Claire Perry
Main Page: Claire Perry (Conservative - Devizes)Department Debates - View all Claire Perry's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Helen Goodman
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Once again, he emphasises the importance of the international dimension.
What we are proposing is aimed at reproducing the conditions that we have already established in the real world. The distinction between legal and illegal content is far too simplistic. For cinemas we have the highly respected independent British Board of Film Classification. It produces age ratings—12, 15 or 18. Any cinema found to be regularly flouting the age restrictions would lose its local authority licence. Furthermore, material classified as R18 can be seen only in certain cinemas, and some material deemed obscene is cut entirely. Yet on the internet it is all freely accessible to every 12-year-old. Indeed—this relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said a moment ago—the NSPCC believes that one quarter of nine to 16-year olds have seen sexual images online. We are not talking about young women baring their breasts—that is like something from Enid Blyton compared with the Frankenstein images now available.
The dangers are clear. On average, 29% of nine to 16-year-olds have contact online with someone they have never met face to face. Of course there is a real difference between child abuse online and extreme pornography, but unfortunately in the real world people who become addicted to pornography look for more and more extreme images, and that sometimes tips into child abuse images. Addiction is the issue. Users are found to have literally millions of images on their computer, and child abuse sites are signposted on pornography sites. Both are shared peer to peer.
Therefore, an effective age verification system would mean that paedophiles would lose the anonymity behind which they currently hide, and the denial of what they are really doing would be addressed by the third proposal in the motion, which is to have splash warnings before entering filtered sites. Work by Professor Richard Wortley at University College London suggests that that might halve the numbers viewing child abuse online.
Of course, those measures would have a cost to industry. TalkTalk, which has led the way in offering filters, has spent over £20 million. Some in the industry tell us that they do not want to lose their competitive edge, and some say that they do not want to act as censors. That is why the Government should act by putting a clear timetable for those reforms into law in order to speed up change, level the playing field and support parents. We know that most parents want to do what is right by their children, because 66% of people, and 78% of women, want an automatic block, according to a YouGov poll conducted last year, but the industry is not helping them enough. At the moment, some still require people to download their own filters—a near-impossible task for many of us—some see it as a marketing device, and others want to give the option of filters only to new customers. At the current rate of turnover, it would be 2019 before that approach had any hope of reaching total coverage. It simply is not good enough. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) wish to intervene?
Helen Goodman
So what have the Government been doing? Before the general election, the Prime Minister promised that he would lead the most family-friendly Government ever, but so far there has been lots of talking and much less action. After three years and two Secretaries of State, the Government still seem to think that a voluntary approach will work. Do they not know when they are being strung along, or do they not care? How many more years must we wait? How many child deaths will it take to shock them into action?
Let us look at the record. First, the Prime Minister set up the Bailey review, which reported in June 2011. It recommended that after 18 months the internet industry must, as a matter of urgency, act decisively to develop and introduce effective parental controls—with Government regulation if voluntary action is not forthcoming within a reasonable time scale—and robust age verification. But here we are, fully two years on, and nothing has changed. Contrary to the answer I received from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who is in his place, the fact is that BT, Sky and Virgin are yet to come forward to announce their proposals on how they intend to deliver.
Then we had the independent parliamentary inquiry into child protection online, an all-party group. It recommended an accelerated implementation timetable, a formal consultation on the introduction of an opt-in content filtering system, and that the Government should seek back-stop legal powers to intervene should the ISPs fail to implement an appropriate solution. A year later, no solution has been implemented. Why did the Government not introduce a communications Bill with appropriate measures in the Queen’s Speech?
Finally, last autumn the Government undertook a consultation. It was so badly advertised that 68% of respondents were members of the Open Rights Group, an important group but a lobbying group with 1,500 members, compared with the 34% of respondents who were parents of Britain’s 11 million children. Despite that, the Government concluded that parents did not want to see parental controls turned on by default.
