Contribution
This makes me more frustrated than just about anything else in this place: the levels of ignorance, stupidity and hypocrisy from so many people in here, specifically about children’s access to social media. I fully intended to support the Lib Dems’ position, but the longer their spokesperson, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), spoke, the less I wanted to do so.
I do not believe that the Government’s position on this is 100% right. I am glad that they are having a consultation, but I do not like the way that they are amending the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is a devolved Bill, to change the territorial extent to bring that into scope. A Bill that we have not scrutinised, because it is a devolved Bill, will now have a reserved section in it. At the moment, the Bill does not apply to Scotland, apart from one clause; now, it will apply to Scotland, because it will include this. As we have not had the opportunity to scrutinise it, we have not been involved in that process. I do not think it is right that the proposed amendment should come forward in this way, although I appreciate why the Government are doing it. That is why I am asking for the amendment to be shared with us as soon as possible so that we can see it, because we have not had a chance to look at the Bill as it has gone along.
The Lib Dems have said that they have made their position clear. I have so far been able to find three amendments and new clauses to the Online Safety Act put forward by Lib Dems during its passage through the House. One of them was put forward by the Lib Dem spokesperson, who asked for an independent evaluation within 12 months of whether more platforms should be subject to child safety duties—this is the same party that is currently accusing the Government of kicking the can down the road, despite asking for a 12-month independent evaluation. There is hardly anything in the Lib Dems’ previous positions that helps me to understand their current position.
The Tory party’s position is totally incoherent, too. The Tories refused my amendment on reducing habit-forming and algorithmic features. They also refused my amendments on livestreaming.
By the way, before the Minister’s “Dear colleague” letter, livestreaming had been mentioned 53 times across the two Houses. A third of those mentions were me talking about how livestreaming for children should be banned. Before today, Roblox had been mentioned 32 times across both Houses—15 of those mentions were me saying that Roblox is not a safe platform for children.
I am massively in favour of improving the online world for children. I think social media should be about looking at videos of cats. I love videos of cats—they are absolutely brilliant. That is what it should be for. I also think it is a great place for children to interact with one another.
Like some others in the Chamber, I have been making the case that there are dangers on social media that can be easily tackled by changing the Online Safety Act. We could have got rid of those algorithmic features for children, for example. We could have got rid of livestreaming for children through the amendment I tabled. We could have got rid of children’s access to private messaging features with people they do not know, through another amendment that I tabled to the Online Safety Act.
I do not like the way the Government are doing this, though. They are proposing an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and then we will have secondary legislation that will, possibly, amend the Online Safety Act—I am not 100% clear on how it is going to go. I appreciate that there needs to be a consultation.
Before the 2024 Parliament, there were about three people in this entire place who had any grip of what the online world might have been like for children. One of them was the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), who talked about some of these things. I asked the Minister at the time whether Fortnite would be included in the scope of the Online Safety Act, and they said, “If there’s text chat.” Text chat in Fortnite—it is an online game! There is not enough expertise in this place. Much as I hugely appreciate the people who work on writing Bills and the work of some of the experts at Ofcom, they are not experiencing the online world that children are experiencing. That is why we need to listen to ensure that any changes that are made tackle the most harmful behaviours, places and functionalities on the internet.
I appreciate that the Government are trying to take action on this now. However, one of the few things that has made me cry in frustration in this place was one of the first things this Government did when they came in, when they brought in secondary legislation to categorise platforms and refused to include the small, high-risk platforms that had been added in the House of Lords. They said they were categorising as category 1 only platforms like Facebook, which meet a certain threshold. I was so frustrated by that choice by the Government.
There needs to be more listening and learning about where the actual dangers are, and taking action on them. Please, do that in consultation with those of us who do understand this. Please, listen to experts on this.