UK Parliament / Open data

Medicines and Medical Devices Bill

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Thornton (Labour) in the House of Lords on Thursday, 14 January 2021. It occurred during Debate on bills on Medicines and Medical Devices Bill.

Moved by

Baroness Thornton

16: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—

“Strategy for tackling vaccination disinformation

(1) Within one month of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must prepare and publish a strategy outlining plans to prevent the promotion of disinformation related to human vaccines.

(2) The overarching objective of the strategy must be safe- guarding public health.

(3) The strategy must be laid before Parliament.

(4) In formulating the strategy under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must include proposals to—

(a) build public trust and encourage uptake of vaccines;

(b) require social media companies to promptly remove disinformation related to vaccines that has been reported to them by an appropriate authority, employees or other social media users, including financial and criminal penalties if they fail to act; and

(c) prohibit social media users or companies from directly profiting from vaccine disinformation through advertising revenue.”

Member’s explanatory statement

This amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for tackling anti-vaccination disinformation within one month of the Bill passing.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

809 c892 

Session

2019-21

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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