The Government have zig-zagged back and forth but we have seen no action in the real world. The Secretary of State has called a meeting with industry representatives next week. What will she say to them? I hope that she will not engage in yet another round of fruitless pleas and requests. There is a total lack of strategy from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
I want to make an offer to the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey): if he brings forward measures, with a speedy timetable, for the introduction of safe search as a default, robust age verification and splash warnings, we will support him. I gather that Ministers are urging their colleagues to vote against the motion. It is time that the Government stopped hoping that everything will turn out for the best and started taking responsibility. The time for talking is over. The time for action is now. We must put our children first. I hope that all hon. Members will vote for the motion in the Lobby this afternoon.
Mr Vaizey
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is not in his place, pointed out how late this motion came to the House. As I have said, it is hard to support a motion that claims that the police lack resources when I have already pointed out that CEOP has significantly increased its manpower; that claims that the Government have failed to implement the Bailey review when I have already pointed out how many of the recommendations we have introduced; and that claims that we have not supported the independent parliamentary inquiry when we supported it from the start and have followed a lot of its recommendations.
The Opposition can decide whether they want to play politics with this issue or whether they want to have a serious debate about how to make progress. They cannot table a tendentious motion such as this and expect us to support it. What I am doing in this speech—and what other Government Members will do in theirs—is raising and addressing important issues, as some Opposition Members have done, and saying what the Government are doing.
Claire Perry
Does my hon. Friend share my almost despair that, while some Members present, such as the hon. Members for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), have been intimately involved in this agenda for two and a half years, others who are heckling and shouting from a sedentary position have, to be frank, shown no interest whatsoever in this topic until it became a front-page issue? Working together will solve the problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a terrible and dangerous example of bandwagonism?
Mr Vaizey
My hon. Friend is an authority on this issue and she has shown, throughout her engagement with it, her willingness to work across party lines and to look for practical solutions that will help keep our children safe. I hope that Opposition Members will listen to what she has just said and take it on board.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I usually open my remarks by saying that I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in a debate. Today, I do not have that feeling. I raised my children in an age when we did not have to worry about the issues under discussion and when protecting children was far more straightforward, but I am conscious that my grandchildren are growing up in a very different world. I congratulate the shadow Culture, Media and Sport team for ensuring that we have the opportunity to discuss this matter.
I give credit, as many Members will, to the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) for her contribution. However, I think that she should reflect on her remarks about “bandwagonism”. This is the first time that I have spoken in a debate on this issue. She does not know what personal experiences other Members of the House might have had that make it difficult for them to make contributions on this issue, so she should be careful in her choice of words. I have worked with children who are victims of abuse, some of whom were subjected to pornographic images. Sadly, some of them even went on to sexually harm other children. I should not have to justify to her my right to stand here as a Member of Parliament, a parent, a grandmother and someone who has worked in child protection.
Claire Perry
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. May I extend the offer that has been open for almost three years to every Member of this House who feels that they can help push this agenda forward to please share their experiences and be involved? Please do not make this a partisan issue, because when we do that, industry drives a bus through Parliament. That is what we must avoid.
Fiona O'Donnell
I would have welcomed more of an indication of regret from the hon. Lady at the words that she used. If she had experience of working in child protection, she would know that those words should be used very carefully.
I welcome the Minister’s comment that this issue is about much more than just child protection and includes child abuse. Sadly, in this day and age, it is also a matter of life and death. Fortunately, children can and do use the internet safely, and we must not lose sight of that.
Although I might not have been active on this issue in the House, I have been in my constituency. Last Friday, I went to Burgh primary school in Musselburgh, where the children recently took part in a competition to talk about and devise ways of keeping themselves safe when using the internet. That is a great example of how we can empower children. I do not want children to be frightened of using the internet. It is an incredible resource that allows them to socialise, learn, have fun and access entertainment. We must be clear that we do not want to put children off. At Burgh primary school, I saw children being empowered to keep themselves safe. They even taught me a few lessons about how I could be safer. The head teacher and Mrs Gilbert, who leads the IT group, have the children running the school website. That is a great way to show children that the internet is a tool that could be useful to them at any point in their life and, at the same time, to ensure that they are aware of the risks.
