Internet Safety
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
I completely agree that it is important that UKCIS helps to contribute to online safety. That is why we expanded its role from concentrating just on child internet safety to include, as the noble Baroness mentioned, hate crime, serious violence and extremism. As far as resources are concerned, the previous body—the United Kingdom Council for Child Internet Safety—has demonstrated that getting together a mix of tech companies, public bodies and government achieves good results. That is not the only thing we are doing. The online harms White Paper, which is coming by the end of the winter, will address some of the other issues, one of which will have to be funding.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, as the Minister said, the body we are speaking about has developed from being concerned specifically with children to having a more generic nature. It has a complex set of relationships with various departments of government, including health, the Home Office and education, especially the part dealing with young people’s mental health. It is a complicated structure. In the consultation, a lack of direction in the previous body was bemoaned. Can the Minister assure us that there is a sense of direction and purpose, appropriately monitored, in this voluntary body? Given that we have extended the remit from just children to a generic range of interests—and given that in the past month or so in this House, children and obesity, knife crime, bullying, gambling, image and performance-enhancing drugs and the internet have all been discussed—can the Minister assure me that the needs of children are not being diminished as a result of being wrapped up into a more generic body?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
On the noble Lord’s first question, there has just been a board meeting and the council has reaffirmed the areas of focus: first, online harms experienced by children; secondly, radicalisation and extremism; thirdly, violence against women and girls; fourthly, serious violence; and fifthly, hate crime and hate speech. So there is a definite desire to address these very important matters. As I said in my previous Answer to the noble Baroness, we will look at other areas in the online harms White Paper.
There is absolutely no doubt that children are still a prime concern, as the composition of the board shows. The director of BBC Children’s, the CEO of Childnet, the Children’s Commissioner, the CEOs of Internet Matters and the Internet Watch Foundation, the lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the head of child safety online for the NSPCC and the deputy director of child protection for the Scottish Government are all members of the board and they will certainly make sure that children’s issues are at the forefront of their work.
Sport: Drugs
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, we can only be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his perseverance in this cause. I have had occasion, as others have, of reading the Library briefing, and the piece de resistance was the debate in late 2015 when the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, laid out the case perfectly. In a sense, all we need to do is resurrect what was said then in such an authoritative way. The Government in their response made it clear that they are aware of the seriousness of this question and are anxious to address it as creatively and as generously as they can.
In reading about all this I did not want to go over the ground so ably covered before me in so far as this problem affects sporting practitioners. For the very first time in my life, I read one of the annals of epidemiology—the things you get drawn to by membership of this House. One long article states that this is the very first meta-analysis of the global lifetime prevalence rate of anabolic-androgenic steroid use. I cannot oblige the wish expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, to avoid acronyms. I think that AAS is what that will have to be from now on.
However, the findings in that article suggest that the use of AAS is more prevalent among teenagers than among those older than 19 and that non-medical use of these steroids has steadily increased in recent years. Indeed, it has become a major global public health problem that requires the attention of policymakers and researchers. However, it is the spread from the focused sporting evidence to something rather more general that has really caught my attention.
When looking at the material put our way by UKAD, which is concerned with the use of drugs in sport, I found myself looking most specifically at the fact that it has found users as young as 14 indulging in these substances. The fact that we cannot yet control the internet sufficiently makes it possible for young people to access these drugs. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, injecting has become normalised.
It is disturbing that UKAD sets out the programmes for dealing with the problem. For the 16 to 24 age group, there is a programme with gyms and leisure centres in mind; for the 16-plus age group, there is a programme with university and colleges of education in mind; for those aged 14 to 18, there is the Clean Games Policy, for use in major sporting events; for children of 11 to 16 years of age, there is Think Real, delivered in PE lessons with the collaboration of Sport England; and for those aged 10 to 14, in years 7 to 10 in schools, the Get Set for the Spirit of Sport material is taught in the classroom. What worries me is the fact that all those strands of educational initiative have clearly been devised in response to what is perceived as a prevalent problem.
