Gregor Poynton MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Online Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  The National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies have highlighted the growing prevalence of AI-generated child sexual abuse material as one of the biggest threats to public safety. It is a growing threat to us online. That is why I was astonished last week to see the Tories and Reform vote against the Crime and Policing Bill, which contains world-leading measures to tackle this horrific crime. Does the Minister agree that it is frankly disgusting to see the Tories and Reform using this issue for party politics?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Online Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  2. What steps his Department is taking to keep children safe online.

• 3 Mar 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and the leadership he is showing at this moment of uncertainty. The quality of the contributions from Members on both sides of the House today shows this Parliament and this country rising to meet the moment. That is why it is so disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that the Westminster leader of the SNP, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), chose to make such juvenile and childish statements this weekend. Does the Prime Minister agree that the SNP leader’s juvenile comments on social media, and his party’s fundamentally unserious approach to our nuclear deterrent, show that the SNP cannot be trusted on the serious matter of the nation’s defence?

• 26 Feb 2025 · High Street Businesses · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) on securing this important debate. I will focus my remarks on Scottish high streets, which should be the beating hearts of our communities, because thriving high streets, and the businesses based there, promote thriving local economies. More than that, they promote a thriving civic culture, a genuine sense of pride among people about the place in which they live and the community that they are part of. Yet, right across Scotland, our high streets and our main streets have seen better days. But the decline of these high streets, main streets and town centres is not inevitable, and communities across Scotland are already taking innovative action to arrest that decline. I will share just one example from my constituency. I recently had the pleasure of visiting West Calder and Harburn Community Development Trust, which is transforming the iconic Central Bakery in West Calder into the Scottish Co-operative discovery and activity centre. It is an incredible £6 million project that will create jobs, investment and training opportunities in the area, and will honour our co-operative roots. A few months ago, I met with the traders from West Calder, and they have a vision for the main street that is about solidarity among their businesses, supporting each other to grow and thrive. Projects and businesspeople such as those demonstrate that, with vision, energy and determination, the decline of our town centres and high streets is far from inevitable—and, more than that, that rejuvenation is possible.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Online Safety Act: Implementation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. My congratulations to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this important debate. Online safety and the wellbeing of our children and young people in digital and online spaces are issues that guide many of us in the House, across the parties, and across the country. I speak only on my own behalf, but as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children’s online safety, I believe that the Online Safety Act is landmark legislation that has the potential to transform the safety of children and young people in the online world and I applaud the Government’s commitment to creating the safest possible environment for our children, especially in the face of the growing dangers that lurk in the online space. The Act is designed to tackle the pervasive issues of child sexual abuse material and online grooming. With provisions such as the requirement for platforms to scan for known child sexual abuse material, it has the potential to reduce significantly the availability of such content. Platforms will now have a legal obligation to take action, including by adopting measures such as hash matching, which will prevent the sharing of known CSAM. This is a major step forward and will undoubtedly save countless children from exploitation. However, there are some concerns that I wish to raise to ensure that the full potential of the Act is realised. Hon. Members have raised many of them already, but I hope that this will give weight to them, and I hope that Ofcom will be listening to our concerns about the Act’s implementation. One of the most pressing issues raised by experts, including the Internet Watch Foundation, is the interpretation of “technically feasible” in Ofcom’s illegal harms codes. Although the Act requires platforms to take steps to remove illegal content, the codes suggest that services are obliged to do so only when that is deemed technically feasible. That could lead to a situation in which platforms, rather than taking proactive steps to safeguard users, simply opt out of finding innovative solutions to prevent harm. I do not believe that that is the ambitious, risk-based regulatory approach that Parliament envisaged when it passed the Online Safety Act. These are the same platforms that have spent billions of pounds on R&D developing highly sophisticated algorithms to solve complex technical problems, and effectively targeting ads to drive revenue and serve audiences content that they want to see. They have a global reach: they have the tools, the people and the budgets to solve these problems. Therefore, we must ensure that platforms are incentivised to go beyond the bare minimum and truly innovate to protect our children. I echo the calls from multiple civil society organisations working in this area for us to require platforms to take a safety-by-design approach. Another serious concern is the potential for platforms to use the safe harbour provision offered by the Act. That would allow companies to claim that they are compliant with the codes of practice, simply by following the prescribed rules and without necessarily addressing the underlying harms on their platforms. As the Internet Watch Foundation has rightly pointed out, it risks leaving platforms operating in a way that is compliant on paper but ineffective in practice. I also ask Ofcom to look more quickly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) has suggested, at Apple and Google’s app stores. They have a wealth of data and can be effective gamekeepers, particularly on age verification, if they are pressed into service. Finally, I encourage the Government and Ofcom to address more fully the issue of private communications. Many predators exploit private messaging apps to groom children, yet the Act’s provisions on private communications are limited. It is vital that we ensure that private spaces do not become safe havens for criminals and that platforms are held accountable for the spread of CSAM, regardless of whether that occurs in private or public spaces. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can address those points in her response and that they will be kept front of mind by Ofcom, the Government and the tech giants as we all seek to ensure that digital and online spaces, which are increasingly important in all our lives, are safe and secure for our children and young people.