Ofcom recently released figures showing that 91% of five to 15-year-olds have access to the internet at home. On average, they access the internet for about 90 minutes a day. A survey of 851 young children in 2012 by the ChildLine website also provided some interesting information. It was clear that what children really enjoyed was the fun, games, information and opportunities for social networking that they could access. What really concerned me, however—I hope the Minister or a Front-Bench Member will respond to this point—was that the survey showed that 69% of children are now accessing the internet through mobile phones, making it far more difficult for parents to supervise what they are saying and how they are interacting. I would be interested to hear whether the Government have any proposals for how we can deal with mobile phone companies and keep children safe, given that that is the way they are increasingly accessing the internet.
We all know horrific stories of bullying and of children accessing inappropriate material, and I have seen first hand through my work the impact that can have on children’s lives, development and their ability to become parents. I remember one child saying to me, “Fiona, I don’t think I should be a parent.” He had suffered such horrific abuse and seen such awful images that at the age of 10, this boy did not think he should be trusted to be a parent. We are discussing the most serious issues of children’s right to a childhood and a healthy adulthood.
We must do more to protect children, and this debate has caused me to reflect on an experience that I had around the age of 16—this was before the age of computers, certainly in the highlands of Scotland. I was getting ready for bed one night and I suddenly caught sight out of my bedroom window of a flashing light. I realised there was a man in the kitchen that overlooked my bedroom who had been watching me undress, and he was flicking the light to let me know that he was doing that. This is the first time I have ever shared that experience, because at the age of 16 I was too scared to tell anyone. I thought I had done something wrong; I was scared to tell my parents. My father had warned me that I should shut my bedroom curtains when getting ready for bed, and I was scared that he might go down and confront the man, or that my father—a very peace-loving man—might be hurt. I just did not feel I could do that, and I lived in fear for many months that the man was going to approach me or tell people what he had seen. We must remember just how difficult it is for young people to tell their stories—it has taken me until the age of 53 to tell that story.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children supports many of the recommendations in the motion, in particular having an opt-in option so that adults must choose if they wish to access adult material. That is the stage we have reached. I am no Mary Whitehouse, but I think we have reached a stage where so many children are at risk that we must do more.
Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)
I am grateful, as always, for the chance to speak in and listen to a debate in the House on this incredibly important topic, and I will not focus on the unfortunate partisan tone of some of the proposals. I would love to support the motion, and if it had been better worded or perhaps more accurate it would have been easier to do so.
I want to respond specifically to some of the criticisms raised in the motion and refute them absolutely. Criticism has been made of the implementation of the Bailey review recommendations, and those of the parliamentary inquiry in which I was joined by more than 60 Members from across this House and from the other place including—as I have said—two hon. Ladies from the Labour Benches and several of my colleagues from the Government Benches. The inquiry came up with a series of recommendations. In 2011, the Bailey review recommended active choice in which parents have to choose whether they want filters, as well as more help for parents. The four main fixed-line internet service providers control 80% of the home internet market—this relates to a point raised earlier. They signed a code of practice to offer such a filter, and said they would roll it out within a year by October 2012. That deadline was met, but as many Members will remember, a cross-party group of MPs and peers did not feel that it was adequate or went far enough.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend who has championed this cause in the House, including in an Adjournment debate back in November 2010, which also coincided with the Safermedia conference. She has been raising the issue of harm related to pornography, and making the point that it is not just a fringe issue for one campaign organisation but a concern shared across the House. That momentum has helped to drive these changes, which will continue, and we do not need to resort to partisanship.
Claire Perry
I came to this agenda as a mother, a feminist and someone who is deeply concerned about the long-term social experiment we are conducting with our young children. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said it was good that we had an atheist leftie on the panel as that helped balance out some of the others, and it truly was a coalition of many minds coming together—I hope that will not be depicted in Hansard as an accurate description.
