Online Safety Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. She is quite right: we have to remember that we do not see these things as children and young people do.

The user advocacy body that my hon. Friend has just spoken in support of could also shine a light on the practices that are most harmful to children by using data, evidence and specialist expertise to point to new and emerging areas of harm. That would enable the regulator to ensure its risk profiles and regulatory approach remain valid and up to date. In his evidence, Andy Burrows of the NSPCC highlighted the importance of an advocacy body acting as an early warning system:

“Given the very welcome systemic approach of the regime, that early warning function is particularly important, because there is the potential that if harms cannot be identified quickly, we will see a lag where whole regulatory cycles are missed. User advocacy can help to plug that gap, meaning that harms are identified at an earlier stage, and then the positive design of the process, with the risk profiles and company risk assessments, means that those harms can be built into that particular cycle.”––[Official Report, Online Safety Public Bill Committee, 24 May 2022; c. 16, Q22.]

The provision in the new clause is comparable to those that already exist in many other sectors. For example, Citizens Advice is the statutory user advocate for consumers of energy and the postal services, and there are similar arrangements representing users of public transport. Establishing a children’s user advocacy body would ensure that the most vulnerable online users of all—children at risk of online sexual abuse—receive equivalent protections to customers of post offices or passengers on a bus.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The hon. Lady will recall the issue that I raised earlier in the Committee’s deliberations, regarding the importance of victim support that gives people somewhere to go other than the platforms. I think that is what she is now alluding to. Does she not believe that the organisations that are already in place, with the right funding—perhaps from the fines coming from the platforms themselves—would be in a position to do this almost immediately, and that we should not have to set up yet another body, or have I misunderstood what she has said?

[Barbara Keeley]

I do not think that the right hon. Lady has misunderstood what I said. I said that the new clause would allow the Secretary of State to appoint a new or existing body as the statutory user advocate, so it could very much be either.

New clause 3 would also rebalance the interests of children against the vocal and well-resourced regulated companies. I think that is a key argument for having an advocacy body. Without such a counterbalance, large tech companies could attempt to capture independent expert voices, fund highly selective research with the intent to skew the evidence base, and then challenge regulatory decisions with the evidence base they have created.

Those tactics are not new; similar tactics are used in other regulated sectors, such as the tobacco industry. In line with other sectors, the user advocacy body should be funded by a levy on regulated companies. That would be in line with the “polluter pays” principle in part 6 and would be neutral to the Exchequer—another reason to accept it. Compared with the significant benefits and improved outcomes it would create, the levy would represent only a minimal additional burden on companies.

There is strong support for the creation of a user advocate. Research by the NSPCC shows that 88% of UK adults who responded to a YouGov survey think that it is necessary for the Bill to introduce a requirement for an independent body that can protect the interests of children at risk of online harms, including grooming and child sexual abuse.

It is also a popular option among children. YoungMinds has said that young people do not feel they are being included enough in the drafting of the Bill. It evidenced that with research it undertook that found that almost 80% of young people aged 11 to 25 surveyed had never even heard of the Bill.

A young woman told the NSPCC why she felt a children’s advocacy body is needed. She is a survivor of online grooming, and it is worth sharing what she said in full, because it is powerful and we have not shared the voices of young people enough. She said:

“When I was 13, a man in his 30s contacted me on Facebook. I added him because you just used to add anyone on Facebook. He started messaging me and I liked the attention. We’d speak every day, usually late at night for hours at a time…He started asking for photos, so I sent some. Then he asked for some explicit photos, so I did that too, and he reciprocated…In my eyes, telling anyone in my life about this man was not an option. We need to stop putting the responsibility on a vulnerable child to prevent crime and start living in a world which puts keeping children safe first. That means putting child safety at the heart of policy. I want a statutory child user advocacy body funded by the industry levy. This would play a vital role in advocating for children’s rights in regulatory debates. Being groomed made me feel incredibly vulnerable, isolated, and weak. I felt I had no one who was on my side. Having a body stand up for the rights of children in such a vulnerable position is invaluable…it is so rare that voices like mine have a chance to be heard by policy makers. Watching pre legislative debates I’ve been struck by how detached from my lived experience they can be”—

that is very much the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen made—

“and indeed the lived experiences of thousands of others. If we want to protect children, we need to understand and represent what they need.”

