My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 191A in my name. I also support Amendment 186A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, Amendment 253 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and Amendment 275A in the name of my noble friend Lady Finlay. I hope that my words will provide a certain level of reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.
In Committee and on Report, the question was raised as to how to support the coronial system with information, education and professional development to keep pace with the impact of the fast-changing digital world. I very much welcome the Chief Coroner’s commitment to professional development for coroners but, as the Minister said, this is subject to funding. While it is right that the duty falls to the Chief Coroner to honour the independence and expert knowledge associated with his roles, this amendment seeks to support his duties with written guidance from Ofcom, which has no such funding issue since its work will be supported by a levy on regulated companies—a levy that I argue could usefully and desirably contribute to the new duties that benefit coroners and bereaved parents.
The role of a coroner is fundamental. They must know what preliminary questions to ask and how to triage the possibility that a child’s digital life is relevant. They must know that Ofcom is there as a resource and ally and how to activate its powers and support. They must know what to ask Ofcom for, how to analyse information they receive and what follow-up questions might be needed. Importantly, they must feel confident in making a determination and describing the way in which the use of a regulated service has contributed to a child’s death, in the case that that is indeed their finding. They must be able to identify learnings that
might prevent similar tragedies happening in the future. Moreover, much of the research and information that Ofcom will gather in the course of its other duties could be usefully directed at coroners. All Amendment 191A would do is add to the list of reports that Ofcom has to produce with these issues in mind. In doing so, it would do the Chief Coroner the service of contributing to his own needs and plans for professional development.
I turn to Amendment 186A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who makes a very significant point in bringing it forward. Enormous effort goes into creating an aura of exceptionality for the tech sector, allowing it to avoid laws and regulations that routinely apply to other sectors. These are businesses that benefit from our laws, such as intellectual copyright or international tax law. However, they have negotiated a privileged position in which they have privatised the benefits of our attention and data while outsourcing most of the costs of their service to the public purse or, indeed, their users.
Terms and conditions are a way in which a company enters into a clear agreement with its users, who then “pay” for access with their attention and their data: two of the most valuable commodities in today’s digital society. I am very sympathetic to the noble Lord’s wish to reframe people, both adults and children, from a series of euphemisms that the sector employs—such as “users”, “community members”, “creators” or “participants”—to acknowledge their status as consumers who have rights and, in particular, the right to expect the product they use to be safe and for providers to be held accountable if it is not. I join the noble Lord in asserting that there are now six weeks before Third Reading. This is a very valuable suggestion that is worthy of government attention.
Amendment 253 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, puts forward a very strong recommendation of the pre-legislative committee. We were a bit bewildered and surprised that it was not taken up at the time, so I will be interested to hear what argument the Minister makes to exclude it, if indeed he does so. I say to him that I have already experienced the frustration of being bumped from one regulator to another. Although my time as an individual or the organisational time of a charity is minor in the picture we are discussing, it is costly in time and resources. I point to the time, resources and potential effectiveness of the regulatory regime. However well oiled and well funded the regulatory regime of the Online Safety Bill is, I do not think it will be as well oiled and well funded as those that it seeks to regulate.
I make it clear that I accept the arguments of not wanting to create a super-regulator or slow down or confuse existing regulators which each have their own responsibilities, but I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has approached this with more of a belt-and-braces approach rather than a whole realignment of regulators. He simply seeks to make it explicit that regulators can, should and do have a legal basis on which to work singularly or together when it suits them. As I indicated earlier, I cannot quite understand why that would not be desirable.
Finally, in what is truly a miscellaneous group, I will refer to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Finlay. I support the intent of this amendment and sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that this is already in the Bill and will be done by Ofcom under one duty or another. I hope that he will be able to point to something that includes this. I thank my noble friend for raising it, as it harks back to an amendment in Committee in my name that sought to establish that content deemed harmful in one format would be deemed harmful in all formats—whether synthetic, such as AI, the metaverse or augmented reality. As my noble friend alluded to, it also speaks to the debate we had last week in relation to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about provider content in the metaverse.
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I do not think we have time to wait for the report that my noble friend seeks. This is the long-awaited Online Safety Bill. We have been warned by the inventors of neural networks and leaders in AI and alternate realities that we are at a crossroads between human and machine. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the Bill is fit not only for the past but for the future. In order to do that, they need to look at the definitions—as they did so admirably in Part 5—but also at some of the exceptions they have carved out so that they can say that the Bill truly ends the era of exceptionality in which harms online are treated differently from those offline. My view is that the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Finlay should not be necessary at this stage. But, if the Minister cannot confirm that it is already covered, perhaps he will indicate his willingness to accept the amendment.