Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this debate on the implementation of the Online Safety Act. I know that he has been following the Bill throughout its passage and has been a critic of every Minister, even his Government’s Ministers, whenever the Bill was watered down or delayed, so I expect him to hold all of us to account. I am grateful to him and all the hon. Members who have spoken this morning. The Government share their commitment to keeping users safe online. It is crucial that we continue to have conversations about how best to achieve that goal.
The Online Safety Act lays the foundations for strong protections against evil content and harmful material online. It addresses the complex nature of online harm, recognising that harm is not limited to explicit content and extending to the design and functionality of online services. We know that the legislation is not perfect. I hear that at every such debate, but we are committed to supporting Ofcom to ensure that the Act is implemented quickly, as this is the fastest way to protect people online. 2025 is the year of action for online safety, and the Government have already taken a number of steps to build on Ofcom’s implementation of the Act. In November last year, the Secretary of State published the draft “Statement Of Strategic Priorities for online safety”. That statement is designed to deliver a comprehensive, forward-looking set of online safety priorities for the full term of this Government. It will give Ofcom a backing to be bold on specific areas, such as embedding safety by design, through considering all aspects of a service’s business model, including functionalities and algorithms.
We are also working to build further on the evidence base to inform our next steps on online safety, and I know that this issue was debated earlier this week. In December, we announced a feasibility study to understand the impact of smartphones and social media on children, and in the Data (Use and Access) Bill, we have included provisions to allow the Secretary of State to create a new researcher access regime for online safety data. That regime is working to fix a systemic issue that has historically prevented researchers from understanding how platforms operate, and it will help to identify and mitigate new and preventable harms. We have also made updates to the framework, such as strengthening measures to tackle intimate image abuse under the Online Safety Act, and we are following up on our manifesto commitment to hold perpetrators to account for the creation of explicit, non-consensual deepfake images through amendments to the Data Bill.
We are also building on the measures in the Online Safety Act that allow Ofcom to take information on behalf of coroners. Through the Data Bill, we are bringing in additional powers to allow coroners to request Ofcom to issue a notice requiring platforms to preserve children’s data, which can be crucial for investigations into a child’s tragic death. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) raised Jools’ law, of which I am very aware, and I believe that she is meeting Ministers this week to discuss it further.
Finally, we recently announced that, in the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill, we are introducing multiple offences to tackle AI sexual abuse, including a new offence for possessing, creating or supplying AI tools designed to generate child sexual abuse material.
Members have raised the issue of the Act’s implementation being too slow. We are aware of the frustrations over the amount of time that it has taken to implement the Online Safety Act, not least because of the importance of the issues at hand. We are committed to working with Ofcom to ensure that the Online Safety Act is implemented as quickly and effectively as possible.