Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, because I am going to mirror his words in many ways. Before I start, I thank our warm-up act, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. It is a fantastic result. I hope that the Minister gives her all that she wants. She should be proud of herself that she has done it in just a couple of years, because the child born when I first raised it is probably in tertiary education by now, so two years is a very good timeframe. I had written quite a different speech before I saw the Government’s consultation announcement. That made me rather angry, because it does not concern itself with the gaps in provision or enforcement of the Online Safety Act, nor the emerging or future threats that we repeatedly raise. It does not seek to speed up enforcement or establish why non-compliant companies are not named in Ofcom research or while they are being investigated. The consultation is entirely focused on two amendments that this House might send to the other House, which its Back-Benchers might agree to. The consultation’s purpose is to stave off a Back-Bench rebellion. It is not about child safety or governance; it is about party management. The UK’s children deserve better than that. We have two amendments before us. Neither enjoys the support of all those who care about child safety. As the right reverend Prelate said, what a gift that has been to the Government, because it allows them to kick the issue down the road. The United Kingdom—once at the forefront of tech safety, commended on its AI Safety Institute, the age-appropriate design code, the Online Safety Act and the provisions for bereaved parents, all first and best in class—has squandered its advantage. Instead, we are becoming a case study for those who would like to prove that the tech sector is beyond national laws and is a law unto itself. Regulation has failed not because it cannot work but because the regime envisaged by Parliament was weakened by lobbying and critically undermined in its implementation. It is not regulation failing in principle; it is political will failing in practice. There are very good reasons why all the child safety experts and organisations have urged the Government not to settle for a social media ban. Their collective view is clear that a ban is blunt and partial, fails to tackle root harms, shifts the burden from tech to parents and children and abandons 16 and 17 year-olds. Possibly the biggest thing they are saying we must hear is that it sends a dangerous message to a demographic that already experiences widespread disaffection that while the future is all digital and AI, they are not invited. I agree with every single one of those points. However, over the last 15 months, the Government have ignored the howl of pain from parents and children, preferring to sup with big tech. Many have come to the view that if they cannot have the digital world that they were promised for their children after a decade of work on the Online Safety Act, they would rather have nothing at all. I say this reluctantly, but all the social media companies caught by Australia’s ban are already in scope of the OSA, so today marks a very low day for Ofcom. We are rehearsing in these two groups exactly what Ofcom was supposed to solve.