Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

Many Members raise with me the particular issue of notspots in their constituencies, as well as where connectivity is not as good as we would like it to be. I would be very happy to offer a meeting to my hon. Friend.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

4. What steps she is taking to keep people safe online.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)]

This Government are committed to keeping people safe online. For the first time, platforms now have a legal duty to ensure that they are protecting users from illegal content and, in particular, safeguarding children from harmful content, but we have gone further still. Within weeks this team have made self-harm and cyber-flashing, and now strangulation, extreme violence and pornography, priority offences. We will go further still by backing Ofcom to make sure that enforcement is robust too.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but the reality is that chatbots are prompting young people to commit suicide and to self-harm. What action can the Minister take to make sure that these chatbots are taken down and do not give this sort of advice?

[Kanishka Narayan]

I thank the hon. Member for raising these cases, which are very much in our minds. Each one is a deep tragedy. We have looked very carefully at this issue. Some chatbots, including live search and user-to-user engagement, are in scope of the Online Safety Act 2023, and we want to ensure that enforcement against them, where relevant, is robust. The Secretary of State has commissioned work to make sure that, if there are any gaps in the legislation, they will be looked at fully and robust action will be taken too.