My Lords, I restate my commitment to Amendments 20, 93 and 123, which are in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, and the
noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness’s Amendment 74. It is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Knight. He put extremely well some key points about where there are gaps in the existing Bill. I will build on why we have brought forward these amendments in order to plug these gaps.
In doing so, I wish to say that it has been a privilege to work with the right reverend Prelate, the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. We are not from the same political geographies, but that collaboration demonstrates the breadth of the political concern, and the strength of feeling across the Committee, about these important gaps when it comes to harms—gaps that, if not addressed, will put children at great risk. In this matter we are very strongly united. We have been through a lot together, and I believe this unlikely coalition demonstrates how powerful the feelings are.
It has been said before that children are spending an increasing amount of their lives online. However, the degree of that inflection point in the last few years has been understated, as has how much further it has got to go. The penetration of mobile phones is already around 75% of 10 year-olds—it is getting younger, and it is getting broader.
In fact, the digital world is totally inescapable in the life of a child, whether that is for a young child who is four to six years old or an older child who is 16 or 17. It is increasingly where they receive their education—I do not think that is necessarily a good thing, but that is arguable—it is where they establish and maintain their personal relationships and it is a key forum for their self-expression.
For anyone who suspects otherwise, I wish to make it clear that I firmly believe in innovation and progress, and I regard the benefits of the digital world as really positive. I would never wish to prevent children accessing the benefits of the internet, the space it creates for learning and building community, and the opportunities it opens for them. However, environments matter. The digital world is not some noble wilderness free from original sin or a perfect, frictionless marketplace where the best, nicest, and most beautiful ideas triumph. It is a highly curated experience defined by the algorithms and service agreements of the internet companies. That is why we need rules to ensure that it is a safe space for children.
I started working on my first internet business in 1995, nearly 30 years ago. I was running the Ministry of Sound, and we immediately realised that the internet was an amazing way of getting through to young people. Our target audiences were either clubbers aged over 18 or the younger brothers and sisters of clubbers who bought our merchandise. The internet gave us an opportunity to get past all the normal barriers—past parents and regulation to reach a wonderful new market. I built a good business and it worked out well for me, but those were the days before GDPR and what we understand from the internet. I know from my experience that we need to ensure that children are protected and shielded from the harms that bombard them, because there are strong incentives—mainly financial but also other, malign incentives—for bad actors to use the internet to get through to children.
Unfortunately, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, pointed out, the Bill as it stands does not achieve that aim. Take, for example, contact harms, such as grooming and child sexual abuse. In February 2020, Bark, a US-based organisation that helps families manage and protect their children’s digital lives, launched an 11 year-old persona online who it called Bailey. Bailey’s online persona clearly shows that she is an ordinary 11 year-old, posting content that is ordinary for an 11 year-old. Within 30 seconds of her persona being launched online she received a like from a man whose profile picture was a penis. Within two minutes, multiple messages were received from men, and within five minutes a video call. Shortly afterwards, she received requests from men to meet up. I remind your Lordships that Bailey was 11 years old. These are not trivial content harms; these are attempts to contact a minor using the internet as a medium.
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The Bill does try to address contact harms. I am supportive of the Bill and its principles, and am a big fan of the team that is trying to drive it through Parliament. For example, the Bill specifies that features that enable adults to search for and contact children must be risk-assessed. However, that is where the Bill currently stops. There is no comprehensive list of harms or features to inform that risk assessment. For instance, a feature such as live-streaming, which can enable adults to access children directly, is not specifically referenced, meaning that there is no explicit obligation for services to risk-assess such features—a big gap. Services cannot be expected to read between the lines of what the Government’s intentions may be. We must be explicit and clear in the Bill if we are serious about delivering on children’s safety.
That is why our amendments would do four things. First, they would introduce into the Bill a new schedule of harms to children, framed around the four categories of risk: content, contact, conduct and contract or commercial. This will ensure that harms to children in the Bill reflect the full range of harms that children encounter online, including from design features that facilitate pathways to harm to pornography, self-harm, pro-suicide content and grooming. Secondly, we seek to ensure that services must risk-assess for the harms listed in this proposed new schedule in order to ensure that these risk assessments are comprehensive. Thirdly, we seek to task Ofcom with producing guidance, to be updated every 12 months, on new and emerging harms. Fourthly, we seek to ensure that Ofcom consults with children’s advocates and charities when producing this guidance.
The timing of this is very important. The real-life Bailey cannot wait for harms to be outlined in secondary legislation. These problems have been around for a long time but, as I said, the inflection curve on technology is shooting right up the hockey stick at the moment. If the primary purpose of the Bill is to protect children, it must include the harms that children face every day in primary legislation—not in secondary legislation, not after Royal Assent, not in a year or two, but now. Our Amendment 93 would introduce in the Bill a schedule of harms to children. This non-exhaustive list would produce a robust and future-proof framework, and have the clarity and mandate to produce comprehensive risk assessments to ensure that the Bill delivers on its chief purpose: protecting children.