to make people feel that they are overwhelmed by what is before them.

This seemed to me to be a reasonable moment, before the Minister rises, to say to the noble Lord opposite that there is a responsibility in setting down amendments so as not to give the impression that we are prepared to load people with a whole lot of things that may be politically correct, nice things to say, or something that might be added to a speech, but which, frankly, make people feel that the Government are constantly after them with all sorts of nebulous thoughts and ideas to which we can all sign up, but which ought to be left to people to decide for themselves as to their purpose. They should not be written down in this way.

Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I want to point out two things. First, the noble Lord spoke warmly about newspaper proprietors and what a wonderful thing it is that we have a rule in this country that editors should always be named so that they can be sued for libel. That has just been deregulated. Secondly, it was a Conservative Government who introduced the requirement to regulate chocolates.

[Lord Deben]

There may be regulations which, when people did not do it, you need. I think that if the Daily Telegraph took its address off, we would be able to find it. We would not be in too much difficulty with newspapers today. The problem here is that these websites are in the same position as newspapers were in those days, when there were a very large number of them, they were run off by hand and people did not know whence they came. I think that that explains the difference between now and then: the world changes and it moves quickly. I used the example of liqueur chocolates because it was always silly to have liqueur chocolates under the rules. I do not know which party proposed it, but whoever it was should be ashamed.

I finish with the real reason I wanted to stand up and talk about this. Britain is increasingly the centre of a very large tourist trade. London is the only world city, in a real sense. We have the glory of the most diverse society with the most wonderful opportunities. We should be saying, every day, “Thank goodness we live in this great country and in this great city”. Therefore, we must ensure that we protect the brand. I do not want to be vulgarly capitalist, but let us protect our brand.

I want us to be a major force in the European Union, where we are properly at home, but I want people coming from the rest of the European Union to feel that we protect them when they buy tickets here, when they buy them from abroad and when they come in from the EU and beyond—I want our American and Australian friends to feel that they can do this safely. The Government have a very simple way of doing this, which is to accept the amendment. I very much hope they will.

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Lord Deben

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Deben]

Does the noble Lord notice that he is almost exactly paralleling the suggested answer that was given to him by his noble friend Lord Dubs? I respectfully say that it is supposed to be Ministers who listen to the civil servants giving them those ideas; I thought it was the Opposition who were supposed to get out of that and be free to be able to say, “Well, we may have got it wrong in the past but perhaps we are now on the side of the progressives who have been so far putting forward this case”.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am always grateful for comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whose expertise and knowledge are legendary in this House, but, of course, prospective Ministers might also be wise to think about what civil servants are advising.