I hope that the Committee will recognise the bravery of that young woman in speaking about her experiences as a survivor of online grooming. I hope that the Minister will respect the insights she offers and consider the merits of having a user advocacy body to support children and young people experiencing harms online.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Member for Aberdeen North just said, but I wish to emphasise some elements because it seems to me that the Minister was not listening, although he has listened to much that has been said. I made some specific points, used quotes and brought forward some evidence. He feels that children have been consulted in the drafting of the Bill; I cited a YoungMinds survey that showed that that was very much not what young people feel. YoungMinds surveyed a large group of young people and a very large proportion of them had not even heard of the Bill.

The evidence of the young survivor of online grooming was very powerful. She very much wanted a user-advocacy body and spoke strongly about that. The Minister is getting it wrong if he thinks that somebody in that situation, who has been groomed, would go to a parent. The quote that I cited earlier was:

“Being groomed made me feel incredibly vulnerable, isolated, and weak. I felt I had no one who was on my side.”

There were clearly adults in her life she could have gone to, but she did not because she was in that vulnerable position—a position of weakness. That is why some kind of independent advocacy body for children is so important.

I do not think children and young people do feel consulted about the Bill because the organisations and charities are telling us that. I join all Opposition Members in supporting and paying tribute to the remarkable job that the Children’s Commissioner does. I quoted her setting out her worries about the Bill. I quoted her saying that

“the Bill does not do enough to respond to individual cases of abuse and that it needs to do more to understand issues and concerns directly from children.”––[Official Report, Online Safety Public Bill Committee, 24 May 2022; c. 16, Q22.]

That is what she said. She did not say, “I’m the person charged with doing this. I’m the person who has the resource and my office has the resource.”

[Dame Maria Miller]

I hope that I did not in any way confuse the debate earlier, because these two things are very separate. The idea of a user-advocacy service and individual victim support are two separate issues. The Minister has already taken up the issue of victim support, which is what the Children’s Commissioner was talking about, but that is separate from advocacy, which is much broader and not necessarily related to an individual problem.

[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed, but the Children’s Commissioner was very clear about certain elements being missing in the Bill, as is the NSPCC and other organisations. It is just not right for the Minister to land it back with the Children’s Commissioner as part of her role, because she has to do so many other things. The provisions in the Bill in respect of a parent or adult assisting a young people in a grooming situation are a very big concern. The Children’s Commissioner cited her own survey of 2,000 children, a large proportion of whom had not succeeded in getting content about themselves removed. From that, we see that she understands that the problem exists. We will push the new clause to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Online Safety Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Thursday 16th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair again, Sir Roger. I add my tribute to our former colleague, Jo Cox, on this sad anniversary. Our thoughts are with her family today, including our colleague and my hon. Friend, the Member for Batley and Spen.

We welcome the “polluter pays” principle on which this and the following clauses are founded. Clause 70 establishes a duty for providers to notify Ofcom if their revenue is at or above the specified threshold designated by Ofcom and approved by the Secretary of State. It also creates duties on providers to provide timely notice and evidence of meeting the threshold. The Opposition do not oppose those duties. However, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify what might lead to a provider or groups of providers being exempt from paying the fee. Subsection (6) establishes that

“OFCOM may provide that particular descriptions of providers of regulated services are exempt”,

subject to the Secretary of State’s approval. Our question is what kinds of services the Minister has in mind for that exemption.

Turning to clauses 71 to 76, as I mentioned, it is appropriate that the cost to Ofcom of exercising its online safety functions is paid through an annual industry fee, charged to the biggest companies with the highest revenues, and that smaller companies are exempt but still regulated. It is also welcome that under clause 71, Ofcom can make reference to factors beyond the provider’s qualifying worldwide revenue when determining the fee that a company must pay. Acknowledging the importance of other factors when computing that fee can allow for a greater burden of the fees to fall on companies whose activities may disproportionately increase Ofcom’s work on improving safety.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd has already raised our concerns about the level of funding needed for Ofcom to carry out its duties under the Bill. She asked about the creation of a new role: that of an adviser on funding for the online safety regulator. The impact assessment states that the industry fee will need to average around £35 million a year for the next 10 years to pay for operating expenditure. Last week, the Minister referred to a figure of around £88 million that has been announced to cover the first two years of the regime while the industry levy is implemented, and the same figure was used on Second Reading by the Secretary of State. Last October’s autumn Budget and spending review refers on page 115 to

“over £110 million over the SR21 period for the government’s new online safety regime through the passage and implementation of the Online Safety Bill, delivering on the government’s commitment to make the UK the safest place to be online.”

