(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberLet me start, like others, by saying how extraordinarily pleased I am to see the Bill return to the House today. I put on record my enormous gratitude to the many people who have worked on it, especially the families of those who have lost loved ones, organisations such as the Internet Watch foundation, of which I have been a champion for over a decade, the Mental Health Foundation, the many Ministers who have worked on this, and especially the Secretary of State, who continued to work on it through her maternity leave, and those in the other place. It was wonderful to be at the Bar of the other place, listening to Baroness Kidron, and others, when they spoke, and I thank her for being here today. I also particularly wish to thank Baroness Morgan and Lord Bethell.
A few months ago at the beginning of the year I went to one of those meetings that all MPs do, when they go and speak to politics students in their own sixth form. They normally throw loads of questions at us, but before I let them throw questions at me, I said, “Listen, I have a question I need to ask.” As a Back Bencher in this place we get asked to work on so many different issues, so I grabbed the white board and scribbled down a list of many issues that I have been asked to work on, both domestically and internationally. I gave the students each three votes and asked them what they wanted my priority to be. The issue of tackling online pornography, and the impact it was having, was way up that list.
I thank the Children’s Commissioner for the work done with young people to identify and understand that risk more. Our research asked 16 to 21-year-olds when they had first seen online pornography, and 10%—one in 10—had seen online pornography by the age of nine, and 27% had seen it by the age of 11, so more than one in four. Fifty per cent.—that is half; that is every other one of those young people—had seen online pornography before they turned 13.
It is also the case that the type of pornography they have been seeing is increasingly more violent in nature, and that is changing young people’s attitude towards sex. Young people aged 16 to 21 are more likely to assume that girls expect or enjoy sex involving physical aggression such as airway restriction—strangling—or slapping, than those who do not see such pornography. Among the respondents, 47% stated that girls expect sex to involve physical aggression, and 42% said that most girls enjoy acts of sexual aggression. Some 47% of respondents aged 18 to 21 had experienced a violent sexual act. The Children’s Commissioner also asked these young people where they were watching pornography, and the greatest number of young people were watching that pornography on Twitter—now X—not pornography platforms.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. Indeed, end-to-end encrypted services are in the scope of the Bill. Companies must assess the level of risk and meet their duties no matter what their design is.
Can the Minister confirm whether the letter I received from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) is accurate?
I was just coming to that. I thank my right hon. Friend for the rest of her speech. She always speaks so powerfully on eating disorders—on anorexia in particular—and I can indeed confirm the intent behind the Minister’s letter about the creation and use of algorithms.
Finally, I shall cover two more points. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) always speaks eloquently about this. He talked about Brexit, but I will not get into the politics of that. Suffice to say, it has allowed us—as in other areas of digital and technology—to be flexible and not prescriptive, as we have seen in measures that the EU has introduced.
I also ask my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) to pass on my thanks and best wishes to Hollie whom I met to talk about Archie Battersbee.
(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberWe will not be rejoining the EU under this Government because we believe in democracy. On Euratom, the best people to listen to are the sector themselves, who told us directly and clearly that they would be better off with the money going straight to them and that is what we have done. We have listened to the sectors involved and we have delivered. This is a fantastic deal that creates many opportunities for businesses, scientists and researchers. It is not to be confused with Erasmus, which the hon. Member raised. That is a separate scheme. In fact, it was this Government, and I personally when I worked in the Department for Education, who established the Turing scheme, which is better than Erasmus because it is global in nature and supports those from different backgrounds.
Perhaps I could declare an interest: in my previous job, I was one of the six European Parliament rapporteurs involved in setting up the initial Horizon 2020 project and the only one from the United Kingdom. What I learnt during the five years that I worked on that project was that this is not just for Nobel prize winners or mega companies; it is also for researchers at the start of their careers, for innovators and for less well-known companies such as Teledyne e2v in Chelmsford, which provides our eyes and ears to world space programmes.
What I heard time and again was that, if we create an opportunity for scientists plus researchers and combine that with the ability to work across borders and across disciplines, we will have a formula that will often result in better innovation and more effective solutions to some of the world’s trickiest problems. May I thank the Prime Minister, his ministerial team and all those on the EU side—for there were many—who continued to press to have British science in these programmes? It is a great deal for Britain, for all of us on the continent of Europe and for all of us who live in this world.
My right hon. Friend speaks a lot of sense. I thank her for her thanks, and for those to the Prime Minister and the negotiating team, who have done us proud in bringing home a deal that will truly deliver. I know that this is something that she has worked on considerably in her time and is passionate about.
