Online Safety Bill

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Ofcom will be working with the platforms over the next few months—in the lead-up to the commencement of the Bill and afterwards—to ensure that the provisions are operational, so that we get them up and running as soon as practicably possible. My right hon. Friend is right to raise the point.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In Northern Ireland we face the specific issue of the glorification of terrorism. Glorifying terrorism encourages terrorism. Is it possible that the Bill will stop that type of glorification, and therefore stop the terrorism that comes off the back of it?

[Paul Scully]

I will try to cover the hon. Member’s comments a little bit later, if I may, when I talk about some of the changes coming up later in the process.

Moving away from CSEA, I am pleased to say that new clause 53 fulfils a commitment given by my predecessor in Committee to bring forward reforms to address epilepsy trolling. It creates the two specific offences of sending and showing flashing images to an individual with epilepsy with the intention of causing them harm. Those offences will apply in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, providing people with epilepsy with specific protection from this appalling abuse. I would like to place on record our thanks to the Epilepsy Society for working with the Ministry of Justice to develop the new clause.

The offence of sending flashing images captures situations in which an individual sends a communication in a scatter-gun manner—for example, by sharing a flashing image on social media—and the more targeted sending of flashing images to a person who the sender knows or suspects is a person with epilepsy. It can be committed by a person who forwards or shares such an electronic communication as well as by the person sending it. The separate offence of showing flashing images will apply if a person shows flashing images to someone they know or suspect to have epilepsy by means of an electronic communications device—for example, on a mobile phone or a TV screen.

The Government have listened to parliamentarians and stakeholders about the impact and consequences of this reprehensible behaviour, and my thanks go to my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Dean Russell), for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb), for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for their work and campaigning. [Interruption.] Indeed, and the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), who I am sure will be speaking on this later.

New clause 53 creates offences that are legally robust and enforceable so that those seeking to cause harm to people with epilepsy will face appropriate criminal sanctions. I hope that will reassure the House that the deeply pernicious activity of epilepsy trolling will be punishable by law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I will try to keep my remarks very much in scope.

The harmful communications offence in clause 151 was a reform to communication offences proposed in the Bill. Since the Bill has been made public, parliamentarians and stakeholders have expressed concern that the threshold that would trigger prosecution for the offence of causing serious distress could bring robust but legitimate conversation into the illegal space. In the light of that concern, we have decided not to take forward the harmful communications offence for now. That will give the Government an opportunity to consider further how the criminal law can best protect individuals from harmful communications, and ensure that protections for free speech are robust.

[Jim Shannon]

This is about the protection of young people, and we are all here for the same reason, including the Minister. We welcome the changes that he is putting forward, but the Royal College of Psychiatrists has expressed a real concern about the mental health of children, and particularly about how screen time affects them. NHS Digital has referred to one in eight 11 to 16-year-olds being bullied. I am not sure whether we see in the Bill an opportunity to protect them, so perhaps the Minister can tell me the right way to do that.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the wider use of screens and screen time, and that is why Ofcom’s media literacy programme, and DCMS’s media literacy strategy—

--- Later in debate ---

My third point is that I welcome the measures to protect children from sexual abuse online and join my voice with all those who have thanked the Internet Watch Foundation. I have been honoured to be a champion of the foundation for over a decade. The work it does is so important and so brave. The Everyone’s Invited movement exposed the epidemic of sexual violence being suffered by young women and girls in our schools. As Children’s Minister at the time, I listened to their campaigners and learned from them how online pornography normalises sexual violence. There must be measures to prevent children from accessing all online porn. I was worried that Barnardo’s contacted me recently saying that more needs to be done to address the content that sexualises children in pornography. I hope the Minister will work closely with all children’s charities, including the wonderful Children’s Commissioner, as the Bill goes through the rest of its stages.

[Jim Shannon]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate. I thank Members who have spoken thus far for their comments. I commend the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) for what she referred to in relation to eating disorders. At this time, we are very aware of that pertinent issue: the impact that social media has—the social pressure and the peer pressure—on those who feel they are too fat when they are not, or that they are carrying weight when they are not. That is part of what the Bill tries to address. I thank the Minister for his very constructive comments—he is always constructive—and for laying out where we are. Some of us perhaps have concerns that the Bill does not go far enough. I know I am one of them and maybe Minister, you might be of the same mind yourself—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister might be of the same mind himself.

Through speaking in these debates, my office has seen an increase in correspondence from parents who are thankful that these difficult issues are being talked about. The world is changing and progressing, and if we are going to live in a world where we want to protect our children and our grandchildren—I have six grandchildren —and all other grandchildren who are involved in social media, the least we can do is make sure they are safe.

I commend the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and others, including the hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who have spoken about Zach’s law. We are all greatly impressed that we have that in the Bill through constructive lobbying. New clause 28, which the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) referred to, relates to advocacy for young people. That is an interesting idea, but I feel that advocacy should be for the parents first and not necessarily young people.

Ahead of the debate, I was in contact with the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It published a report entitled “Technology use and the mental health of children and young people”—new clause 16 is related to that—which was an overview of research into the use of screen time and social media by children and young teenagers. It has been concluded that excessive use of phones and social media by a young person is detrimental to their development and mental health—as we all know and as Members have spoken about—and furthermore that online abuse and bullying has become more prevalent because of that. The right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) referred to those who are susceptible to online harm. We meet them every day, and parents tell me that our concerns are real.