There is no reference to the £88 million figure or to Ofcom in the spending review document. Could the Minister tell us a bit more about that £88 million and the rest of the £110 million announced in the spending review, as it is relevant to how Ofcom is going to be resourced and the industry levy that is introduced by these clauses?

The Opposition feel it is critical that when the Bill comes into force, there is no gap in funding that would prevent Ofcom from carrying out its duties. The most obvious problem is that the level of funding set out in the spending review was determined when the Bill was in draft form, before more harms were brought into scope. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has also confirmed that the figure of £34.9 million a year that is needed for Ofcom to carry out its online safety duties was based on the draft Bill.

We welcome many of the additional duties included in the Bill since its drafting, such as on fraudulent advertising, but does the Minister think the same level of funding will be adequate as when the calculation was made, when the Bill was in draft form? Will he reconsider the calculations his Department has made of the level of funding that Ofcom will need for this regime to be effective in the light of the increased workload that this latest version of the Bill introduces?

In March 2021, Ofcom put out a press release stating that 150 people would be employed in the new digital and technology hub in Manchester, but that that number would be reached in 2025. Therefore, as well as the level of resource being based on an old version of the Bill, the timeframe reveals a gap of three years until all the staff are in place. Does the Minister believe that Ofcom will have everything that is needed from the start, and in subsequent years as the levy gets up and going, in order to carry out its duties?

Of course, this will depend on how long the levy might need to be in place. My understanding of the timeframe is that first, the Secretary of State must issue guidance to Ofcom about the principles to be included in the statement of principles that Ofcom will use to determine the fees payable under clause 71. Ofcom must consult with those affected by the threshold amount to inform the final figure it recommends to the Secretary of State, and must produce a statement about what amounts comprise the provider’s qualifying world revenue and the qualifying period. That figure and Ofcom’s guidance must be agreed by the Secretary of State and laid before Parliament. Based on those checks and processes, how quickly does the Minister envisage the levy coming into force?

The Minister said last week that Ofcom is resourced for this work until 2023-24. Will the levy be in place by then to fund Ofcom’s safety work into 2024-25? If not, can the Minister confirm that the Government will cover any gaps in funding? I am sure he will agree, as we all do, that the duties in the Bill must be implemented as quickly as possible, but the necessary funding must also be in place so that Ofcom as a regulator can enforce the safety duty.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I have just a short comment on these clauses. I very much applaud the Government’s approach to the funding of Ofcom through this mechanism. Clause 75 sets out clearly that the fees payable to Ofcom under section 71 should only be

“sufficient to meet, but…not exceed the annual cost to OFCOM”.

That is important when we start to think about victim support. While clearly Ofcom will have a duty to monitor the efficacy of the mechanisms in place on social media platforms, it is not entirely clear to me from the evidence or conversations with Ofcom whether it will see it as part of its duty to ensure that other areas of victim support are financed through those fees.

It may well be that the Minister thinks it more applicable to look at this issue when we consider the clauses on fines, and I plan to come to it at that point, but it would be helpful to understand whether he sees any role for Ofcom in ensuring that there is third-party specialist support for victims of all sorts of crime, including fraud or sexual abuse.

Online Safety Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Thursday 9th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley]

I will speak to new clause 1. Although duties about complaints procedures are welcome, it has been pointed out that service providers’ user complaints processes are often obscure and difficult to navigate—that is the world we are in at the moment. The lack of any external complaints option for individuals who seek redress is worrying.

The Minister has just talked about the super-complaints mechanism—which we will come to later in proceedings—to allow eligible entities to make complaints to Ofcom about a single regulated service if that complaint is of particular importance or affects a particularly large number of service users or members of the public. Those conditions are constraints on the super-complaints process, however.

An individual who felt that they had been failed by a service’s complaints system would have no source of redress. Without redress for individual complaints once internal mechanisms have been exhausted, victims of online abuse could be left with no further options, consumer protections could be compromised, and freedom of expression could be impinged upon for people who felt that their content had been unfairly removed.

Various solutions have been proposed. The Joint Committee recommended the introduction of an online safety ombudsman to consider complaints for which recourse to internal routes of redress had not resulted in resolution and the failure to address risk had led to significant and demonstrable harm. Such a mechanism would give people an additional body through which to appeal decisions after they had come to the end of a service provider’s internal process. Of course, we as hon. Members are all familiar with the ombudsman services that we already have.

