Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords, I am grateful, as I am sure the whole House is, to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for tabling this amendment. We are all familiar with regular updates on our smartphones that eat more and more of the memory and use up more and more of the battery. They happen systematically, usually for security reasons, very regularly and seamlessly. However, I was not aware, until the noble Lord tabled his amendment and we had some discussions and meetings around it, that the technology that we are talking about to intercede and stop our devices being able to access or use this sort of material already exists to some degree on our telephones. Who among us who has an iPhone, like me, knew that the software to prevent and screen child sexual abuse material already exists but can be activated only if you go into the parental controls and turn it on—at which point it then starts working? I had no idea that that was embedded in my phone. The technology exists. The large manufacturers of these gadgets already have access to that technology. In some instances, they have already developed it to a very sophisticated level but, for all sorts of reasons, have chosen not to roll it out. One of the major arguments used against this sort of thing being rolled out is from the free speech brigade—one of whose protagonists I am glad to see is not in the Chamber today. They will always say that free speech trumps everything else. It is an unfortunate choice of verb, but that is the argument put forward. But the reality is that the technology we are talking about works in such a way that in no way, shape or form does it prevent free speech. It does not in any way, shape or form intervene with those platforms which are encrypted. It operates separately to those platforms but works in such a way that, without revealing what is going on in those encrypted messages, it stops the sort of material that we are talking about actually getting involved in the first place. In my view, that is not exactly an interdiction of free speech. For all these reasons, I ask the Government to look at this very carefully and closely. We are not dealing with some wonderful space age technology that has yet to be developed; we are talking about technology which already exists. There are individuals who have a huge amount of knowledge and experience in this area. It is probably a brilliant example of His Majesty’s Government pursuing one of their avowed aims, which is to work more closely with foreign jurisdictions together in this sort of area. For all these reasons, I hope that the Government will give a positive response, and that we will not have, “Oh, it is very difficult”, or, even worse, that we will have a consultation. I look forward to the Minister’s response.