(10 months, 1 week ago)
Public Bill CommitteesClause 19, which outlines the CMA’s power to impose conduct requirements on a designated firm, is very welcome indeed. It is an important clause that aims to prevent harm that may result from the market position of undertakings with strategic market status.
In practice, these conduct requirements are essentially instructions given to a designated undertaking to conduct digital activities in a manner that promotes competition. The requirements can be prescriptive or prohibitive in nature; they are essentially the dos and don’ts, except that the requirements do not apply automatically to every undertaking having SMS and instead apply on a case-by-case basis. The DMU therefore has wide discretion to impose conduct requirements on specific SMS firms, as long as they fit within a list of purposes that are listed in clause 20.
I am very fond of the hon. Member and she has a beautiful voice, but she did complain earlier about how long it had taken this Bill to get to market. I urge her to remember that we want to get through the Bill as quickly as possible, for consumers. Repeating every single thing that we can already read in the explanatory notes and in the Bill does not seem to me to be the most efficient use of all of our time.
I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Member will know I am also fond of her and her voice. I think it is important to clarify exactly what we are debating, and why we are reasoning as we are. I will happily refer to certain clauses if that would please the hon. Member, but it is important that we outline exactly why we have come to the rationale that we have on the Bill as it stands before us.
Potential examples of prescriptive conduct requirements include having effective processes for handling complaints, trading on fair and reasonable terms, or giving users options or default settings. Conversely, some examples of prohibitive conduct requirements may be preventing abuse of dominance practices, such as treating its own products more favourably, using data unfairly, tying practices, restricting interoperability, refusal to grant access and so on.
We particularly welcome subsection (5), which provides that the CMA may impose conduct requirements only for certain objectives. However, we have concerns about subsection (10), which says that a conduct requirement
“(a) comes into force at a time determined by the CMA, and
(b) ceases to have effect—
(i) in accordance with a decision of the CMA”—
as Members can read in the Bill.
For swift implementation, it is right that the Bill’s approach allows for conduct requirements to be written alongside an SMS designation investigation, but we need a statutory time limit for the initial set of conduct requirements to be implemented. As it is likely that the DMU will have considered the three conduct objectives before the SMS designation decision is made, the DMU should be required to impose the initial set of conduct requirements either at the same time as the SMS designation or within three months of its date.
A central feature of the new regime is to enable the DMU to revise its rules as time goes on, so the deadline should apply only to the initial set of conduct requirements, so as not to hinder the DMU in revising or adding to them subsequently. Amendment 54 would introduce a timeline for the enforcement of conduct requirements set out in the Bill and in CMA guidance.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we have to keep all these things in our purview, because if we get this wrong, that just embeds the entrenched power that we are talking about. It is absolutely the case that we have to ensure that the CMA, as an important body—I am thinking of not just the digital markets unit, which we are discussing here, but the entirety of its operation—has the capacity to do its work. As I said, we will clearly continue to look at the resources, capacity and expertise of the digital markets unit.
Amendment 54 would introduce a duty on the DMU to impose conduct requirements within three months of a decision notice being given, as we have heard. I absolutely share hon. Members’ interest in ensuring that conduct requirements are imposed quickly so that businesses and consumers can be protected. Indeed, we anticipate that conduct requirements will be in place from the day a firm is designated—or if not, much sooner than the three months proposed in the amendment. That is because the DMU can develop tailored conduct requirements informed by, and alongside, the designation investigation. That is facilitated by clauses 13(2) and 24(3), which enable the DMU to carry out the public consultation on strategic market status designation alongside the public consultation on any proposed conduct requirements.
Although we expect conduct requirements to be imposed as soon as a firm is designated, the Government have not included a statutory deadline. That is because the DMU needs the flexibility to deal with the complexities of developing targeted obligations. That includes taking the time necessary to consult and consider all the views shared by interested stakeholders.
I want to be quick. I really care about this Bill, because it is incredibly important for our constituents, who are consumers, to ensure that they are offered fair choices and fair prices. The clause is important, because it means that when a company acts inappropriately, the CMA, through the digital markets unit, can tell it what to do. Can the Minister give an example of a case where it might need more than three months for that telling it what to do to be done?
That is a very good point. I do not think that I can give my right hon. Friend a specific example. If particular technicalities are involved, we do not want to put an arbitrary time limit such as three months, because we want the decision to be right. The Government absolutely expect the decision to be taken either on the day of designation or very shortly afterwards, but by binding ourselves there may be examples—I am afraid I am not nimble enough to think of a specific example, but I am sure one will come down the line. The whole point of this Bill is that it is flexible, proportionate and gets things right. At the end of the day, that is what we are trying to do, rather than putting in a timescale.