• 24 Feb 2025 · Social Media Use: Minimum Age · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children’s online safety, but I am contributing on my own behalf. The opportunities and perils of social media are increasingly weighing on the minds of parents, educators, society and, above all, young people themselves. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) spoke about balance, which I think is one of the key issues. Our young people require digital skills and literacy in order to access the modern world, be it the world of work, public services or their social lives, and we need to give them the tools to do that. This has been a useful debate to think about how we do that. We can see the strength of feeling about this measure reflected in the parliamentary petition that we are discussing. It is a petition signed by 92 of my Livingstone constituents, and it speaks to the widespread anxieties about the impact of social media on our children and young people. Those concerns are real and heartfelt, and they come from not only parents and communities, but young people themselves, who are having to navigate those digital landscapes every single day. They tell us that social media is not merely a tool for connection, but a space where the line between reality and illusion is often blurred, and where photoshopped images and curated lifestyles can distort self-perception. I am convinced of the merits of enforcing a minimum-age requirement of 16 for social media on the Australian model. I am in favour on mental health grounds, with social media shown in study after study to be linked to increased anxiety, depression and low self-esteem for young people. I am in favour on online safety grounds, with social media exposing children to cyberbullying, predators, misinformation and harmful content. I am in favour in order to try to reverse children’s decreasing attention spans; we need to give our kids the support they need to focus, to learn and to reach their full potential. I believe, however, that it is vital not to leave young people out of those conversations, but to centre on their concerns and experiences. I spoke the other week to academic colleagues at the University of Manchester, who stressed the complexity and variety of young people’s views on these subjects. They have conducted research, including focus groups, to understand how children use social media and what it means to them and their lives. They pointed out that a key concern of those young people in the focus groups, short of a ban, was the capacity to better distinguish between content that is real and content that is faked, manipulated or highly curated. Their point was not so much about disinformation or misinformation, but more about those perfect lifestyles that are shown on Instagram and other platforms. As has been mentioned, that is more insidious and not easy to ban, but it has a real effect on young people and on their perceptions of themselves and their lives. That point brings me to the role of social media companies. Many hon. Members have mentioned those companies in this debate, and it is right to say that they have not taken enough responsibility for the content on their sites. The incentive at the moment is to let loose, for eyeballs and time spent, rather than to ensure that the content is properly moderated and is going to the right people. We already have various minimum-age restrictions in place, but the challenge has been to enforce them. Social media companies must adhere to and enforce them. With or without a ban, we need more effective oversight and accountability for how those platforms operate. There is also a vital role for industry leaders such as Google and Apple through their app stores. These gatekeepers possess significant influence and could do much more to ensure that age verification and content moderation is robust and reliable. Hon. Members have also mentioned smartphone bans. I was pleased that at the Scottish Labour conference at the weekend Anas Sarwar, our leader in Scotland, said that in our manifesto for the 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections will be a ban on mobile phone use in Scottish schools. That gives parents and educators—and children themselves—clarity on what we think is right and not right. I do not believe that having phones in schools is right for children or for the educators trying to do their jobs. I believe that the minimum age for social media is an idea whose time has come. For me, it is a matter of protection and of ensuring that we prepare young people mentally and emotionally as best we can to handle the pressures that social media can bring. Even without a ban, however, we must ensure today that existing age limits are being properly and rigorously enforced, and we must engage robustly with the tech companies to ensure that they are doing all they can to protect our young people and children.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Support for the Scotch Whisky Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) on securing this debate, and thank him for his forbearance in letting me say a few words. Showing that this is a cross-party issue, it great to see Scottish Liberal Democrats, SNP MPs and Scottish Labour MPs here. It is a shame that we have missed out on the Scottish Conservatives. Scotch whisky is more than a drink; it is one of Scotland’s finest products, a symbol of our heritage and a driving force in our economy. In the Livingston constituency, we are proud to have world-class whisky producers such as the Glenmorangie and Ardbeg bottling plant and the North British Distillery. They generate good jobs, investment and prosperity in our communities, and that is why it is important that the Government have taken decisive action to support the industry. We have worked tirelessly to remove trade barriers, ensuring that Scotch whisky receives the international recognition that it deserves. As others have said, Brazil’s decision to grant Scotch whisky special status will give a £25 billion boost to the industry by opening up one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Brazil ranks among the top five global growth markets for alcohol over the next five years, and with exports to the country already topping £90 million in 2023, there is a huge opportunity for Scotch producers. What is more, the Government’s decision to give Scotch whisky protected status will, as has been said, ensure that our product remains authentic and competitive, free from imitation products that could undermine its quality and reputation. This really is brand Scotland in action, expanding our global reach, strengthening our economy and boosting jobs and investment in Scotland. The support does not stop there. The UK Government’s decision to invest up to £5 million to cut costs for distillers in the spirit drinks verification scheme and to remove the mandatory duty stamps for spirits from May this year will be an important boost to the industry. Those steps will make it easier and cheaper to do business, ensuring the continued success of our whisky industry. Scottish whisky is a global success story, but with the Government’s support, and with the Scotland Office relentlessly promoting Scotland and Scottish products, we will ensure that it remains at the heart of Scotland in the future.

• 21 Jan 2025 · Southport Attack · Hansard source

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  We have heard from Merseyside police, the CPS and counter-terrorism police about the wide range of violent content that the accused was accessing, including on genocide, and about his social media searches for violent and fatal stabbings. I know that the Home Secretary covered some of this in her statement and in response to previous questions, but what more should the social media and search engine giants be doing, first, to prevent our young people from accessing such content in the first place and, secondly, to take it down quickly from their sites once they are aware of it?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Online Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  I greatly welcome the action that the Government are taking, but the fight against child sex abuse online is only as strong as its weakest link, and Facebook’s decision to allow the encrypted sharing of images makes it a very weak link indeed. Does the Minister share my anger that Facebook appears to be turning a blind eye while its platform becomes a safe haven for paedophiles?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Online Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  11. What steps her Department is taking to help keep children safe online.