Concerns have been raised about the level of complaints such an ombudsman could receive. However, as the Joint Committee noted, complaints would be received only once the service’s internal complaints procedure had been exhausted, as is the case for complaints to Ofcom about the BBC. The new clause seeks to ensure that we find the best possible solution to the problem. There needs to be a last resort for users who have suffered serious harm on services. It is only through the introduction of an external redress mechanism that service providers can truly be held to account for their decisions as they impact on individuals.

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I rise to contribute to the stand part debate on clauses 18 and 28. It was interesting, though, to hear the debate on clause 17, because it is right to ask how the complaints services will be judged. Will they work in practice? When we start to look at how to ensure that the legislation works in all eventualities, we need to ensure that we have some backstops for when the system does not work as it should.

It is welcome that there will be clear duties on providers to have operational complaints procedures—complaints procedures that work in practice. As we all know, many of them do not at the moment. As a result, we have a loss of faith in the system, and that is not going to be changed overnight by a piece of legislation. For years, people have been reporting things—in some cases, very serious criminal activity—that have not been acted on. Consumers—people who use these platforms—are not going to change their mind overnight and suddenly start trusting these organisations to take their complaints seriously. With that in mind, I hope that the Minister listened to the points I made on Second Reading about how to give extra support to victims of crimes or people who have experienced things that should not have happened online, and will look at putting in place the right level of support.

The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South talked about the idea of an ombudsman; it may well be that one should be in place to deal with situations where complaints are not dealt with through the normal processes. I am also quite taken by some of the evidence we received about third-party complaints processes by other organisations. We heard a bit about the revenge porn helpline, which was set up a few years ago when we first recognised in law that revenge pornography was a crime. The Bill creates a lot more victims of crime and recognises them as victims, but we are not yet hearing clearly how the support systems will adequately help that massively increased number of victims to get the help they need.

I will probably talk in more detail about this issue when we reach clause 70, which provides an opportunity to look at the—unfortunately—probably vast fines that Ofcom will be imposing on organisations and how we might earmark some of that money specifically for victim support, whether by funding an ombudsman or helping amazing organisations such as the revenge porn helpline to expand their services.

We must address this issue now, in this Bill. If we do not, all those fines will go immediately into the coffers of the Treasury without passing “Go”, and we will not be able to take some of that money to help those victims directly. I am sure the Government absolutely intend to use some of the money to help victims, but that decision would be at the mercy of the Treasury. Perhaps we do not want that; perhaps we want to make it cleaner and easier and have the money put straight into a fund that can be used directly for people who have been victims of crime or injustice or things that fall foul of the Bill.

I hope that the Minister will listen to that and use this opportunity, as we do in other areas, to directly passport fines for specific victim support. He will know that there are other examples of that that he can look at.

Online Safety Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley]

The purpose of this clause is to ensure that children at risk of online harms are given protections from harmful, age-inappropriate content through specific children’s safety duties for user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children.

It is welcome that the Bill contains strong provisions to ensure that service providers act upon and mitigate the risks identified in the required risk assessment, and to introduce protective systems and processes to address what children encounter. This amendment aims to ensure that online platforms are proactive in their attempts to mitigate the opportunity for sex offenders to abuse children.

As we have argued with other amendments, there are missed opportunities in the Bill to be preventive in tackling the harm that is created. The sad reality is that online platforms create an opportunity for offenders to identify, contact and abuse children, and to do so in real time through livestreaming. We know there has been a significant increase in online sexual exploitation during the pandemic. With sex offenders unable to travel or have physical contact with children, online abuse increased significantly.

In 2021, UK law enforcement received a record 97,727 industry reports relating to online child abuse, a 29% increase on the previous year, which is shocking. An NSPCC freedom of information request to police forces in England and Wales last year showed that online grooming offences reached record levels in 2020-21, with the number of sexual communications with a child offences in England and Wales increasing by almost 70% in three years. There has been a deeply troubling trend in internet-facilitated abuse towards more serious sexual offences against children, and the average age of children in child abuse images, particularly girls, is trending to younger ages.

