Online Safety Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 19th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, first, I am relieved to hear that I am not the only thick person in this Committee, because I have struggled to understand and follow the detail and interconnectedness of everything in the Bill. The maxim that you need simplicity and clarity, especially if the Bill is going to be effective, is really important. That is why I think this amendment is a no-brainer: just set it out at the front.

Secondly, the amendment provides a guideline, or a lens through which we read the complexity of what follows. That might even lead us, as we go through some of the detail, to strip stuff out and make it simpler for everybody to understand. It does not have to grow the extent of the Bill. It might help us to be—I think this is the most important word I have heard—disciplined as we proceed. I support the amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I suggest, very briefly, that we look at this amendment in a slightly different way. Understandably, we have a tendency in Parliament to look at things through our own lens, and perhaps some of us are viewing this amendment as a reminder of what the Bill is about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, made a very good point about clarity. I suggest we imagine that we are one of the companies that the Bill is designed to try to better manage. Imagine you are in the boardroom, or on the executive management team, and you are either already doing business in the United Kingdom or are considering entering the UK market. You know there is an enormous piece of legislation that is designed to try to bring some order to the area your business is in. At the moment, without this amendment, the Bill is a lawyer’s paradise, because it can be looked at in a multitude of ways. I put it to the Minister and the Bill team that it would be extremely helpful to have something in the Bill that makes it completely clear, to any business thinking of engaging in any online activities in the United Kingdom, what this legislation is about.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am one of those who found the Bill extremely complicated, but I do not find this amendment extremely complicated. It is precise, simple, articulate and to the point, and I think it gives us a good beginning for debating what is an extremely complex Bill.

I support this amendment because I believe, and have done so for a very long time, that social media has done a great deal more harm than good, even though it is capable of doing great good. Whether advertently or inadvertently, the worst of all things it has done is to destroy childhood innocence. We are often reminded in this House that the prime duty of any Government is to protect the realm, and of course it is. But that is a very broad statement. We can protect the realm only if we protect those within it. Our greatest obligation is to protect children—to allow them to grow up, so far as possible, uncorrupted by the wicked ways of a wicked world and with standards and beliefs that they can measure actions against. Complex as it is, the Bill is a good beginning, and its prime purpose must be the protection and safeguarding of childhood innocence.

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, spoke a few moments ago about the instructions he was given as a young preacher. I remember when I was training to be a lay reader in the Church of England, 60 or more years ago, being told that if you had been speaking for eight minutes and had not struck oil, stop boring. I think that too is a good maxim.

We have got to try to make the Bill comprehensible to those around the country whom it will affect. The worst thing we do, and I have mentioned this in connection with other Bills, is to produce laws that are unintelligible to the people in the country; that is why I was very sympathetic to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Inglewood. This amendment is a very good beginning. It is clear and precise. I think nearly all of us who have spoken so far would like to see it in the Bill. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, rising—does she wish to intervene?