I was surprised to see turn up on my desk material from the Welsh Rugby Union, with its anti-doping protocol and guidance. We know that rugby lends itself to a massing of the body, and there is a great temptation for those who want to get on in the professional game to resort to that. However, in its protocol and guidance the WRU targets under-15 squads of amateur players, who are beginning to get the idea that using these drugs and massing their bodies in this way will help them when one day they turn to a more representative form of playing the game.
Out of all this, and without repeating what others have said, I have become aware of something that I want to leave as my contribution to this debate. I have been standing in this position at the Dispatch Box for only a few months and we have discussed doping in sport more than once, as well as how it affects children. Only a year ago, the Minister and I, together with my dear friend Wilfred—my noble friend Lord Stevenson—were engaged endlessly in discussing the Data Protection Bill, which became an Act. Significant parts of that legislation had children and the internet in mind, and a number of amendments were framed to help deal with the problem of children being exposed to possible misuse of the internet.
Only a month ago, I stood here talking about children and gambling, and the way that the advertising industry and television target children by exploiting their interest in sport and other events. I think that the number of children quoted was half a million. So children feature across all those fronts. We have also just heard about a debate that took place here last week on the subject of knife crime—again, involving teenagers—and only yesterday the head of Ofsted talked about obesity among children, as well as knife crime and bullying.
In all those things, I see a common thread. There is a need to take the specificity of this debate and incorporate it holistically with all the other concerns that have been expressed in this Chamber in recent times, recognising that perhaps the time has come for us to look generically at how the needs of children are addressed. The Children Act 1989 was a great step forward and a real turning point, and it seems that we are now ready to look generically at this question all over again. Therefore, I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top has tabled a debate for two weeks on Thursday that will simply ask us to look at the state of young people in our society today. It sounds vacuous and general but it could be the key to entering this very necessary area of consideration, looking at the needs of children in general across these fronts so that they might again just enjoy being young.
Gambling Industry
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, for most people—the vast majority of people—gambling is not a problem; problem gambling is less than 1%. But I take my noble friend’s point that, for a small number of people, gambling can be a problem, and advertising could contribute to it. There is no reliable evidence on the extent to which it contributes, but we are putting tough new guidance into advertising to protect vulnerable people, including children. A large advertising public service campaign is being put out to promote responsible gambling. But advertising is one of the things we are considering, so I shall take my noble friend’s point on board.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, on previous occasions when we have looked at gambling and fixed-odds betting terminals were considered, there was a perceptible measure of support for the rather humble measures we proposed, which have now been accepted. I suspect that the mandatory rather than the voluntary levy would command equal support from all Benches. Although I am repeating the Question asked by the right reverend Prelate, I ask again: how long do we have to wait for studies in an industry that generates an enormous amount of money—so much so that one person can have a pay rise of £45 million? It would not be onerous to ask for a mandatory rather than a voluntary levy, which I am sure is the next step that as a House we should responsibly be advocating.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The question is why you would want to introduce a mandatory levy. At the moment, GambleAware gets more than the money it asks for. It says it needs £10 million a year, and it is getting an extra £5 million from penalty payments, so it is getting more than it asks for. As I said, if we find that there is a need for more money and the voluntary system is not producing it, we will consider other options.
Armistice Day: Centenary
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to play a part in a debate of this kind and I am very grateful for the opportunity.
As it happens, the first speech, by the Minister, and the last, by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, have both referenced the participation by the German President in our commemorative events this weekend. That emboldens me to begin by quoting from a German philosopher, Leibniz, who once said that the present is suffused with the past and charged with the future. There is, then, no time like the present, this centenary moment, to take stock of what has gone before while positioning ourselves for what is to come.
This debate has been a perfect vehicle for exploring this dynamic, and we can only thank all who have contributed for their evocative, personal and challenging remarks. From this vantage point, we in this Parliament, and the nation at large, must bring the past alive again, not for its own sake but in order to recommit ourselves to the future—a note that has been struck again and again during this debate.
A kaleidoscopic array of experiences has flooded my mind, as it has the minds of us all, and shown us just how connected we all are to the events of 1914-18. Let me run down a short list of such memories that spring from my own mind, not in the hope of being exhaustive but in an attempt to illustrate the wide spectrum of our national and international life that was drawn into this conflict 100 years ago.
