Online Safety Bill

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Merron]

134: Schedule 7, page 202, line 9, at end insert—
“Animal cruelty
A1_ An offence under section 4 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (unnecessary suffering).A2_ An offence under section 19 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 (unnecessary suffering).A3_ An offence under section 1 of the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 (offences).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds a number of animal welfare offences to the list of priority offences outlined in Schedule 7.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an unusual group: it has just one amendment—Amendment 134 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson. It has also been signed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, whom I thank; I know that the right reverend Prelate is currently in a debate in Grand Committee.

This amendment seeks to add animal cruelty offences to the list of priority offences set out in Schedule 7, which would require platforms to proactively identify and remove content that depicts animal cruelty, including torture and death. This content is increasingly common, and it is shocking—films of cats being kicked about as footballs, dogs being set on fire and monkeys being ensnared into plastic bottles with dogs then being set upon them. All this is widely shared and viewed, and none of it is properly addressed by social media companies. These animal cruelty offences clearly meet the criteria of prevalence, risk of harm and severity of that harm, which have been set out and previously used by the Government to justify additions to the list.

I turn first to prevalence. The Social Media Animal Cruelty Coalition database comprises over 13,000 social media links showing animal abuse, collected over the past two years. Social media platforms often fail to remove animal cruelty films when they are reported, despite that being a clear contravention of their policies. In fact, less than 50% of links reported by the coalition since August 2021 have been removed, with predictions of a “rapid proliferation” of animal cruelty footage over the years ahead. This analysis is supported by the RSPCA, which received 756 reports of animal cruelty on social media in 2021, compared with 431 in 2020 and 157 in 2019.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for speaking so powerfully, as ever. I very much recognise the harms and horrors of cruelty to animals online or anywhere else. The UK has a proud history of championing and taking action on animal welfare, and the Government are committed to strengthening animal welfare standards and protections.

Our Action Plan for Animal Welfare demonstrates the Government’s commitment to a brighter future for animals both at home and abroad and provides a foundation for conversations on how we can continue to improve animal welfare and conservation in future. I can also reassure your Lordships that this Bill will tackle some of the worst online activities related to animal cruelty.

Amendment 134 seeks to add certain specified animal offences to the list of priority offences in Schedule 7. It is worth reminding ourselves that the Bill will already tackle some of the worst examples of animal cruelty online. This includes, for example, where the content amounts to an existing priority offence, such as extreme pornography, which platforms must prevent users encountering. Equally, where content could cause psychological harm to children, it must be tackled. Where the largest services prohibit types of animal abuse content in their terms of service, the Bill will require them to enforce those terms and remove such content. Improved user reporting and redress systems, as mandated by the Bill, will make it easier for users to report such content.

The Bill, however, is not designed to address every harm on the internet. For it to have an impact, it needs to be manageable for both Ofcom and the companies. For it to achieve the protections envisaged since the start of the Bill, it must focus on its mission of delivering protections for people. Schedule 7 has been designed to focus on the most serious and prevalent offences affecting humans in the UK, on which companies can take effective and meaningful action. The offences in this schedule are primarily focused on where the offences can be committed online—for example, threats to kill or the unlawful supply of drugs. The offences that the noble Baroness proposes cannot be committed online; while that would not stop them from being added for inchoate purposes, the Government do not believe that platforms would be able to take effective steps proactively to identify and tackle such offences online.

Crucially, the Government feel that adding too many offences to Schedule 7 that cannot be effectively tackled also risks spreading companies’ resources too thinly, particularly for smaller and micro-businesses, which would have to address these offences in their risk assessments. Expanding the list of offences in Schedule 7 to include the animal cruelty offences could dilute companies’ efforts to tackle other offences listed in the Bill which have long been the priority of this legislation.

Beyond the Bill, however, the Government are taking a very wide range of steps to tackle animal cruelty. Since publishing the Action Plan for Animal Welfare in 2021, the Government have brought in new laws to recognise animal sentience, introduced additional legislative measures to tackle illegal hare-coursing, and launched the animal health and welfare pathway as part of our agricultural transition plan. We will, of course, continue to discuss these important issues with colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who lead on our world-leading protections for animals, but, for the reasons I have set out, I am unable to accept this amendment. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw it.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his considered reply, outlining the ways in which he believes the Bill supports where this amendment is going. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for his support. Indeed, it is my view that the criteria have been met for inclusion of these animal welfare offences in this list of priority offences. It is, of course, disappointing that the Minister does not share the view that we have expressed.

Perhaps I could pick up a point from the Minister’s response. It seems to me that something that is illegal offline should also be illegal online. If something is illegal under the various Acts referred to but there is user-to-user content of these animal cruelty films, for example, is the Minister saying that this will be covered by the Bill in its current form?

I note that the Minister has spoken of continuing discussions with Defra, which is very welcome. I am also requesting a meeting to pursue this. It is something on which we could make progress, and I hope that the Minister would be open to that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 134 withdrawn.