In-person contact abuse moved online because of the opportunity there for sex offenders to continue exploiting children. Sadly, they can do so with little fear of the consequences, because detection and disruption of livestreamed abuse is so low. The duty to protect children from sexual offenders abusing them in real time and livestreaming their exploitation cannot be limited to one part of the internet and tech sector. While much of the abuse might take place on the user-to-user services, it is vital that protections against such abuse are strengthened across the board, including in the search services, as set out in clause 26.

At the moment there is no list of harms in the Bill that must be prioritised by regulated companies. The NSPCC and others have suggested including a new schedule, similar to schedule 7, setting out what the primary priority harms should be. It would be beneficial for the purposes of parliamentary scrutiny for us to consider the types of priority harm that the Government intend the Bill to cover, rather than leaving that to secondary legislation. I hope the Minister will consider that and say why it has not yet been included.

To conclude, while we all hope the Bill will tackle the appalling abuse of children currently taking place online, this cannot be achieved without tackling the conditions in which these harms can take place. It is only by requiring that steps be taken across online platforms to limit the opportunities for sex offenders to abuse children that we can see the prevalence of this crime reduced.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I rise, hopefully to speak to clause 11 more generally—or will that be a separate stand part debate, Ms Rees?

Online Safety Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Miller]

Q May I press a little further? The four new offences that you talked about, and others, and just the whole approach of regulation will lead more individuals to seek redress and support. You are not responsible for individuals; you are responsible for regulation, but you must have some thoughts on whether the current system of victim support will cope with the changes in the law and the new regulatory process. What might you want to see put in place to ensure that those victims are not all landing at your door, erroneously thinking that Ofcom will provide them with individual redress? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Kevin Bakhurst: One area that is very important and which is in the Bill and one of our responsibilities is to make sure there is a sufficiently robust and reactive complaints process from the platforms—one that people feel they can complain to and be heard—and an appeals process. We feel that that is in the Bill. We already receive complaints at Ofcom from people who have issues about platforms and who have gone to the platforms but do not feel their complaints have been properly dealt with or recognised. That is within the video-sharing platform regime. Those individual complaints, although we are not going to be very specific in looking at individual pieces of material per se, are very useful to alert us where there are issues around particular types of offence or harm that the platforms are not seen to be dealing with properly. It will be a really important part of the regime to make sure that platforms provide a complaints process that is easy to navigate and that people can use quite quickly and accessibly.

Richard Wronka: An additional point I would make, building on that, is that this is a really complex ecosystem. We understand that and have spent a lot of the last two or three years trying to get to grips with that complex ecosystem and building relationships with other participants in the ecosystem. It brings in law enforcement, other regulators, and organisations that support victims of crime or online abuse. We will need to find effective ways to work with those organisations. Ultimately, we are a regulator, so there is a limit to what we can do. It is important that those other organisations are able to operate effectively, but that is perhaps slightly outside our role.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Q To what extent do you think services should publish publicly the transparency and risk assessments that they will be providing to Ofcom?

Richard Wronka: I think our starting point here is that we think transparency is a really important principle within the regime—a fundamental principle. There are specific provisions in the Bill that speak to that, but more generally we are looking for this regime to usher in a new era of transparency across the tech sector, so that users and other participants in this process can be clearer about what platforms are doing at the moment, how effective that is and what more might be done in the future. That is something that will be a guiding principle for us as we pick up regulation.

Specifically, the Bill provides for transparency reports. Not all services in scope will need to provide transparency reports, but category 1 and 2 services will be required to produce annual transparency reports. We think that is really important. At the moment, risk assessments are not intended to be published—that is not provided for in the Bill—but the transparency reports will show the effectiveness of the systems and processes that those platforms have put in place.

Online Safety Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th May 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Barbara Keeley]

Q Jared Sine, did you have anything to add?

Jared Sine: Sure. I would add a couple of thoughts. We run our own age verification scans, which we do through the traditional age gate but also through a number of other scans that we run.

Again, online dating platforms are a little different. We warn our users upfront that, as they are going to be meeting people in real life, there is a fine balance between safety and privacy, and we tend to lean a little more towards safety. We announce to our users that we are going to run message scans to make sure there is no inappropriate behaviour. In fact, one of the tools we have rolled out is called “Are you sure? Does this bother you?”, through which our AI looks at the message a user is planning to send and, if it is an inappropriate message, a flag will pop up that says, “Are you sure you want to send this?” Then, if they go ahead and send it, the person receiving it at the other end will get a pop-up that says, “This may not be something you want to see. Go ahead and click here if you want to.” If they open it, they then get another pop-up that asks “Does this bother you?” and, if it does, you can report the user immediately.

