My Lords, this is the most miscellaneous of all the groups that we have had, so it has rightly been labelled as such—and the competition has been pretty strong. I want to come back to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, but first I want to deal with my Amendments 200 and 201 and to put on the record the arguments there.
Again, if I refer back to our joint report, we were strongly of the view—alongside the Communications and Digital Committee—that there should be a statutory requirement for regulators
“to cooperate and consult with one another”.
Although we welcomed the formation of the DRCF, it seemed to us that there should be a much firmer duty. I was pleased to hear the examples that my noble friend put forward of the kinds of co-operation that will be needed. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, clearly understands that, particularly in the area of fraud, it could be the FCA or ICO, and it could be Ofcom in terms in social media. There is a range of aspects to this—it could be the ASA.
These bodies need to co-operate. As my noble friend pointed out, they can apparently conflict; therefore, co-operating on the way that they advise those who are subject to regulation is rather important. It is not just about the members of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum. Even the IWF and the ASA could be included in that, not to mention other regulators in this analogous space. That forum has rightly been labelled as “Digital”, and digital business is now all-pervasive and involves a huge number of regulatory aspects.
Although in this context Ofcom will have the most relevant powers and expertise, and many regulators will look to it for help in tackling online safety issues, effective public protection will be achieved through proper regulatory co-operation. Therefore, Ofcom should be empowered to co-operate with others to share information. As much as it can, Ofcom should be enabled to work with other regulators and share online safety information with them.
It has been very heartening to see the noble Lord, Lord Grade, in his place, even on a Thursday afternoon, and heartening how Ofcom has engaged throughout the passage of the Bill. We know the skills that it is bringing on board, and with those skills we want it to bring other regulators into its work. It seems that Ofcom is taking the lead on those algorithmic understanding skills, but we need Ofcom to have the duty to co-operate with the other regulators on this as well.
Strangely, in Clause 103 the Bill gives Ofcom the general ability to co-operate with overseas regulators, but it is largely silent on co-operation with UK regulators. Indeed, the Communications Act 2003 limits the UK regulators with which Ofcom can share information, excluding the ICO, for example, which is rather perverse in these circumstances. However, the Bill has a permissive approach to overseas regulators so, again, it should extend co-operation and information-sharing in respect of online safety to include regulators overseeing the offences in Schedule 7 that we have spent some time talking about today—the enforcement authorities, for instance, those responsible for enforcing the offences in relation to priority harms to children and priority offences regarding adults. Elsewhere in regulation, the Financial Conduct Authority may have a general duty to co-operate. The reverse may be true, so that duty of co-operation will need to work both ways.
As my noble friend Lord Allan said, Amendment 200, the skilled persons provision, is very straightforward. It is just to give the formal power to be able to use the expertise from a different regulator. It is a very well-known procedure to bring skilled persons into inquiries, which is exactly what is intended there.
Both amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, are rather miscellaneous too, but are not without merit, particularly Amendment 185A. Please note that I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. I 100% support the intention behind the amendment but wonder whether the Bill is the right vehicle for it. No doubt the Minister will answer regarding the scope and how practical it would be. I absolutely applaud the noble Lord for campaigning on this issue. It is extraordinarily important, because we have seen some tragic outcomes of these weapons being available for sale online.
Amendment 268AA, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is entirely different. Our Joint Committee heard evidence from Edleen John of the FA and Rio Ferdinand about abuse online. It was powerful stuff. I tend to agree with my noble friend. We have talked about user empowerment, the tools for it and, particularly in the context of violence against women and girls, the need for a way to be able to report that kind of abuse or other forms of content online. This is a candidate for that kind of treatment. While platforms obviously need to prevent illegal content and have systems to prevent it and so on, having assessed risk in the way that we have heard about previously, I do not believe that expecting the platforms to pick it up and report it, turning them into a sort of proto-enforcer, is the most effective way. We have to empower users. I absolutely share the objectives set out.