My Lords, we may be slipping back into a Committee-style conversation. My noble friend Lord Moylan rightly says that this is the first chance we have had to examine this provision, which is a concession wrung out of the Government in Committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, says, sometimes that is the price your Lordships’ House pays for winning these concessions, but it is an important point to scrutinise in the way that my noble friend Lord Moylan and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, have done.
I will try to reassure my noble friend and the noble Baroness. This relates to the definition of a characteristic with which we began our debates today. To be a characteristic it has to be possessed by a person; therefore, the content that is abusive and targets any of the characteristics has to be harmful to an individual to meet the definition of harm. Further, it has to be
material that would come to the attention of children in the way that the noble Baronesses who kindly leapt to my defence and added some clarity have set out. So my noble friend would be able to continue to criticise the polytheistic religions of the past and their tendencies to his heart’s content, but there would be protections in place if what he was saying was causing harm to an individual—targeting them on the basis of their race, religion or any of those other characteristics—if that person was a child. That is what noble Lords wanted in Committee, and that is what the Government have brought forward.
My noble friend and others asked why mis- and disinformation were not named as their own category of priority harmful content to children. Countering mis- and disinformation where it intersects with the named categories of primary priority or priority harmful content, rather than as its own issue, will ensure that children are protected from the mis- and disinformation narratives that present the greatest risk of harm to them. We recognise that mis- and disinformation is a broad and cross-cutting issue, and we therefore think the most appropriate response is to address directly the most prevalent and concerning harms associated with it; for example, dangerous challenges and hoax health advice for children to self-administer harmful substances. I assure noble Lords that any further harmful mis- and disinformation content will be captured as non-designated content where it presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children.
In addition, the expert advisory committee on mis- and disinformation, established by Ofcom under the Bill, will have a wide remit in advising on the challenges of mis- and disinformation and how best to tackle them, including how they relate to children. Noble Lords may also have seen that the Government have recently tabled amendments to update Ofcom’s statutory media literacy duty. Ofcom will now be required to prioritise users’ awareness of and resilience to misinformation and disinformation online. This will include children and their awareness of and resilience to mis- and disinformation.
My noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe talked about commercial harms. Harms exacerbated by the design and operation of a platform—that is, their commercial models—are covered in the Bill already through the risk assessment and safety duties. Financial harm, as used in government Amendment 237, is dealt with by a separate legal framework, including the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. This exemption ensures that there is no regulatory overlap.
The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, elaborated on remarks made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, about their meeting looking at the incel movement, if it can be called that. I assure the noble Lord and others that Ofcom has a review and report duty and will be required to stay on top of changes in the online harms landscape and report to government on whether it recommends changes to the designated categories of content because of the emerging risks that it sees.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, anticipated the debate we will have on Monday about functionalities and content. I am grateful to her for putting her name to so many of the amendments that we have brought forward. We will continue the discussions that we have been having on this point ahead of the debate on Monday. I do not want to anticipate that now, but I undertake to carry on those discussions.
In closing, I reiterate what I know is the shared objective across your Lordships’ House—to protect children from harmful content and activity. That runs through all the government amendments in this group, which cover the main categories of harmful content and activity that, sadly, too many children encounter online every day. Putting them in primary legislation enables children to be swiftly protected from encountering them. I therefore hope that noble Lords will be heartened by the amendments that we have brought forward in response to the discussion we had in Committee.