For the record, when the DMU tells a company what to do, does the Minister agree that that should always be done as quickly as possible, given that there may be technical changes to get things done as well? This is not a suggestion that decisions or actions should be delayed.
I totally agree. That is exactly the point. Let us make it quickly, but we do not want an arbitrary timescale so that we rush and get the decision wrong. It is more important to get the answer right. For those reasons, I hope that the hon. Member for Pontypridd will withdraw her amendment.
(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
Public Bill CommitteesI have no further questions.
Q
Kelli Fairbrother: Yes. It is interesting, because there are differences between the two ecosystems. Whereas I do get transaction-level data from Google, for example, I do not get it from Apple. Apple moved first to lower the price points from 30% to 15%, and Google took at least another six or 12 months after Apple moved to create that small business tier. Generally, they seem to be both on this path of using their dominant market positions to extract as much value from me. The question I would love to hear Google answer when they come in later is that these are our customers; my customers are also your customers. I just do not really understand why, if you can see that there is actual consumer harm happening, you are not working yourselves to address it.
Q
Christian Owens: I would not want to say that that is definitely happening. I think it is rather coincidental that within six to eight weeks of any price change happening in one ecosystem, it tends to happen in the other, as mentioned with the small business tier of 15%, with the subscription tier after one year also reducing to 15%. It does seem that way.
Q
Kelli Fairbrother: I am afraid that I am not a lawyer on the depth of confidentiality. From our side, we would love to see a little bit more transparency in the consultation process, so if there is action being taken by the DMU, we would love to make sure that we are being consulted if it affects our area. I am not sure I have a strong opinion on the confidentiality piece itself.
Q
Christian Owens: No, not any specific details on this.
Q
Kelli Fairbrother: It is absolutely critical that judicial review is the standard that is used, because I think we have seen time and time again, in markets all around the world, that when Governments act, Apple and Google do their best to try to get around the work that is being done. They lawyer up—they have millions to spend on appeals slowing things down—and there really is a sense of urgency. This is existential for a lot of small app developers, so we would really urge that the Bill passes, it is not watered down and it passes without delay and without dilution, I think we would say.
Christian Owens: I agree.
Q
Q
Tom Morrison-Bell: It is being reformed. The developers will have those choices, and those choices are being scrutinised by the CMA to make sure that they are good for consumers, that they are good for companies like the ones you mentioned, and that they are appropriate in the ecosystem.
Q
Tom Morrison-Bell: I think there are a few things to unpack there. With respect, the Kelkoo case refers to the Google Shopping case with the European Commission. The remedy that was agreed by the European Commission as the competition authority was rolled out by Google in 2017, around 60 days after the finding was heard. The appeals are still going on, because there are different points of law that are being considered, but the remedy—
Q
Tom Morrison-Bell: But, importantly, the remedy that was agreed by the Commission has been in place for six years. That is not necessarily going to change if the points of law change. The remedy has been in place for that time, and the courts considered the opinions of various different complainants and Google as part of that appeal process.
Q
Tom Morrison-Bell: The Commission’s inquiry process has been going on for two years, rather than a legal process.
Q
Tom Morrison-Bell: The proposed participative approach in the UK is different from how the competition system works in Europe.
Order. I am afraid that that brings us to the end of the time allocated for this session. On behalf of the Committee, may I thank our witness for giving evidence today?
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mike Wood.)
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberIt is a great privilege to open the batting for the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Not since the white heat of technology under Harold Wilson have a Government put more money into research. I know the Opposition will welcome this Department.
No sector embodies the opportunity more than space. That is why, in the past 10 years, we are proud to have doubled the size of the sector to £16 billion. We set out a £10 billion plan for the next decade. Through regulatory leadership, insurance and finance in the City, £400 million in earth observation and our cluster programme, we intend to grow this economy all around the country.
As a science geek, I love this new Department. The Chelmsford-based company Teledyne e2v is the world leader in space imaging. When the earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, its technology from way up there in space pinpointed the exact location of collapsed businesses, sent rescuers to the spot and saved lives. It also provides crucial monitoring of our planet’s air, oceans and volcanos via the Copernicus programme. The European Space Agency wants to continue to use e2v tech for the next generation of Copernicus satellites, so will the UK continue to participate in Copernicus post-2024 so that companies like e2v can continue to sell to—
Order. The right hon. Lady, as much as she might be a science geek, ought to know that questions need to be shorter to give somebody else a chance. Put in for an urgent question. Come on in, Minister.