The Sunday school room in Burry Port where I used to play and learn as a boy was a simple, lean-to, wooden affair—not Lincoln Cathedral. A certificate on the wall carried the name of Bert Owen. Many years later, I discovered that he had survived the horrendous battle for Mametz Wood in 1915 but died two years later at the battle of Messines. A photograph on our kitchen wall at home shows Private Robert Edward Rhodes with his simple medals, from Staffordshire. He would have been my wife’s great-uncle. He died aged 21 in Flanders fields. These were two lads from small towns, just like millions of others, and many references have been made to just such people. “Short days” they,
“lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved”.
My student holiday job was as a male nurse in St David’s mental hospital in Carmarthen. I shaved and bathed a poor man who had been gassed and shell-shocked 40 years previously before being committed to that institution where, as far as I know, he spent the remainder of his days. I remember the geriatric ward of a local hospital at the very beginning of my life as a Methodist minister. The mere sight of a young man wearing a clerical collar was enough to set off a barrage of abuse aimed directly at me—there was no place for God in the minds of so many of those who endured the trenches. Those were two hospitals where veterans were victims, just like millions of others, who had heard,
“The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells”,
but were now left to deal with their ghosts and their unresolved anger, or else just kept out of sight because their cases were too hard for us to contemplate.
Another of my holiday jobs was to help demolish what had been a national explosives factory in Pembrey. Millions of shells and tons of explosives were manufactured there. The factory poured its toxic chemicals into the sea where I and my pals used to swim and cavort. Its workforce during the Great War was largely made up of women—their yellowing skin and hair making it only too obvious where they worked.
Margaret Broadley was deputy matron of the London Hospital. She lived out her life as a spinster, sublimating the deep energies of the love she once had for her sweetheart through her chosen vocation of nursing. She never forgot, as she told me often enough, his kisses and caresses. Those were women, like millions of others, working tirelessly behind the scenes, so many of them widowed before they were wed.
I am wearing a khadi poppy, of which much mention has been made. Let it stand this evening, with permission, for Indians, Africans and Caribbean soldiers, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians.
Let us remember that not only soldiers served from our imperial regions. I can picture the endless supply lines that supported the military effort. Recently, I visited Kenya and met a number of people from a sprawling township on the edge of Nairobi known to this day as Kariokor—the Carrier Corps. The place name survives in its strange and mutilated form.
“Gathered like pearls in their alien graves”,
lay what the poet Sarojini Naidu called the “Gift of India”, and she would surely have added those of so many other places from around the Empire too. The reading of that poem was one of the highlights of our Parliament Choir’s commemorative performance of Mozart’s Mass in C minor just last week.
I might also mention a cantata, a composition of Brian Hughes performed in Cardiff by the National Youth Choir of Wales, accompanied by the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, called “Sorrows of the Somme”. Indeed, as has been mentioned often, the wide cultural response to the safeguarding of the memories of that awful time have been very striking.
I come towards the end of my list of memories. I remember the memorial I dedicated in the National Memorial Arboretum in my capacity as president of the Boys Brigade. We remembered 11 members of our movement who had been awarded the Victoria Cross for their courage and leadership during the Great War. I remember that the names of hundreds of young soldiers are written in magnificent copper-plate on a vast, framed roll of honour in the parish of Saint John, in Croydon, where I now live—or chiselled on large marble slabs on the chapel wall at Trinity College, Cambridge. They remind us of all those who paid the supreme price on the battlefields, and they remind us of the classlessness of those from across the social spectrum who gave what was their today so that we might enjoy what would become our tomorrow.
“At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them”—
the words of Lawrence Binyon, will ring out across the land over the next few days. I feel a need to hold these words up for greater scrutiny, especially the word “remember”, and I hope noble Lords will forgive me for this. The verb “to remember” is one of the English language’s precious jewels. It has a distinctive meaning which is often lost in the way we employ it. I suspect we would do well to pronounce it differently: to “re-member”, with a hyphen in it, rather than simply “remember”. We “re-member” that which has been “dis-membered”. Memory serves a greater purpose than merely recapturing something that is in danger of passing out of our minds. “Re-membering” is about rebuilding a fragmented world, putting flesh on the ideals we have for our world. How better to honour the memory of those who paid such a price for our freedom?
