Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I welcome these regulations and congratulate the Minister on introducing them. I have a couple of questions and will also support some of the comments made by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Can the Minister tell us when the department will undertake the guidance that it has committed to produce before the regulations come into effect? Will the House have sight of that before they come into effect? Paragraph 5.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum states: “The whole super-complaints process must … typically be completed within 120 days, which reduces to 105 days in the event that an entity has retained eligibility status”. Is that feasible? Can that actually be delivered within the procedure? I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that this is meant to be a streamlined procedure, but it is important that, if someone is limited to one complaint in a six-month period, they have the time to develop that complaint to the full, and 120 days might be quite a tight timetable. Paragraph 5.9 of the Explanatory Memorandum says: “Entities must not submit more than one complaint in a six-month period”. Again, this may mean that a genuine complaint that is completely different from the complaint already before Ofcom will be delayed, so it is not streamlining the procedure at all. It also says, “except in specific circumstances”—I wonder what those circumstances might be—and goes on to say: “Super-complaints should not merely repeat the substance of another complaint that has been made publicly available by Ofcom within the last two years and Ofcom will reject a complaint on this basis”. On the two points from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I share the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that there is neither an appeals mechanism nor the intervention of an ombudsman. For what reason was an ombudsman not considered appropriate in these circumstances? Given the pressure on Ofcom and the restrictions placed on it, particularly following on from the Online Safety Act, does the Minister feel absolutely convinced that Ofcom has all the resources that it needs at its disposal to deal with the super-complainants? Paragraph 49 of the committee’s report says: “We note the Department’s explanation but remain concerned about the adequacy of the resources available to Ofcom, given its already extensive online safety responsibilities would be expanded further by this instrument”. I have one final question, as I was not as closely involved in this Bill as others were. What happens to those individual complainants who do not fall within the super-complaint? Do they have a separate procedure under separate regulations? With those fair words, I welcome the opportunity to scrutinise these regulations.