Member

First, there is the definition problem. The Australian legislation has had to draw explicit lines that keep services such as WhatsApp, Google Classroom and many gaming platforms out of scope, to make the ban effective. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has rightly recognised these difficulties by giving the Secretary of State the power to exclude platforms, but that simply moves the arbitrariness from a list in legislation to ministerial discretion. What criteria would the Secretary of State use? Our approach instead puts those decisions on a transparent, risk-based footing with Ofcom and the Children’s Commissioner, rather than in one pair of hands.