What followed the First World War, far from “re-membering” a dismembered social order, too often simply added to its fragmentation. It concerned itself with punishment and revenge rather than reconstruction. The Second World War became an inevitable consequence of the failure to win the peace.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has said, it was in the years following the disintegration caused by the Second World War that the world seemed at last to have come to its senses. The founding of the United Nations and its various agencies, the Bretton Woods agreement, the Marshall Plan, the European Union and NATO were all aimed at “re-membering” a dismembered world. We set our target—let us not forget this—on: saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war; reaffirming faith in fundamental human rights; establishing and maintaining the rule of law; promoting social progress. The object of our emphatic intention to honour the memory of those who served their King and country in that godforsaken war surely has to be to build a world worthy of their sacrifice.
Abraham Lincoln saw it that way—and only too clearly—when he stood at the battlefield of Gettysburg during his nation’s Civil War:
“The world … can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated … to the great task remaining before us … that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion … that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom … and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
Gosh, those words ring true now. Lincoln! Thou shouldst be living at this hour: the world hath need of thee.
I am grateful for the privilege of adding my voice to those who have contributed to this debate, and of giving thanks for the Armistice which brought the First World War to its end. The challenge it leaves us with is clear enough. We must work hard for the “re-membering” of our dismembered world. We will truly honour the memory of those who have gone before when we put our best efforts into building a world fit for those who have yet to be born. Remembering is a forward-looking activity.
Pornographic Websites: Age Verification
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I agree that there are areas of concern on social media sites. As the noble Baroness rightly says, they are not covered by the Digital Economy Act. We had many hours of discussion about that in this House. However, she will be aware that we are producing an online harms White Paper in the winter in which some of these issues will be considered. If necessary, legislation will be brought forward to address these, and not only these but other harms too. I agree that the BBFC should find out about the effectiveness of the limited amount that age verification can do; it will commission research on that. Also, the Digital Economy Act itself made sure that the Secretary of State must review its effectiveness within 12 to 18 months.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, once again I find this issue raising a dynamic that we became familiar with in the only too recent past. The Government are to be congratulated on getting the Act on to the statute book and, indeed, on taking measures to identify a regulator as well as to indicate that secondary legislation will be brought forward to implement a number of the provisions of the Act. My worry is that, under one section of the Digital Economy Act, financial penalties can be imposed on those who infringe this need; the Government seem to have decided not to bring that provision into force at this time. I believe I can anticipate the Minister’s answer but—in view of the little drama we had last week over fixed-odds betting machines—we would not want the Government, having won our applause in this way, to slip back into putting things off or modifying things away from the position that we had all agreed we wanted.
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I completely understand where the noble Lord is coming from but what he said is not quite right. The Digital Economy Act included a power that the Government could bring enforcement with financial penalties through a regulator. However, they decided—and this House decided—not to use that for the time being. For the moment, the regulator will act in a different way. But later on, if necessary, the Secretary of State could exercise that power. On timing and FOBTs, we thought carefully—as noble Lords can imagine—before we said that we expect the date will be early in the new year,
Public Sector Television Content
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I pretty much agree with that. The Secretary of State said last month that,
“the government will support PSBs to ensure they continue to thrive, and stay prominent, as part of a healthy, sustainable and dynamic media landscape”.
If Ofcom, which is the expert on this, makes it clear that there is a problem that needs fixing by legislation, we will look to bring that forward.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I have the same quote from September 2018 in front of me, and I am delighted to hear that the Government are aware of the urgency of this. Three months before that report, Ofcom indicated that legislation would be necessary to achieve the objectives we have all agreed about. Post Brexit, where will such legislation figure in the queue of legislation ganging up on us, in order to do justice to the sense of urgency that has already been accepted?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I would like to say that it will have prominence, but obviously I cannot give a guarantee today. Brexit will involve a lot of legislation. The fact is, we understand the urgency, that the media landscape is changing and how technology is changing. The old linear EPG is not fit for purpose. It is not for me to say where it will fit in the legislative programme because that is not my responsibility, but we understand the issues. We are waiting for the Ofcom report following its consultation, which has now finished; I believe it is due early in 2019.
