My Lords, interestingly, because I have not discussed this at all with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I have some similar concerns to his. I have always wanted this to be a children’s online safety Bill. My concerns generally have been about threats to adults’ free speech and privacy and the threat to the UK as the home of technological innovation. I have been happy to keep shtum on things about protecting children, but I got quite a shock when I saw the series of government amendments.
I thought what most people in the public think: the Bill will tackle things such as suicide sites and pornography. We have heard some of that very grim description, and I have been completely convinced by people saying, “It’s the systems”. I get all that. But here we have a series of amendments all about content—endless amounts of content and highly politicised, contentious content at that—and an ever-expanding list of harms that we now have to deal with. That makes me very nervous.
On the misinformation and disinformation point, the Minister is right. Whether for children or adults, those terms have been weaponised. They are often used to delegitimise perfectly legitimate if contrary or minority views. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that the studies that say that youth are the fastest-growing far-right group are often misinformation themselves. I was recently reading a report about this phenomenon, and things such as being gender critical or opposing the small boats arriving were considered to be evidence of far-right views. That was not to do with youth, but at least you can see that this is quite a difficult area. I am sure that many people even in here would fit in the far right as defined by groups such as HOPE not hate, whose definition is so broad.
My main concerns are around the Minister’s Amendment 172. There is a problem: because it is about protected characteristics—or apes the protected characteristics of the Equality Act—we might get into difficulty. Can we at least recognise that, even in relation to the protected characteristics as noted in the Equality Act, there are raging rows politically? I do not know how appropriate it is that the Minister has tabled an amendment dragging young people into this mire. Maya Forstater has just won a case in which she was accused of being opposed to somebody’s protected characteristics and sacked. Because of the protected characteristics of her philosophical views, she has won the case and a substantial amount of money.
I worry when I see this kind of list. It is not just inciting hatred—in any case, what that would mean is ambivalent. It refers to abuse based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability and so on. This is a
minefield for the Government to have wandered into. Whether you like it or not, it will have a chilling effect on young people’s ability to debate and discuss. If you worry that some abuse might be aimed at religion, does that mean that you will not be able to discuss Charlie Hebdo? What if you wanted to show or share the Charlie Hebdo cartoons? Will that count? Some people would say that is abusive or inciteful. This is not where the Bill ought to be going. At the very least, it should not be going there at this late stage. Under race, it says that “nationality” is one of the indicators that we should be looking out for. Maybe it is because I live in Wales, but there is a fair amount of abuse aimed at the English. A lot of Scottish friends dole it out as well. Will this count for young people who do that? I cannot get it.
My final question is in relation to proposed subsection (11). This is about protecting children, yet it lists a person who
“has the characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex”.
Are the Government seriously accepting that children have not just proposed to reassign but have been reassigned? That is a breach of the law. That is not meant to be happening. Your Lordships will know how bad this is. Has the Department for Education seen this? As we speak, it is trying to untangle the freedom for people not to have to go along with people’s pronouns and so on.
This late in the day, on something as genuinely important as protecting children, I just want to know whether there is a serious danger that this has wandered into the most contentious areas of political life. I think it is very dangerous for a government amendment to affirm gender reassignment to and about children. It is genuinely irresponsible and goes against the guidance the Government are bringing out at the moment for us to avoid. Please can the Minister clarify what is happening with Amendment 172?