Madam President, in 1996 I had the great honour of representing the UK Government at the World Congress, which was held in Stockholm, Sweden, under United Nations auspices, on the subject of the sexual exploitation of children. At that time we took a number of initiatives which we believed would help children, the most vulnerable section of our society. Mostly they were concerned with issues such as sex tourism and general abuse in countries all over the world. They did not, in general, relate to matters concerned with the Internet – this new technology, which has come in at an enormous pace in the last few years; a new technology which has the ability to do good things but also the ability to do evil things. There are very few regulations which are concerned with what the Internet is used for. Whilst a lot of countries are keen to see their citizens benefit from the good things it can offer and whilst e-commerce itself is becoming a major feature of life, we have not yet seen any proper regulations to protect those who are abused, and particularly those who are abused by the use of images of themselves in a pornographic manner. That is the reason for my report – to protect children, to try and help children to avoid being abused in this particular manner. My report, for the first time, puts forward a definition. We have been short of a definition until now. Although there was an initial Austrian initiative, which this report supports, it did not contain a definition. In our report we have entered a definition which we hope will be acceptable internationally. We can only deal with this matter if we deal with it in an international fashion. We are only dealing with it at European level now, but hopefully the world will react, whether it be through the auspices of the United Nations once more or, indeed, through the common sense of other countries. If we are lucky, we will see a world approach to outlaw these very bad practices. We have required within our report that European nation states should have action plans for dealing with the abuses which take place. We are concerned with the production, sale, distribution and deliberate possession of pornographic images showing children. We want to stamp out this appalling abuse. In our report we wish to make sure that police authorities throughout Europe take action to deal with these matters. We want to encourage and, indeed, in some circumstances, require nation states to look at their present laws, to make sure that they are able to investigate these abuses and bring people who abuse children in this way before the appropriate courts. We are faced with a difficult task, not only in regard to the definition which we have decided to offer, but also because so many countries have different attitudes as to what, for instance, is a child. We have tried to reach a compromise in our deliberations. I believe that we have managed to do so. I wish to offer my thanks, as rapporteur, to all those who have been concerned, not only on my own committee – the Committee on Citizen's Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs – but also on the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and on the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport as well. We have had nothing but positive contributions. In my own committee this report was adopted with 27 votes in favour and one abstention. That I regard as very helpful and a good sign for the future. Because of all the support for this initiative, both within the committees and from public reaction, I am very hopeful that once it has been considered by Parliament it will be taken up and put into effect and will assist in protecting that vulnerable section of society that needs protection in this fast-moving and growing area of new technology. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE