My Lords, I rise to offer support for all the amendments in this group, but I will speak principally to Amendment 192A, to which I have added my name and which the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, has just explained so clearly. It is unfortunate that the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, cannot be in her place today. She always adds value in any debate, but on this issue in particular I know she would have made a very compelling case for this amendment. I will speak principally about eating disorders, because the issues of self-harm have already been covered and the hour is already late.
The Bill as it stands presumes a direct relationship between the size of a platform and its potential to cause harm. This is simply not the case: a systematic review which we heard mentioned confirmed what all users of the internet already know—that potentially harmful content is often and easily found on smaller, niche sites that will fall outside the scope of category 1. These sites are absolutely not hard to find—they come up on the first page of a Google search—and some hide in plain sight, masquerading, particularly in the
case of eating disorder forums, as sources of support, solace or factual information when in fact they encourage and assist people towards dangerous practices. Without this amendment, those sites will continue spreading their harm and eating disorders will continue to have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses in the UK.
6.45 pm
I was going to say something about the suicide sites, but the point which comes out of the research has already been made, that when a novel method of suicide becomes more well known, it is not just that people intending to kill themselves switch from one method to another but that the prevalence of suicide increases. As the noble Lord said, this is not just about preventing individual tragedies but is indeed a public health issue.
I very much welcome the steps being taken in the Bill to tackle the prevalence of damaging content, particularly as it applies to children. However, I believe that, as the Bill stands, smaller providers will fly under the radar and vulnerable adults will be harmed—the Bill is extremely light on protections for that category of people. Amendment 192A absolutely seeks to ensure that the Bill tackles content wherever it gives rise to a very high risk of harm, irrespective of the platform’s size. Arguments about regulatory burden on small sites should not apply when health, well-being and lives are at risk. The pre-legislative committee was absolutely alive to this, and its recommendations highlighted the risks here of the small, high-risk companies. As we heard, the previous Secretary of State announced a deferred power but that lapsed when the adult risk assessments were removed.
I fear that the current approach in the Bill will push people who promote this kind of content simply to create smaller platforms where they are beyond the arm of the law. It is not clear whether they would be caught instead by the Government’s new offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm. I know we have not debated that yet, but I cannot understand whether encouragement to starvation would be covered by that new offence. It is properly too early to ask the Minister to clarify that, but if he has the answer, I would like to understand that.
We have heard the term “rabbit hole”; there is a rabbit hole, where people intent on self-harm or indeed those who suffer from eating disorders go from larger platforms to smaller and niche ones where they encounter the very content that feeds their addiction, or which fuels and enables their desire to self-harm. As I said in a previous grouping, this cannot be the intention of the Bill, I do not believe it is the intention of the Government, and I hope that the Minister will listen to the arguments that the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, set out so effectively.