Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport on tackling online trolling and the effect of trolling on people’s psychological wellbeing.

The current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the Rt. hon. Matt Hancock MP) is yet to discuss online trolling with the current Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (the Rt. hon. Jeremy Wright MP). However, this Government is clear that online abuse of any kind is unacceptable and the Departments are working together on this.

To help tackle some of the issues around the potential negative impacts of the online environment for children and young people’s mental health, the previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the Rt. hon. Jeremy Hunt MP) and the previous Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (the Rt. hon. Matt Hancock MP) set up a working group with social media companies. Within this group we discussed how the companies could take concrete action, particularly in the areas of improved age verification tackling long periods online and harmful content.

We understand that companies have some existing work in place in these areas, and that there are significant challenges, but we are keen for further action to be taken. This is why the previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care asked social media companies to set out their formal positions on this work and how they envisage we could work together to make further progress. We have received a number of responses and we are working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as we consider our next steps, including our contribution to their joint work with the Home Office on a White Paper on on-line harms, following their Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper.