Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, to which I have added my name. I will speak briefly because I wish to associate myself with everything that she has said, as is normal on these topics. Those of us who worked long and hard on the Online Safety Act had our fingers burnt quite badly when things were not written into the Bill. While I am pleased—and expect to be even more pleased in a few minutes—that the Government are in favour of some form of code of conduct for edtech, whether through the age-appropriate design code or not, I am nervous. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron said, every day with Ofcom we are seeing the risk-aversion of our regulators in this digital space. Who can blame them when it appears to be the flavour of the month to say that, if only the regulators change the way they behave, growth will magically come? We have to be really mindful that, if we ask the ICO to do this vaguely, we will not get what we need. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as ever, makes a very clear case for why it is needed. I would ask the Minister to be absolutely explicit about the Government’s intention, so that we are giving very clear directions from this House to the regulator.