My Lords, I too should have spoken before the noble Lord, Lord Allan; I should have known, given his position on the Front Bench, that he was speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. I was a little reticent to follow him, knowing his expertise in the technical area, but I am very pleased to do so now. I support this very important group of amendments and thank noble Lords for placing them before us. I echo the thanks to all the children’s NGOs that have been working in this area for so long.
For legislators, ambiguity is rarely a friend, and this is particularly true in legislation dealing with digital communications, where, as we all acknowledge, the law struggles to keep pace with technical innovation. Where there is ambiguity, sites will be creative and will evade what they see as barriers—of that I have no doubt. Therefore, I strongly believe that there is a need to have clarity where it can be achieved. That is why it is important to have in the Bill a clear definition of age verification for pornography.
As we have heard this evening, we know that pornography is having a devastating impact on our young people and children: it is impacting their mental health and distorting their views of healthy sexual relationships. It is very upsetting for me that evidence shows that children are replicating the acts they see in pornographic content, thinking that it is normal. It is very upsetting that, in particular, young boys who watch porn think that violence during intimacy is a normal thing to do. The NSPCC has told us that four in 10 boys aged 11 to 16 who regularly view porn say they want to do that because they want to get ideas as to the type of sex they want to try. That is chilling. Even more chilling is the fact that content is often marketed towards children, featuring characters from cartoons, such as “Frozen”, “Scooby Doo” and “The Incredibles”, to try to draw young people on to those sites. Frankly, that is unforgivable; it is why we need robust age verification to protect our children from this content. It must apply to all content, regardless of where it is found; we know, for instance, that Twitter is often a gateway to pornographic sites for young people.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, referred to ensuring, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the user is over 18. I know that that is a very high standard—it is the criminal law level—but I believe it is what is needed. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that, because, if we are to protect children and if we take on the role of the fireguard, which the right reverend Prelate referred to, we need to make sure that it is as strong as possible.
Also, this is not just about making sure that users are over 18; we need to make sure that adults, not children, are involved in the content. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, talked about adults being made to look like children, but there is also the whole area of young people being trafficked and abused into pornography production; therefore, Amendment 184 on performer age checks is very important.
I finish by indicating my strong support for Amendment 185 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. Some, if not most, mainstream pornography content sites are degrading, extremely abusive and
violent. Such content would be prohibited in the offline world and is illegal to own and to have; this includes sexual violence including strangulation, incest and sexualising children. We know that this is happening online because, as we have heard, some of the most frequently searched terms on porn sites are “teens”, “schoolgirls” or “girls”, and the lack of regulation online has allowed content to become more and more extreme and abusive. That is why I support Amendment 185 in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which seeks to bring parity between the online and offline regulation of pornographic content.
This Bill has been eagerly awaited. There is no doubt about that. It has been long in the gestation—some people would say too long. We have had much discussion in this Committee but let us get it right. I urge the Minister to take on board the many points made this afternoon. That fireguard needs not only to be put in place, but it needs to be put in place so that it does not move, it is not knocked aside and so that it is at its most effective. I support the amendments.