I am grateful to noble Lords for their questions on this, and particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for their chorus of welcome. Where we are able to make changes, we will of course bring them forward, and I am glad to be able to bring forward this tranche now.
As the noble Lord, Lord Allan, said, ensuring the transparency of services’ risk assessments will further ensure that the framework of the Bill delivers its core objectives relating to effective risk management and increased accountability regarding regulated services. As we have discussed, it is imperative that these providers take a thorough approach to identifying risks, including emerging risks. The Government believe that it is of the utmost importance that the public are able effectively to scrutinise the risk assessments of the largest in-scope services, so that users can be empowered to make informed decisions about whether and how to use their services.
On the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about why it is just category 1 and category 2A services,
we estimate that there will be around 25,000 UK service providers in scope of the Bill’s illegal and child safety duties. Requiring all these companies to publish full risk assessments and proactively to send them to Ofcom could undermine the Bill’s risk-based and proportionate approach, as we have discussed in previous groups on the burdens to business. A large number of these companies are likely to be low risk and it is unlikely that many people will seek out their risk assessments, so requiring all companies to publish them would be an excessive regulatory burden.
There would also be an expectation that Ofcom would proactively monitor a whole range of services, even ones that posed a minimal risk to users. That in turn could distract Ofcom from taking a risk-based approach in its regulation by overwhelming it with paperwork from thousands of low-risk services. If Ofcom wants to see records of the risk assessments of providers that are not category 1 or category 2A services, it has extensive information-gathering powers that it can use to require a provider to send it such records.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, was right to say that I read the terms of my broadband supply—I plead guilty to the nerdiness of doing that—but I have not read all the terms and conditions of every application and social medium I have downloaded, and I agree that many people do skim through them. They say the most commonly told lie on the planet at the moment is “I agree to the terms and conditions”, and the noble Baroness is right to point to the need for these to be intelligible, easily accessible and transparent—which of course we want to see.
In answer to her other question, the record-keeping duty will apply to all companies, but the requirement to publish is only for category 1 and category 2A companies.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, asked me about Amendment 27A. If she will permit me, I will write to her with the best and fullest answer to that question.
I am grateful to noble Lords for their questions on this group of amendments.