Digital Economy Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, these government amendments are primarily designed to address the concerns of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The committee’s first challenge is defining who exactly is in scope of the new age verification regime. Amendment 25D provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations on the circumstances in which persons should or should not be treated as making pornographic material available on a commercial basis. We have provided these in draft to aid understanding of how this power will be used and welcome views before a final version is subject to affirmative parliamentary procedure. The intention of the regulations is primarily to capture those who make money or benefit from making pornography available online, including making it available free of charge. It is not the intention to capture those sites, for example, that mostly contain non-pornographic content. However, it is the intention to cover those who, for example, market themselves as making available pornographic material and who may benefit from it Questions have rightly been asked about pornography on social media and our approach has been to not rule out specific platforms. In the regulations we are suggesting the scope should not include sites where an overwhelming majority of users are clearly not accessing to view pornography or where an overwhelming majority of the content is not pornographic in nature. We do not want to let anyone off the hook and where pornographic material is available but not within scope, it may be that the site will be enabling and facilitating the availability of commercial pornography and subject to an ancillary service provider notification. It will depend on the facts of any given case. Many social media sites already act responsibly. We will also look at the issue further as part of the cross-government work on the internet safety strategy that my department is leading. I will say more about this later We accept the committee’s argument for greater parliamentary scrutiny of who the regulator is. Amendment 25R would ensure that the first designation to be made for any given function is by the affirmative parliamentary process. As noble Lords will be aware, we have been working closely with the British Board of Film Classification as the intended regulator for much of the regulatory framework, including directing ISPs to block sites. We will come back to this in a later group, but let me say now that we have absolute confidence in the BBFC and will strongly resist anything that endangers the introduction of these important measures to protect children We have also addressed concerns that the regulator has too much flexibility in setting its own guidance. Amendment 25YQ provides for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to which the regulator must have regard, as is standard practice for statutory guidance. The regulator cannot choose to ignore this guidance. It provides direction to the regulator in a number of areas, including the important power of internet service provider level blocking. ISPs will be expected to take all reasonable steps to enact a notice from the regulator. We have circulated this guidance in draft. It is based on the many discussions and debates that have taken place over the previous months, but I stress that this is a draft, and we are now seeking views from parliamentarians and others before a final version is laid in Parliament In addition to the guidance to the regulator, we have also strengthened the requirements on the regulator in relation to the guidance it issues in Amendments 25YM and 25YA. The age verification regulator must publish guidance about the types of arrangements for making pornographic material available that the regulator will treat as being compliant and guidance about the circumstances in which it will treat services provided in the course of a business as enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic material or prohibited material. Government believe that internet sites, including social media, can be classified by the regulator as an ancillary service provider, where they are enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic or prohibited material. This would mean they could be notified of pornographers to whom they provide a service. This guidance will now be subject to an affirmative parliamentary procedure the first time that it is made, providing further opportunity for scrutiny Amendment 25M requires the Secretary of State to be satisfied that the intended appeals arrangements are "sufficiently independent" as part of the designation process and we provide further details on this issue in the draft guidance to the regulator, on which I will say more in a moment. Again, we will come back to this in a later group, but we are confident that further parliamentary scrutiny at the time of designation provides an appropriate time to ensure that the arrangements are right. I beg to move.