Another recommendation of the cross-party inquiry was for internet service providers to introduce account filters that protect all devices in the home with one click. Only four out of 10 parents in the country have installed device-level protection of any sort on their home computers. That is completely unacceptable, but the situation is complicated. We all have multiple internet-enabled devices and it is simply not good enough to say that consumers are stupid. We called on internet service providers to introduce one-click filtering on the home network, but as the Minister said, we were told by more than one ISP that that was technically impossible. Guess what? They are all going to implement it by the end of the year—a testament to the ongoing campaigning of this House.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
Is the real problem with the motion a conflation between the legal and the illegal, and is my hon. Friend worried that those on the Opposition Front Benches are getting this completely wrong? The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) tweeted that we should introduce filters for child abuse, but surely child abuse should be dealt with by the law. Paedophiles should be taken to prison and targeted by the police, working with internet service providers. My hon. Friend is doing the right thing by looking at the issue carefully and in real detail.
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have two separate buckets. Some imagery is unequivocally illegal, but we would find other imagery exceptionally unpalatable and not want our young people to see it. Given that 88% of mainstream porn involves violence against women, we need to improve the filters to try to stop that coming into the home.
Another recommendation of the cross-party inquiry was that public wi-fi should be filtered. There is no need to see adult content on public wi-fi. That has been implemented in the majority of cases and we are looking for universal clean public wi-fi to be implemented later this year.
Ann Coffey
I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on her work and on the huge contribution she has made. Has she had any discussions with the retail industry on public wi-fi?
Claire Perry
I have not, but retailers source their wi-fi from a small number of providers, which have agreed to provide what is effectively clean public wi-fi.
We asked the Government for a formal consultation on opt-in filtering and got it. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) has rightly said, it is not clear that the consultation was entirely representative and democratic. However, it was an open consultation and we did our damndest to encourage people to respond. Consultations are not always democratic, and that one was what it was. Basically, the consultation rejected the idea of opt-in, but the Government response was clear that we should have much better filters that protect all devices; robust age verification; and a system that people cannot simply click through, and in which the filters remain on unless people choose to take them off.
Those changes are being implemented by the four main ISPs, which control more than 80% of the internet market to the home in the UK, and will be rolled out to new customers by the year end.
Claire Perry
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will try to make progress before taking another intervention.
In addition, as the Minister has said, the ISPs are trialling ways in which to get the filter into the installed base. The sea change in attitude among the ISPs—British companies that are family-friendly trusted brands and want to sell us stuff—has been enormous. That is a tribute to all hon. Members and Members of the other place who have campaigned so hard. The change in the situation is like night and day.
The second problem with the motion is that the call for the Government to set a timetable for the introduction of safe-search as a default is confusing. That is the same proposal as mandatory opt-in—it refers simply to Google SafeSearch functionality. The Internet Watch Foundation pointed out to me this morning that that proposal would only screen out material that is sexual in nature, and that anyone seeking illegal child abuse imagery would simply switch it off. That is an important debate, but a slightly different one.
We are already focusing on age verification. The industry is testing much better age verification loops and splash pages. Splash pages alert people who are searching for blocked content that it is illegal and damaging, and that they should go somewhere else to look for help. There is widespread support for that proposal on both sides of the House.
Should we legislate further? As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland knows, I am not at all averse to calling for legislation, but my sense is that, in this space, it is not helpful. Let me explain why. To make protection work, we need three things. First, we need committed politicians who are completely clear on the ask for industry. Secondly, we need engaged companies. The hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) referred to one problem with legislation. Children now access the internet via mobile phone, but when the Bailey review came out in 2010, there was only one mention of access to the internet via smartphone. The technological world changes faster than we can possibly imagine. It is a falsehood to say that clunky politicians and—forgive me—civil servants can be ahead of that change, as opposed to the companies that monetise that change. We have to get the companies engaged. Thirdly, we need to educate users—parents, grandparents and children—which is why I welcome what has been done in the primary school curriculum to improve e-safety and digital safety.
