Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Nash Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

This House has long campaigned for the Government to include addictiveness as a stand-alone harm. We believed we had secured it on the last day of Report on what is now the OSA, but Ofcom has repeatedly said that it does not have the power. I recognise that this last point is outwith this Bill and my amendments, but can the Minister go back to the Government and ask: if the regulator does not have the power to regulate addictiveness, would the Secretary of State use her powers under the Act to bring forward a code of conduct on it? When we advocate for a safer online environment by making an analogy with smoking, very often a Minister, an interviewer, a tech lobbyist or a civil servant interjects to say that it is a false analogy because tech does not kill. We are well past that; my inbox is a litany of bereaved parents. It does kill. I beg to move.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 271A is in my name and I support the other amendments in this group. As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill, I draw attention to my interests on the register, particularly the fact that I am an investor in a wide range of companies, including many software companies.

My Amendment 271A, if passed, would have the effect of software being used to screen out all child sexual abuse material, including live-streaming, on smartphones and tablets, and in due course on all devices. It would also apply to private communications, which is where the majority of live-streamed child sexual abuse takes place and which is not covered by the Online Safety Act.

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[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that and for her contribution to the debate and the experiences she has brought. The monitoring and evaluation of the online safety regime is a responsibility of DSIT and Ofcom, and they have developed a framework to monitor the implementation of the Act and evaluate core outcomes. This monitoring and evaluation is currently tracking the effect of the online safety regime and feeding into a post-implementation review of the 2023 Act. Where there is evidence of a need to go further to keep children safe online, including from AI-enabled harms, the Government will not hesitate to act.

If the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, will allow DSIT and Ofcom to look at those matters, I will make sure that DSIT Ministers are apprised of the discussion that we have had today. It is in this Bill, which is a Home Office Bill, but it is important that DSIT Ministers reflect on what has been said. I will ensure that we try to arrange that meeting for the noble Baroness in due course.

I want also to talk about Amendments 271A and 497ZA from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, which propose that smartphone and tablet manufacturers, importers and distributors are required to ensure that any device they have is preinstalled with technology that prevents the recording and viewing of child sexual abuse material or similar material accordingly. I acknowledge the noble Lord’s very valid intention concerning child safety and protection, and to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material online. To that end, there is a shared agreement with the Government on the need to strengthen our already world-leading online safety regime wherever necessary.

I put to the noble Lord, and to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, on his comments in support, that if nudity detection technology could be effectively deployed at scale, there could be a significant limiting impact on the production and sharing of child sexual abuse material. I accept that, but we must get this right. Application of detection technology that detects and blocks all nudity, adult and child, but which is primarily targeted at children, would be an effective intervention. I and colleagues across government want to gather evidence about the application of such technology and its effectiveness and impact. However, our assessment is that further work is needed to understand the accuracy of such tools and how they may be implemented.

We must also consider the risks that could arise from accepting this amendment, including legitimate questions about user privacy and data security. If it helps the noble Lord, Lord Nash, we will continue to assess the effect of detection tools on the performance of mobile device so that we can see how easy it is to circumvent them, how effective they are and a range of other matters accordingly. The Government’s focus is on protective measures within the Online Safety Act, but we are actively considering the potential benefits of the technology that the noble Lord has mentioned and others like it in parallel. There will be further future government interventions but they must be proportionate and driven by evidence. At the moment, we do not have sufficient evidence to ensure that we could accept the amendment from the noble Lord, but the direction of travel is one that we would support.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

Will the Minister meet me and representatives from software companies to explain why they say this technology works?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am very happy to arrange a meeting with an appropriate Minister. I would be very happy to sit in on it. Other Ministers may wish to take the lead on this, because there are technology issues as well. I have Home Office responsibilities across the board, but I have never refused a meeting with a Member of this House in my 16 months here and I am not going to start now, so the answer to that question is yes. The basic presumption at the moment is that we are not convinced that the technology is yet at the stage that the noble Lord believes it to be, but that is a matter for future operation. I again give him the assurance that, in the event that the technology proves to be successful, the Government will wish to examine it in some detail.

I have absolutely no doubt that we will revisit these matters but, for the moment, I hope that the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.