I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his contribution on these regulations. I hope that public health will allow us to meet face-to-face at some point in the future and perhaps debate the challenge to consider whether two people can have a debate.
I hope I have reassured the noble Lord that the amendments made by these regulations do not dilute or diminish in any way the offences I have described that are set out in the Education Act 2002 and the Electronic Commerce Directive (Adoption and Children Act 2002) Regulations 2005. Neither do these regulations impact in any way on the policy behind those regulations. We most definitely want to continue to protect the identity of teachers who are accused by a pupil of an offence until the point at which relevant proceedings have begun. We also want to continue to safeguard children by ensuring that arranging or advertising adoption is something that legally can be undertaken only by adoption agencies.
As I have outlined, these regulations are purely a technical measure to fix what would have become a failure of retained EU law. Our intervention will empower UK regulators to enforce UK laws where the offence is committed in the UK and irrespective of the country in the European Economic Area where the online service provider is based. I commend these regulations to the Committee.