Therefore, it is depressing that the motion has been presented in a partisan way. We have had a hugely productive agenda in the House for the past two years by working together. I believe that debates such as this one encourage industry to adopt a wait-and-see strategy, and to say, “Well look, the politicians cannot decide. Unless they make things illegal, we’re not going to engage.” That has been the problem with the internet all along. The industry has said, “We’ll wait till you tell us what is illegal, and that’s as much as we will do.” We must move beyond that situation, which we will do by working together.
I have one final point to make. The House will forgive me if I come across as a politician—I do not want to be a politician on this issue; I want to be a pragmatist. Our recommendations go so much further than the Byron recommendations, which were commissioned by the Government of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland. Those recommendations used toothless language, did not require any form of legislation, and were not well implemented. They were also based on a completely false ideology that default filters would lull parents into a false sense of security. There is no evidence of that, but the thought has permeated the debate for the past four years. Hon. Members can tell me if they believe that these two of the Byron recommendations are forward thinking or appropriate, or whether they do more than what we have proposed. The first recommendation is that search engines should make it easy to turn safe search on, and the second is that parents should be given free parental controls when they get a new internet connection. Our Government, with huge cross-party support, have done far more than that and made far more progress.
I encourage the hon. Lady to withdraw the motion, to ask to come to the summit next week, and to build a cross-party consensus on the asks. That is how we will make progress and keep our children safe online.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
All hon. Members agree that child abuse is an horrific crime. I am pleased that the Opposition have provided the House with the opportunity to discuss how to tackle it this afternoon.
I am disappointed that the Government will not support the motion. We tabled it in good faith and it is wrong to accuse us of playing politics on this important issue. After all, all of us in Parliament are politicians and we are debating the big political issues of the day. I am sorry if it is politically inconvenient for the Government to discuss this subject today. It is also a great shame that they were not able to stir themselves to table an amendment to the motion.
Members may be interested to know that in the course of this debate, reports have come in of material that should be taken down. It is therefore good that this debate has taken place.
I would like to mention a few of the contributions that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell) talked in a very personal way about how difficult it is for young people to deal with abuse. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) spoke of his experience of hate crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) talked about the dreadful murder of Ashleigh Hall and the need to regulate the use of the internet by sex offenders. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) talked about the important role of PSHE and said that it should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) spoke, as usual, with enormous common sense. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) made an excellent contribution about the pornified culture that has developed. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) set out clearly how things can be illegal offline but legal online. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee talked about the importance of working not just with the DCMS, but with the Home Office and other agencies on this important issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) spoke with great knowledge about what is happening in her local area, and the problems and challenges that it faces. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) had an excellent idea relating to the role of credit card companies in helping people to download porn.
There were contributions from other Members of the House, including the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry). It is important to acknowledge her hard work on this subject. It is unfortunate that she was unable to stay for most of the debate and did not hear the contributions of many hon. Members who have been concerned about this issue and taken it up for many years. The hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made a sensible proposal about music videos that I hope the Government heard. The hon. Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) also spoke.
The estimate of the number of people in the UK who access child abuse images online is truly shocking and cannot be ignored. I was pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport agreed that it is important to realise that everyone who accesses such material on the web is an abuser, because accessing images of abuse is an inherent element of the process of abuse.
In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) talked about the important work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, as did the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. The work that CEOP does is unpleasant and complicated, but it has the expertise to profile offenders and understand the processes of abuse. However, it is being lost as a separate, dedicated agency and will become part of the National Crime Agency. We have already lost its former head, Jim Gamble, and his 20 years of experience in fighting abuse. He did not feel that the new framework would protect the work that CEOP does. The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee also raised concerns about its budget. I hope that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice will reassure the House on that issue.
Police forces up and down the country are attempting to prevent abuse and to prosecute those who are involved. However, they are having to deal with a 20% cut to the policing budget, which means that they are losing thousands of officers from the front line, as well as back-office staff who investigate crimes and support victims. Will the Minister say whether he considers the work that is carried out in this area to be front-line policing? Although reported crime is falling overall, will he say where the 500,000 people who reportedly access child abuse images online appear in the crime figures?
