Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)

My Lords, earlier today, I had the enormous privilege to co-host with the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, who I suspect will try to ask the question after me, a group of the bereaved parents. Four of them spoke very bravely in person. Behind them were arrayed the photographs of even more children who lost their lives. They spoke very movingly. They said that while they absolutely welcomed the Government’s announcement yesterday, for them, that was the end of a long process of trying to get government to listen, but it is, at the same time, a beginning, because there is an awful lot more to do. If the Minister has not had the chance to read it, a very well-known bereaved parent, Ian Russell, wrote a very sensible piece in today’s Guardian about safety by design and how completely and utterly fundamental that is if we are going to get this right. My question to the Minister goes back to enforcement. I know these large companies; they were clients when I was a headhunter. I know how well funded they are. We put in a lot of their top lawyers. They are very smart and have very deep pockets. The only way that we will be able to enforce is by joining with other jurisdictions, most obviously the European Union, to create a large enough economic bloc of customers and users of these technology companies—despite whatever the slightly incontinent current President or any of his minions may say—and by working together in a united way to make the companies realise that there is no “get out of jail free” clause. They have to be held to account, and they will be, but we can only do that together.