Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what the impediments are to the removal of non-consensual intimate images posted online.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Where non-consensual intimate images are posted online via user-to-user services, then the providers who operate these services should have the technical ability to remove these images.
The Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. This legislation will give online service providers new duties to implement systems and processes to tackle illegal content on their services and take this content down, including illegal intimate image abuse content.
The Act also updates the law, to make sure that offences criminalising intimate image abuse are fit for the digital age. The intimate image abuse offences, along with the other offences in Part 10 of the Act, will come into force on 31 January.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to require website providers to remove intimate online images that have been published without consent.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Where non-consensual intimate images are posted online via user-to-user services, then the providers who operate these services should have the technical ability to remove these images.
The Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. This legislation will give online service providers new duties to implement systems and processes to tackle illegal content on their services and take this content down, including illegal intimate image abuse content.
The Act also updates the law, to make sure that offences criminalising intimate image abuse are fit for the digital age. The intimate image abuse offences, along with the other offences in Part 10 of the Act, will come into force on 31 January.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department produced a ministerial response under the write round process to the Department for Education's review of the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum.
Answered by George Freeman
The Secretary of State for Education has been clear she is very concerned about reports of inappropriate materials being used to teach relationships and sex education (RSHE). The Government has brought forward the review of the RSHE statutory guidance as a result, including conducting a public consultation as soon as possible.
The statutory guidance clearly states that the guidance will be reviewed every three years from first teaching (September 2020) and so the decision to review the guidance does not require collective agreement. The Secretary of State for Education will seek collective agreement to the consultation documents through a write-round process, before publishing the consultation in the autumn. This process is not yet underway.
As part of the review, an expert panel has been established to advise the Secretary of State on what topics should and should not be taught in school and the introduction of age limits. This will provide clear guidance for teachers about when certain topics can be addressed.
In tandem to this work, the Oak Academy is producing a suite of materials to support teachers to create age-appropriate lessons plans and ensure that they have access to appropriate materials.
The Government is determined to make sure RSHE teaching leaves children equipped to make informed decisions about their health, wellbeing and relationships, in a sensitive way that reflects their stage of development.
The Government expects new statutory guidance to be released in the coming months. It will then be subject to public consultation to conclude by the end of the year, coming into statutory force as soon as possible after that.
Asked by: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the National Disability Strategy published on 28 July 2021, which of her Department's commitments in that strategy that have not been paused as a result of legal action have (a) been fully, (b) been partially and (c) not been implemented.
Answered by George Freeman
In January 2022, the High Court declared the National Disability Strategy (NDS) was unlawful because the UK Disability Survey, which informed it, was held to be a voluntary consultation that failed to comply with the legal requirements on public consultations.
The former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and former Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had two actions included in the National Disability Strategy that would now fall within the remit of Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). These included:
● Challenge UKRI and other research stakeholders to use future innovation challenges to accelerate innovation in assistive technologies; and
● Explore how to improve accessibility of private sector websites.
These actions are ongoing and have not yet been fully implemented.
We remain fully committed to supporting disabled people in the UK through creating more opportunities, protecting their rights and ensuring they fully benefit from, and can contribute to, every aspect of our society. To support this, DSIT will be providing further details of our recent achievements to improve disabled people’s lives in the forthcoming Disability Action Plan consultation due for publication in the summer.
Ahead of this, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will write providing a list of these achievements and will place a copy in the House Library.