Dealing with technology for keeping our children safe is not always the forte of the House of Commons, but I pay special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, and many other Members, for their work on how we can utilise technology in the fight to keep children safe. Sometimes, that will mean working with the industry, and in many cases we are grateful for the research it has done and the work in which it has invested. As the motion points out, however, where the industry—particularly ISPs—do not respond, it is our role as law makers to make it act. The Government must have their own technical advisers so that they do not have to rely on the industry saying whether something is or is not possible. At the summit next week, I hope that Ministers will make clear the need to act swiftly and resolve issues that have been outstanding for some time, with a clear timetable.
In the context of abusive material being freely available, we should be looking to help parents protect children from accessing pornography. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland made an eloquent case for how the three measures that Labour is calling for in the motion could be a practical solution to try to stop children accessing pornography.
The report from the Children’s Commissioner, appropriately entitled “Basically...porn is everywhere”, found that a significant proportion of children and young people are exposed to or access pornography, and it is not uncommon for children as young as 10 to access it. Perhaps more important are the report’s findings on the effect that is having on young people. Access and exposure to pornography affect children and young people’s sexual beliefs, leading to unrealistic attitudes about sex and beliefs that women are sex objects. There is a clear link between access and exposure to pornography, and children’s and young people’s engagement in risky behaviours. Exposure to sexualised and violent imagery has a particular effect on the development of young people’s attitudes to relationships. That is why one of the commissioner’s main recommendations was for proper sex and relationship education to tackle attitudes premised on pornography.
The logic is clear. With children being exposed to ever more graphic and extreme images online and through social media, we should use schools as a forum to have an informed discussion with children about sex and relationships. Of course we want families to do that too, but many parents are asking for such discussions to be part of the school curriculum as well. We should explain to children what constitutes consent and what constitutes abuse.
Diana Johnson
I will not give way because the hon. Lady was not present for most of the debate this afternoon.
The Government repeatedly claim that good schools are already providing good personal, social, health and economic education. That may be right in some schools, but they cannot continue to deny research that shows that the overwhelming majority of schools do not provide good PSHE. Yesterday, the House had the opportunity to ensure that all schools provide such education, but the Government blocked the measure. Shockingly, the Liberal Democrats voted against their own long-standing party policy on PSHE being made statutory.
It may be too early to talk about the long-term effects of witnessing pornography from a young age, but it is not too early to talk about the current environment that girls face at school. I pay tribute to the work of the End Violence Against Women coalition, and its Schools Safe 4 Girls campaign. It has highlighted the fact that one in three teenage girls has experienced sexual violence from a partner. In a survey of year nine children as part of the From Boys to Men project, 40% of children interviewed reported that hitting a partner was okay in at least one of the circumstances highlighted. If we are serious about tackling child abuse, we must be serious about tackling the climate in which children and young people grow up, and the images to which they are exposed.
As well as stopping child abuse, we need to tackle staged rape and child abuse—the so-called rape porn industry that depicts rape and child abuse and that, because it is staged by actors who are over 18, is legal. The End Violence Against Women coalition and the South London Rape Crisis centre have highlighted the material that is available. It includes: “Young schoolgirls abducted and cruelly raped. Hear her screams”, “Little schoolgirl raped by teacher”, “Tiny girl sleep rape” and “Girl raped at gun point”. One expert, Professor Clare McGlynn of Durham university, has said:
“It is undeniable that the proliferation and tolerance of such images and the messages they convey contributes to a cultural climate where sexual violence is condoned.”
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland said in opening the debate, both Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell had viewed violent and misogynistic pornography before they murdered young girls. Labour is committed to looking at how to ban such violent content. I hope the Minister joins the Opposition by committing the Government to the principle of banning such material.
In a free society in the digital age, we cannot protect young people from every danger they could encounter, but we can tilt the odds in their favour. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to support the motion.