Lord Pannick (CB)

My Lords, I too support these amendments. I will make two points that are additional to the powerful factors that have been addressed so far. First, I am very concerned to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, that the Government have not yet responded in full to her review. Can the Minister tell us why that is, given the importance of the subject, and when there will be a full response? Secondly, although I support the objective of Amendment 314 to apply the same principles to material online as to material offline, I am very doubtful that the way the amendment seeks to achieve this is sensible. The amendment seeks to incorporate into the Bill the definition of “harmful material” found in Section 368E(3)(a) and Section 368E(3)(b) of the Communications Act 2003. However, those provisions refer simply to the decisions and criteria of the British Board of Film Classification without specifying the criteria applied by that body. The criteria that that body applies, as set out in its guidelines, are helpful, but they are not categorical. For example, the guidelines say: “Exceptions are most likely in the following areas”, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, helpfully set out the factors that they have regard to. This is perfectly appropriate in the context of the BBFC, from whose decisions appeals are possible, because the context is the licensing of an R18 video, which, of course, can only be sold in a licensed sex shop. However, we are concerned here with criminal law, which needs to be defined with precision so that people know exactly what cannot be published online. Therefore, we need a revised Amendment 314, which I hope the Government will accept in principle, to set out in specific terms what Parliament is prohibiting online, such as material that depicts conduct in breach of the criminal law and material that depicts or appears to suggest non-consensual sexual conduct. There may well be other categories; let us set them out so that everybody knows what is prohibited online.