My Lords, I very much welcome the Bill to the House, late as it may be. Like the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I know very little about the internet. I certainly know less about the sites we are talking about tonight, but I know that some of those sites are destroying our young people and poisoning their minds.
Age verification in terms of safety for children online was first debated in 2016. It is remarkable that a child who was eight years old when this proposal was first put forward will be an adult when the protections that they deserve will finally be in place. Many children will have been allowed to live through their formative years being exposed to untold harm online. A child who was eight in 2016 could be potentially in the grips of addiction by the time that age verification is made a legal requirement. This did not need to be the case. The harms suffered by many teenagers over the last seven or eight years could have been avoided. As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, indicated, if the Government had only done what they were supposed to do and implemented age verification through Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, children could have been protected.
According to research by DCMS, 80% of children aged six to 12 have viewed something harmful online, while over 50% of teenagers believe that they have accessed illegal content online. We cannot allow children to continue to be let down. We need to ensure that robust age verification is in place, but, more than that, we need to get it right. While the Bill is a step in the right direction, I think there is a lot more work to be done. This is an important Bill, but it is also important for this House to get it right.
First, we need to ensure that age verification on pornography sites will be brought in on this occasion. The Government cannot be allowed to sidestep this issue. A clear commencement clause needs to be placed into the Bill.
Secondly, we need to ensure that age verification is in place, not just for children accessing pornography; the age of those acting in content must also be verified. User-to-user pornography websites are simply a hotbed of illegal material and children surviving sexual abuse that need to be stopped by the Bill. If it includes clear age verification for those involved in the content, it will be a valuable tool in ensuring that children are not exploited online.
Thirdly, we need to move to protect women and girls from the effects of online pornography. Harmful pornography content promotes violence against women and girls. Evidence shows that excessive consumption of some legal pornography material can result in offenders viewing illegal child sexual abuse material. As increasingly extreme pornography becomes available on mainstream sites, the threshold of what is acceptable is very much lowered.
There is much to support in this legislation: it offers an opportunity to ensure that we can protect women and children. I look forward to working with others to ensure that we can deliver on these important protections.
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