Baroness Levitt (Lab)

I can start again; I am very grateful to my noble friend for taking over. I say now that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, as she and I discussed when we met briefly the other day. The Government do have concerns that being too prescriptive in legislation may create more problems than it solves because the legislation would need to be amended every time there were changes in technology or in operational practices. Your Lordships will be well aware, given our many late nights spent scrutinising primary legislation, of which tonight may be another, how clunky, cumbersome and time-consuming it can be to keep amending primary legislation. For this reason, it is the Government’s view that our shared objective can be achieved using non-statutory guidance. Police forces are well used to applying and following guidance in a range of areas, from missing people to information sharing. Having said that, I make the point that I would welcome a conversation with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, to see whether we can find a way through this by working together to do so. I turn to Amendments 474 and 475. Again, this is an issue that the Government take very seriously. I reassure your Lordships that we are carefully considering the issues that these amendments raise and are grateful for the continued engagement of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the bereaved families. Taken together, these amendments would require coroners to notify Ofcom within five days of a child’s death, triggering a standard form to request data preservation. Once again, we can see the appeal of such a requirement. The problem is that it would apply to all cases of deaths in the over-fives, regardless of whether social media may be relevant to their death. So, for example, where a child died as a result of a road traffic collision or of cancer, it is unlikely in most cases that social media retention would be of use to the police or the coroner. Therefore, while the Government are sympathetic to the aims of these amendments, it is our view that we need carefully to consider any possible unintended consequences.