Lord Polak (Con)

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 14 and there is not much to add, other than to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for all the work she has done over many years in this area and to support the noble Lord, Lord Russell. To make it very clear, this amendment is not trying to radically expand the compensation scheme. Instead, it is asking the Secretary of State to assess whether certain forms of online child sexual abuse should be recognised as crimes of violence when they involve coercion or threats, domination or control, or the compelled creation and sharing of sexual images and sexual acts directed by an offender. The amendment is therefore targeted, proportionate and legally defensible. It recognises that violence is not always physical. As we have heard, the reality of online coercion is that, when a child is threatened with the exposure of images, blackmailed into producing further images or directed in real time to perform sexual acts online, the child is not acting freely. They are acting under coercion, fear and domination. The absence of physical proximity does not make the abuse any less real, nor does it lessen the psychological injuries suffered by the child. Therefore, I suggest that it is our duty to protect children who are subjected to such abuse, and this amendment represents an important step towards strengthening those protections.