My Lords, this discussion has been very useful. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, as ever, made an interesting and thoughtful philosophical rumination. I hope that what she has just heard from the Minister around it applying to quite specific child safety duties gave her some comfort that this was not some kind of sweep-all measure that would result in lots of people being banged up.
The government amendments are tighter than those in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. In the end, that is the judgment that we all have to make between now and when we finish our consideration of the Bill. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that there are dangers attached to this: that platforms will choose just to exclude children altogether and that that may infringe on some of their rights. That is why we have to get this balance right. It ultimately has to be proportionate.
We have to develop trust in Ofcom to use its powers flexibly and proportionately. I have previously said some of the things that I think are needed in order to build our trust in Ofcom, in respect of transparency and parliamentary scrutiny and so on. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Curry, is right, from his experience, that the noble Lord, Lord Grade, and his colleagues will need to be quick, decisive and tough in using those powers proportionately in order to make these platforms, particularly the large, well-resourced and powerful ones, respond. Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, I reflected on when I was a senior executive of a largeish corporation a few years ago. I was in post when the anti-bribery and corruption Act, the Data Protection Act and the gender pay gap regulations all came in, and they made the senior executives—of the company I was in, anyway—sit up, take notice and change some behaviours. These things allow corporations to act according to the public interest and to adjust behaviour, but without it being proportionate.
I say to the Minister that the fact that, for example, under the Bribery Act you could be imprisoned on the basis of decisions made in your supply chain was significant. We had to be mindful of our whole supply chain to ensure that there was no corruption going on throughout, which is very different to the judgment the Minister is making on the supply chain in this system. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for reminding us of the masterful Mastodon briefing; the way in which that technology is showing different ways in which things can be done to avoid aspects of regulation is another reason to think further about the spirit of Amendment 219 as we move to Report.
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When we come to Part 10 and the enforcement section—or perhaps before then privately—it would be really useful, for my sake if for no one else’s, to clarify who the senior manager is. Does the senior manager have to be UK-based for these powers to be used? What happens with all the US companies and those based in parts of eastern Europe that do not have assets or people here, yet the harm extends to users here? How does senior manager liability work in that context? With that, I am happy to withdraw Amendment 33 and look forward to where we go next.