Offensive Weapons Bill — House of Lords, 2019-02-26
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for moving this amendment in the absence of my noble friend Lord Lucas. The two amendments allow us to consider the merits of prescribing one or more specific electronic methods for establishing the age of a purchaser of a corrosive product or bladed article as an alternative to the examination of official documents such as a passport or driving licence Amendment 4 would enable an electronic method of age verification to be prescribed solely for use in Scotland. I assume this is because Clause 1 imposes particular requirements on retailers in Scotland if they wish to benefit from the defence of having taken reasonable steps to establish the purchaser’s age. In Scotland, in line with a number of existing age verification laws that operate in that part of the UK, a retailer is obliged to establish a purchaser’s age by examining his or her passport, photocard driving licence or other document, as prescribed by the Scottish Ministers. There is no such requirement in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Consequently, Clause 1 would not preclude the use of electronic age verification technology The age verification requirements as they apply to Scotland have been discussed and agreed with the Scottish Government and are intended to reflect the law as it currently applies to other age-restricted products. We have drawn the Scottish Government’s attention to my noble friend’s amendment and will ensure that they have sight of this debate. However, they have advised that they would prefer any steps in this area to be taken on a consistent basis across all age verification provisions. As such, they have advised that we should be wary of introducing in this Bill new procedures on a piecemeal basis that disturb wider current age verification procedures related to the sale of age-restricted products in Scotland In short, I commend the development of technological solutions to age verification. I am sure that this is something that the Scottish Government will want to look at in future. However, any change to the current arrangements regarding age-restricted products in Scotland should be considered across the piece and not in isolation. As I have said, we will draw the Scottish Government’s attention to this debate Amendment 69 would require the Secretary of State to publish and maintain a list of systems assessed as suitable for online and offline age verification. Again, I recognise the place for the use of technology to verify the age of a person seeking to purchase age-restricted products, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned. However, I have concerns about what is proposed here. I am sure noble Lords would accept that Government cannot be seen to be endorsing one or more proprietary age verification systems over others. There are different types of age verification systems available and a number of different providers. The technology behind these systems is continuing to develop at a very fast pace. There is a danger that, if we prescribe a specific electronic method for age verification, this could quickly be overtaken by technological innovations.