My Lords, even by previous standards, this is the most miscellaneous of miscellaneous groups. We have ranged very broadly. I will speak first to Amendment 191A from the noble Baroness,
Lady Kidron, which was so well spoken to by her and by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding. It is common sense, and my noble friend Lord Allan, as ever, put his finger on it: it is not as if coroners are going to come across this every day of the week; they need this kind of guidance. The Minister has introduced his amendments on this, and we need to reduce those to an understandable code for coroners and bereaved parents. I defy anybody, apart from about three Members of this House, to describe in any detail how the information notices will interlock and operate. I could probably name those Members off the top of my head. That demonstrates why we need such a code of practice. It speaks for itself.
I am hugely sympathetic to Amendment 275A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who asked a series of important questions. The Minister said at col. 1773 that he would follow up with further information on the responsibility of private providers for their content. This is a real, live issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, put it right: we hope fervently that the Bill covers the issue. I do not know how many debates about future-proofing we have had on the Bill but each time, including in that last debate, we have not quite been reassured enough that we are covering the metaverse and provider content in the way we should be. I hope that this time the Minister can give us definitive chapter and verse that will help to settle the horses, so to speak, because that is exactly what the very good amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, was about.
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On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I think I am rather more in favour of it in principle than is my noble friend, although I do not think he was against it in principle, and I was probably on exactly the same page as far as process is concerned. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, put her finger on it, because a right of action is highly desirable; in fact, the Joint Committee was extremely keen on having a right of action for those affected by social media, and it made an important recommendation. In a sense, that was not seen through to a sufficient extent. We believe that the Bill is an opportunity to reset the relationship between service providers and users. While we recognise the resource challenges both for individuals in accessing the courts and for the courts themselves, we think that the importance of issues in the Bill requires that users have a right of redress in the court. I am absolutely with the noble Lord but am not entirely sure about shoehorning that into the Bill at this stage, given that other digital services acquire data as well. This should not be covered just by the Online Safety Bill; I believe the DMCC Bill should cover it, and I very much look forward to supporting an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, if he chooses to table it when the time comes.
On my Amendment 253, we have heard throughout debates on the Bill that the range of human and business activity covered online presents a complex map of potential harms. Some of them will fall into or be adjacent to the oversight of other regulators with domain-specific expertise. The relationship has to some extent been formalised through the Digital Regulation
Cooperation Forum, which comprises Ofcom, the CMA, the ICO and the FCA, and I think we all support the creation of the DRCF. Ofcom already has a working relationship with the ASA, and of course with the Internet Watch Foundation—I was very pleased to hear from it that progress is being made on a memorandum of understanding with Ofcom, and I very much hope that continues to progress, as it has since Committee, because that kind of relationship that Ofcom and the IWF continue to build is really important.
Within that regulatory web, if you like, Ofcom will of course 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 what might be described as regulatory interlock. To protect the public, Ofcom should be explicitly empowered to co-operate with others and to share information, and the Bill should, as much as it can, enable Ofcom to work with other regulators and share online safety information with them. Ofcom should also be able to bring the immense skills of other regulators into its own work. The Bill gives Ofcom the general ability to co-operate with overseas regulators, but it is largely silent on co-operation with UK ones. The Communications Act 2003 limits the UK regulators with which Ofcom can share information—it excludes the ICO, for instance—yet the Bill has a permissive approach to overseas regulators.
The Bill should extend co-operation and information sharing in respect of online safety to include regulators overseeing the offences in Schedule 7, the primary priority harms for children and the priority harms to adults. Elsewhere in regulation, it is noted that the Financial Conduct Authority has a general duty to co-operate, so there are precedents. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, pointed out, the Joint Committee was extremely keen on this. It said:
“In taking on its responsibilities under the Bill, Ofcom will be working with a network of other regulators and third parties already working in the digital world. We recommend that the Bill provide a framework for how these bodies will work together including when and how they will share powers, take joint action, and conduct joint investigations”.
The logic is absolutely in favour of this. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to take it on board because it has been seen to be logical right from the word go, particularly by the Joint Committee. I think the Communications and Digital Committee also recommended it, so what is not to like?