Children’s Rights: Digital Environment

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, we are consulting on those matters and will report back. It is clear that in the online safety Bill one of the sanctions available to Ofcom, if providers have inappropriate content that children are gaining access to, is to disconnect payment services such as that from their websites and social media services.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that right-set standards and rightly considered regulation of legislation need be neither a drain on our economy nor a strain on our society? Rather, they can be part of enabling us to have the economy we need and the society we want, with all the individual and collective well-being that goes with that.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, this is entirely what we are seeking to do through the national online media strategy that we will launch later this year, to empower citizens to use the internet safely and to make wise choices. It is why the draft Bill not only includes protections for children but proposes to entrench in legislation freedom of speech and the right of appeal, should content be removed.