We think that is an important step to keep our platform safe. We make sure our users know that it is happening, so it is not under the table. However, we think there has to be a balance between safety and privacy, especially when we have users who are meeting in person. We have actually demonstrated on our platforms that this reduces harassment and behaviour that would otherwise be untoward or that you would not want on the platform.

We think that we have to be careful not to tie the hands of industry to be able to come up with technological solutions and advances that can work side by side with third-party tools and solutions. We have third-party ID verification tools that we use. If we identify or believe a user is under the age of 18, we push them through an ID verification process.

The other thing to remember, particularly as it relates to online dating, is that companies such as ours and Bumble have done the right thing by saying “18-plus only on our platforms”. There is no law that says that an online dating platform has to be 18-plus, but we think it is right thing to do. I am a father of five kids; I would not want kids on my platform. We are very vigilant in taking steps to make sure we are using the latest and greatest tools available to try to make sure that our platforms are safe.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Rachel, we have, in you, what we are told is a leading, pre-eminent authority on the issue of age verification, so we are listening very carefully to what you say. I am thinking about the evidence we had earlier today, which said that it is reasonably straightforward for a large majority of young people to subvert age verification through the use of VPNs. You have been advocating third-party verification. How could we also deal with this issue of subverting the process through the use of the VPNs?

Dr Rachel O'Connell: I am the author of the technical standard PAS 1296, an age checking code of practice, which is becoming a global standard at the moment. We worked a lot with privacy and security and identity experts. It should have taken nine months, but it took a bit longer. There was a lot of thought that went into it. Those systems were developed to, as I just described, ensure a zero data, zero knowledge kind of model. What they do is enable those verifications to take place and reduce the requirement. There is a distinction between monitoring your systems, as was said earlier, for age verification purposes and abuse management. They are very different. You have to have abuse management systems. It is like saying that if you have a nightclub, you have to have bouncers. Of course you have to check things out. You need bouncers at the door. You cannot let people go into the venue, then afterwards say that you are spotting bad behaviour. You have to check at the door that they are the appropriate age to get into the venue.

Arts and Creative Industries

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

May I take the right hon. Lady back to free entry to museums? There is chaos in the regions, because our excellent museums, such as the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, are fighting a rear-guard action against threatened 10% cuts. Tens of thousands of people are terribly worried—there is a campaign in the local paper—that Government cuts will force such excellent museums to close. Will the right hon. Lady clarify that not only will free entry to museums be maintained, but that there will be no swingeing cuts, which would cause our excellent museum to close?

[Maria Miller]

I am sure the hon. Lady will have followed the settlement we have achieved for the arts and museum sector and that she will be delighted that there is absolutely no reason why such a closure should happen. A 5% reduction in funds will obviously be a challenge for the sector, but it has welcomed it and I hope the hon. Lady welcomes it, too.

Our cultural offer is intrinsic to our nation’s success in tourism: 40% of people who come to our country cite culture as the most important reason for visiting and eight out of 10 of our top visitor attractions are museums. Hon. Members from all parties know that this is not just a London story, as Liverpool can testify, having received almost 10 million extra visitors during its year as European city of culture.

The arts are, as the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham said so powerfully in her opening remarks, of immense social value, too. They define who we are and what we stand for as a nation. They also help us understand where we come from and they support and shape our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

11. Last night a packed meeting here in Westminster heard from the inspirational Claire Lomas and Martine Wright, both of whom have overcome severe disabilities to take part in their sports. They found their own motivation, but there are many barriers to participation of women and girls in sport. What will the Secretary of State do to encourage the 87% of women in Salford who are not participating to get interested in sport and fitness activities?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is important that we reach out to women to help to increase participation even further. I have already cited the dramatic impact that hosting the Olympics and Paralympics has had in raising participation among women. Some sports have had a particularly successful track record in this area. Netball is one of the fastest growing women’s sports in the country, with participation having increased from 110,000 in 2005 to 158,000 last year. There are also examples in cycling and hockey. There is some good success, but we need to make sure that it is echoed in other areas too.

