Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)

My Lords, I have co-signed Amendment 137. I do not need to repeat the arguments that have already been made by those who have spoken before me on it; they were well made, as usual. Again, it seems to expose a gap in where the Government are coming from in this area of activity, which should be at the forefront of all that they do but does not appear to be so. As has just been said, this may be as simple as putting in an initial clause right up at the front of the Bill. Of course, that reminds me of the battle royal we had with the then Online Safety Bill in trying to get up front anything that made more sense of the Bill. It was another beast that was difficult to ingest, let alone understand, when we came to make amendments and bring forward discussions about it. My frustration is that we are again talking about stuff that should have been well inside the thinking of those responsible for drafting the Bill. I do not understand why a lot of what has been said today has not already appeared in the planning for the Bill, and I do not think we will get very far by sending amendments back and forward that say the same thing again and again: we will only get the response that this is all dealt with and we should not be so trivial about it. Could we please have a meeting where we get around the table and try and hammer out exactly what it is that we see as deficient in the Bill, to set out very clearly for Ministers where we have red lines—that will make it very easy for them to understand whether they are going to meet them or not—and do it quickly?