A recent report by NHS Digital found that one in eight 11 to 16-year-olds reported that they had been bullied online. When parents contact me, they say that bulling online is a key issue for them, and the statistics come from those who choose to be honest and talk about it. Although the Government’s role is to create a Bill that enables protection for our children, there is also an incredible role for schools, which can address bullying. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and I talked about some of the young people we know at school who have been bullied online. Schools have stepped in and stopped that, encouraging and protecting children, and they can play that role as well.

We have all read of the story of Molly Russell, who was only 14 years old when she took her life. Nobody in this House or outside it could not have been moved by her story. Her father stated that he strongly believed that the images, videos and information that she was able to access through Instagram played a crucial part in her life being cut short. The Bill must complete its passage and focus on strengthening protections online for children. Ultimately, the responsibility is on large social media companies to ensure that harmful information is removed, but the Bill puts the onus on us to hold social media firms to account and to ensure that they do so.

Harmful and dangerous content for children comes in many forms—namely, online abuse and exposure to self-harm and suicidal images. In addition, any inappropriate or sexual content has the potential to put children and young people at severe risk. The Bill is set to put provisions in place to protect victims in the sharing of nude or intimate photos. That is increasingly important for young people, who are potentially being groomed online and do not understand the full extent of what they are doing and the risks that come with that. Amendments have been tabled to ensure that, should such cases of photo sharing go to court, provisions are in place to ensure complete anonymity for the victims—for example, through video links in court, and so on.

I commend the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), who is not in her place, for her hard work in bringing forward new clause 48. Northern Ireland, along with England and Wales, will benefit from new clause 53, and I welcome the ability to hand down sentences of between six months and potentially five years.

Almost a quarter of girls who have taken a naked image have had their image sent to someone else online without their permission. Girls face very distinct and increased risks on social media, with more than four in five online grooming crimes targeting girls, and 97% of child abuse material featuring the sexual abuse of girls—wow, we really need to do something to protect our children and to give parents hope. There needs to be increased emphasis and focus on making children’s use of the internet safer by design. Once established, all platforms and services need to have the capacity and capability to respond to emerging patterns of sexual abuse, which often stem from photo sharing.

The Minister referred to terrorism and how terrorism can be promoted online. I intervened on him to mention the glorification of IRA terrorism and how that encourages further acts of terrorism and people who are susceptible to be involved. I am quite encouraged by the Minister’s response, and I think that we need to take a significant step. Some in Northern Ireland, for instance, try to rewrite history and use the glorification of terrorism for that purpose. We would like to see strengthening of measures to ensure that those involved in those acts across Northern Ireland are controlled.

In conclusion, there are many aspects of the Bill that I can speak in support of in relation to the benefits of securing digital protections for those on social media. This is, of course, about protecting not just children, but all of us from the dangers of social media. I have chosen to speak on these issues as they are often raised by constituents. There are serious matters regarding the glorification and encouragement of self-harm that the Bill needs to address. We have heard stories tonight that are difficult to listen to, because they are true stories from people we know, and we have heard horror stories about intimate photo sharing online. I hope that action on those issues, along with the many others that the Government are addressing, will be embedded in the Bill with the intent to finally ensure that we have regulations and protection for all people, especially our children—I think of my children and grandchildren, and like everybody else, my constituents.

[Dean Russell]

I welcome the Minister to his place; I know that he will be excellent in this role, and it is incredible that he is so across the detail in such a short time.

I will primarily talk about new clause 53—that may not be that surprising, given how often it has been spoken about today—which is, ultimately, about Zach’s law. Zach is a truly heroic figure, as has been said. He is a young child with cerebral palsy, autism and epilepsy who was cruelly trolled by sick individuals who sent flashing images purposely to cause seizures and cause him damage. That was not unique to Zach, sadly; it happened to many people across the internet and social media. When somebody announced that they were looking for support, having been diagnosed with epilepsy, others would purposely identify that and target the person with flashing images to trigger seizures. That is absolutely despicable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) has been my partner in crime—or in stopping the crime—over the past two years, and this has been a passion for us. Somebody said to me recently that we should perhaps do our victory lap in the Chamber today for the work that has been done to change the law, but Zach is the person who will get to go around and do that, as he did when he raised funds after he was first cruelly trolled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) also deserves an awful lot of praise. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge and I worked with him on the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill this time last year. It was incredible to work with Members of both Houses to look at how we can make the Bill better. I am pleased about the response to so many measures that we put forward, including the fact that we felt that the phrase “legal but harmful” created too many grey areas that would not catch the people who were doing these awful—what I often consider to be—crimes online to cause harm.

I want to highlight some of what has been done over the past two years to get Zach’s law to this point. If I ever write a memoir, I am sure that my diaries will not be as controversial as some in the bookshops today, but I would like to dedicate a chapter to Zach’s law, because it has shown the power of one individual, Zach, to change things through the democratic process in this House, to change the law for the entire country and to protect people who are vulnerable.

Not only was Zach’s case raised in the Joint Committee’s discussions, but afterwards my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge and I managed to get all the tech companies together on Zoom—most people will probably not be aware of this—to look at making technical changes to stop flashing images being sent to people. There were lots of warm words: lots of effort was supposedly put in so that we would not need a law to stop flashing images. We had Giphy, Facebook, Google, Twitter—all these billion-pound platforms that can do anything they want, yet they could not stop flashing images being sent to vulnerable people. I am sorry, but that is not the work of people who really want to make a difference. That is people who want to put profit over pain—people who want to ensure that they look after themselves before they look after the most vulnerable.