Equal Marriage Consultation

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am sure that my hon. Friend would not want me to answer for the hon. Member for Rhondda—I am sure the latter can answer for himself on any undertakings he might have given when he was a Minister. What I am trying to do is ensure that marriage is accessible to more people and that clear safeguards are in place. If my hon. Friend wants to talk to me in detail about those safeguards, I am happy to do that. I know that he, like me, wants to ensure that marriage is special. The provisions we have brought forward today will ensure that it remains that way.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I welcome the move to equalise marriage. It is important that we make the change to allow same-sex couples to mark their love and commitment through marriage. That equality is welcome, but I also support my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I know an opposite-sex couple who would have welcomed a civil partnership, a form of commitment that some people want. It is disappointing that it was not considered; it should be in future.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady will know that that was a question in the consultation. There was not the demand in the consultation for the change she describes, but it is also important to note that our priority is to allow same-sex marriage, not to overhaul marriage law. That is where I want to keep the focus.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

7. What plans her Department has for a gender audit of public spending on sport.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

The Department measures sport participation by gender via the Taking Part survey. In addition, Sport England’s Active People survey provides more detailed data on sport participation. Together, those provide a good understanding of the gender implications of public spending on sport. The Department has no plans to undertake a specific gender audit.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The Active People survey shows that more than 2 million fewer girls and women than men take part in sport, at both weekly and monthly intervals, but 12 million say that they want to take part in sport. Is not it time we had a full audit of public spending on sport to find out what it is spent on and why so many fewer women than men take part?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady puts her finger on it. We know that there are participation issues, so rather than simply continuing to audit it, we are taking action. We already have our £1 billion youth and community sports strategy, which is looking at ways of ensuring that girls take part in sport, and the Active Women programme, a £10 million lottery programme aimed at getting women into sport. Of course, the most important audit of all was the Olympic games this summer, in which the very first gold medal was won by a woman, as indeed was the last. That is evidence that things are moving in the right direction, but clearly there is still more to do.

Sir Jimmy Savile (BBC Inquiry)

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I understand my hon. Friend’s question. I am not sure whether he is aware that knighthoods cease upon the death of an individual, so the path he suggests is not one that can be taken. However, I think that his point sought to ensure that the appalling nature of these acts is recognised, and that is a point worth making.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has rightly said that this goes wider than the BBC. Clearly, other inquiries will need to take place, as it seems that Savile had unfettered access to children, vulnerable patients and others on wards—this access seems to have been given almost entirely because of his celebrity and fundraiser status. Will the Secretary of State tell us how there will be co-ordination across the undoubted inquiries that we need in the health service and the one for the BBC?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is entirely right to say that, as I said in my opening words, a number of other organisations need to undertake investigations. Those involving hospitals will be done at a local primary care trust level, although of course the Department of Health will be carefully examining the outcomes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The Olympics also played their part in Essex, which hosted the mountain biking competition, at Hadleigh farm. The Government will continue to do everything they can to support tourism in Essex, and I hope to come along and see it for myself in the not-too-distant future.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

T2. The all-party group on women’s sport and fitness wants to see our fantastic women athletes in the media, inspiring girls and women of all ages to take part in sport. However, outside the Olympics, women’s sport gets 5% of the media coverage and less than 1% of the commercial sponsorship. Do Ministers agree that this must change, and will DCMS Ministers work with the all-party group over the coming months to ensure that it does?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Barbara Keeley

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and say to her that we absolutely share the objective of ensuring that the people with the severest challenges in living independently in our society do not receive undue assessments. At the moment there is no in-built reassessment under disability living allowance. She put her question in the present tense—I am not sure whether she was referring to other things for which people are assessed. I reassure her that under PIP, we do not intend to have fixed annual reassessments. They will be made based on individuals’ personal circumstances.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

In their report “Responsible Reform”, disabled people and carers analysed the responses to the Government’s consultation and raised many issues about the replacement of disability living allowance. Carers UK has also expressed deep concern about the impact on carers of cuts to disability benefits, yet today we learn that 5,000 carer households will be hit by the mean reduction of £87 a week as a result of the benefits cap. Will the Minister now publish an assessment of the impact on carers of all the Government’s cuts?

[Maria Miller]

To give the House total clarity I should say that the report that the hon. Lady references was highly selective. It examined only about 10% of the responses that we received on the DLA and PIP consultation.

I will answer the hon. Lady’s question about carers directly as she, like me, wants to ensure that carers get the support that they need. We have already made it clear that carers will be eligible for carer’s allowance as a result of the person for whom they are caring being in receipt of either level of PIP.