Online Pornography: Age Verification Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Bill Grant
Main Page: Bill Grant (Conservative - Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock)Department Debates - View all Bill Grant's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Online Pornography: Age Verification
Bill Grant Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Matt Warman
I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that the online harms being discussed in this urgent question are fundamentally about the protection of children on the internet, and I hope we can genuinely forge a cross-party consensus on what that means. This is an important and difficult agenda, and I hope that we can work together to protect children on the internet, wherever they may end up finding themselves.
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
The protection of our children is paramount, and a recent report on online harms by the NSPCC did not make good reading, and suggested to me that time is of the essence. Will my hon. Friend assure the House that any independent regulator that is introduced will have sufficient enforcement powers to take effective action against sites that ignore their moral responsibility and make it easy for children to access inappropriate material?
Matt Warman
The precise purpose of changing our approach is to have a regulator that, in due course, will have comprehensive authority to take the actions that we need to protect children. That will always be this Government’s top priority on the internet. I hope that Opposition parties across the House will join us in that endeavour, and that we can come quickly to a conclusion that allows us to achieve what should be shared objectives.