Online Anonymity
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
“Do as you would be done by” is a sensible basis for progressing. However, there are people who would not subscribe to that—I think “evil” is the correct word for them—and we have to take those into account. The Law Commission is looking at the body of law which allows the authorities to trace people to make sure that it is effective. It will publish its first report at the beginning of November. We will make sure that the law is capable of pursuing those who will not follow the precept mentioned by the noble Lord.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, in such instances as we are imagining in a Question like this, there are the individuals who, under the cloak of anonymity, use the internet for purposes that may be legitimate or not, but there are also the platforms that host those messages. I believe that in Germany a mechanism is used to make it mandatory on the part of platforms to shut down harmful messages within a certain time beyond which fines are imposed and measures taken. Might the Minister and Government consider such a device?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Lord is right. I believe that the law in Germany is that one has to take down abusive content within eight hours once the host has been informed of it. There is some doubt whether that complies with EU law. Nevertheless, it is something we will look at, because the social media code of practice also includes such measures, which at the moment are voluntary. Many of the large and well-known media sites try to comply with such things; the problem is that new sites appear and gain huge scale very quickly and do not always behave in the same way. The whole point of the White Paper which will be published in the winter is to look at areas where we might need legislation.
Sport: Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I cannot think of a better example than that of the noble Lord, as a 1964 Olympic sprinter: he proves the point that role models are very important. It is important that those who receive honours are suitably checked so that they behave correctly—that is, not only legally but also in an ethical and moral sense.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, we have rightly talked about education and we congratulate the Government on significantly increasing the amount of money available to UKAD. However, there is the whole question of anticipating the development of such practices and preventing them. Such briefing as I have been able to put together suggests that internationally, there is a movement of illicit drugs and substances across borders. Can the Minister help us to understand whether, after the momentous events we are about to experience in coming out of Europe, the sharing of intelligence and the availability of cross-border information will apply in this particular area of endeavour?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Criminal activities are subject to the negotiations that will take place and the Home Office is responsible for those. On doping in sport, we already have an international system based on WADA which I do not think will change just because we are coming out of Europe. This is an international problem that extends far beyond the borders of Europe. However, I take the noble Lord’s point that it is very important that we continue with that system and I see no reason why we should not be able to.
Distributed Ledger Technologies
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ashton of Hyde
As I said, the evaluations are at too early a stage to say. Projects are being undertaken, however, and the Department for International Development is one of those undertaking a proof of concept at the moment.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, we have heard that various studies and evaluations are taking place. It is an extraordinarily complex area but it seems to me, even as a lay person, that its outcomes will be amazingly innovative and helpful. I, of course, must leave the technology to others, but if any questions raised by these evaluations need a closer ethical and moral look, will somebody be monitoring the situation to make sure they are referred to the data ethics body we have talked about?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I agree with the noble Lord. Most technology has ethical concerns, particularly the internet and the fact that, by definition, it is cross-border. We not only have to get our own regulatory house in order, and think of these ethical considerations, but we have to work internationally to try to get consensus. The point about distributed ledger technologies is that they build trust without always having regulations because everyone has the same copy of the same data, which provides a great advantage.
Gambling: Fixed-odds Betting Terminals
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, on a day when those in the party opposite are endeavouring to contain their disarray within the bounds of public decorum, will the Minister cast his mind back to the day alluded to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans when euphoria was released along the Benches around the House at the news that the limit was to be fixed at £2? I do not think that anyone in that debate was under the impression that it would take as long as is now being suggested. All the arguments were rehearsed and great enthusiasm was expressed. Is the Minister convinced, on looking at the respective interests of the revenues—not the employment—of the gambling industry and the well-being of the 14% of problem gamblers produced by these machines, that the right decision has been taken?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am not clear to what decision the noble Lord refers. When we made the announcement that the revenue forgone from FOBTs would be made up by remote gaining duty, we said that the Chancellor would introduce that at the relevant Budget. We want it to be revenue neutral and so the remote gaming duty has to be in place to make up for the forgone revenues. We said that at the time. We are implementing this as quickly as we can. A process has to be gone through and we are keen to get on with it.