Kirsty Blackman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Immigration!

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State is laying out that the Government are not considering this—that, basically, it is not Government policy for Scotland to have control of migration or for there to be a specific Scottish visa. I assume therefore that he is happy for there to be a vote, and that he is going to encourage a vote, so that he can walk through a Lobby opposing this Bill. If he feels so strongly about it, why is he not pushing for there to be a vote?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making an important case about Scotland’s unique needs and the way that our democracy differs. To go back to the economic point, the founding mission of this Labour Government is about growing the economy, so will my hon. Friend explain the impact of increasing migration? What is the impact on the economy of bringing more people in to do more jobs in the economy?

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Around the turn of the millennium, I remember hearing Lord Jack McConnell, the First Minister of Scotland at the time, talking about that iconic 5 million mark. I was only 13 or 14, but I remember it being so important, and it was so important to Labour that immigration happened in order to keep that population. Why does he think Labour has changed its position so drastically in a relatively short space of time? Why is immigration now apparently bad?

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree, and my hon. Friend would expect me to talk about the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University in my constituency. Along with North East Scotland college, they have been doing really important work as part of the Aberdeen city deal and the energy transition zone to ensure that we have skills for the future. Aberdeen council has created a significant number of jobs and things like foundation apprenticeships to encourage young people into the sector, but we need people to think about tech as well as make it. We have the right ingredients, but we need to ensure that everybody has confidence in the commitments that are being made. That is where the gap is. I have spoken to the Minister about that, and I have no doubt that he is strongly committed to that, but my concern is that the industry does not believe that the Government are strongly committed to a just and managed transition. About 12% to 17% of people in Aberdeen city are directly employed in oil and gas, and a significant number are indirectly employed, but there has been a massive reduction in jobs since 2014. We have recently seen an increase in offshore wind revenue, but there are 4,000 fewer jobs so something is going wrong. My key ask is that the Government listen to people and have a plan. The world looks very different now from how it looked in July 2024. When the Government were elected, Donald Trump was not in the White House and we did not have the global uncertainty caused by that. Something like 20% of the liquefied natural gas that we import comes from the US, and we are involved in global trading markets for oil and gas, so the increase in global volatility means that we need to think more seriously about energy security. We have had to do that since Russia invaded Ukraine and since covid, but the situation is even more desperate now. To ensure energy security, we must take control of everything we can, and we must not rely as significantly on imports as we will if the Government maintain their current direction of travel, particularly given that we do not have gas storage and are basically using LNG ships as offshore floating storage. My key ask is for the Government to listen to people. The Minister does go out and listen to people, but they are saying that the Government are not getting it right. They are perfectly happy with some of the rhetoric, but they are concerned that action will not follow. They do not yet trust the Government’s commitment to a just and managed transition. Whatever the Government’s views—whether they are committed to a just and managed transition or not—they need to ensure that people believe they are. That is the gap, and my suggestion for dealing with it is in line with the North Sea Transition Taskforce’s “Securing the Future of the Energy Transition in the North Sea” and Offshore Energies UK’s most recent report: we must ensure that there is a kind of mission control, so that there is somebody in charge of this. I appreciate that the Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland are talking about that and are willing to answer my questions, but nobody seems to be in control. There is no oversight at a governmental level; there is no one person in the Government about whom everybody can say, “That person is in charge of the just and managed transition.” There is no group that has been set up. We have all seen just transition plans from many organisations, including the Government, but nobody seems to be saying, “This is the just transition plan. This is what we are following. This is where we want to go.” A commitment from the Government that they would be willing to look at the key asks from the OEUK and in the North sea transition plan would make a big difference. We need to say, “This person is designated the just transition mandarin”—or however we want to style them—“and they are in charge. This is who we go to if we have a concern. This is who will ensure that decisions are being taken across Government to protect these jobs.” There are other things the Government could do in terms of the £28 billion commitment and the spending review. There will be uproar if that £28 billion is cut during the spending review. I beg the Government not to cut that money. There is a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero consultation that has closed, and there is another consultation on the fiscal regime. My slight concern on those is about the timing. Oil and gas companies will make final investment decisions and plans for next year perhaps in August or September this year. If we do not have an outcome by that point, particularly on the fiscal regime, companies will say things are too uncertain and will not invest next year. Again, we will see the loss of jobs as a result. The timing is key. The Government may not be able to announce their final decisions—around the fiscal regime, for example—but if they could give industry a direction of travel in advance of investment decisions and financial plans being made, we would not lose next year. I am really worried that we are at the point where we will lose next year and all the associated jobs as a result. The Government are not yet getting this right. They need to do more listening and to ensure that they are taking control. The facts and the context have changed in the past year, because of the global changes and the job losses we continue to see. I am not asking the Government to row back on what they planned; I am asking them to consider that the context and the facts have changed and, therefore, that the plan needs to change to recognise that. This is not about having to walk back from where we believe we should be. This is about ensuring that people in my constituency, and people across the country, who are employed in oil and gas—75% of workers are employed in the rest of the UK—have a secure future. We cannot see a gap as oil and gas jobs go down and renewables jobs go up, because we will lose all that talent and the incredible bonanza that we are at the best point to take advantage of. We might lose that just because people do not believe that the Government are committed enough. Now is the time to take these decisions and to ensure that people believe that the Government are committed to a just and managed transition.

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  I thank all Members, especially the Minister, for their considered comments. This issue is bigger than politics—it is more important than kicking around a political football. I am glad that so many people focused on the jobs. We want to ensure that we can take advantage of the opportunity and not just try to avert total disaster, because there is a prize to be won. I will finish with a quote from Paul de Leeuw from Robert Gordon University, who has said that the “urgency has shifted dramatically.” Therefore, Minister, the time to take action is now, in order to protect those jobs. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered transitional support for North sea oil and gas workers.

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  We have a huge amount of work to do, particularly with young people. When I talked to Developing the Young Workforce North East recently, I was heartened to hear that a significant number of young people in north-east Scotland still want to go into engineering, which is incredibly important, whether that is in fabrication or not, because engineering is involved in all of it. I am worried that we will lose that, because the industry is ageing, and the same thing is happening in offshore oil and gas. People see that their uncle, cousin or grandad was made redundant in oil and gas, and they worry about going into engineering. If young people are not excited and passionate about the future of renewables, we will not be able to build the amazing tech that we need to ensure that renewables deliver a profit and work commercially, so I am concerned about skills. One of the key things that the Government could do is ensure more UK content and fabrication. We have amazing fabrication works—not so much in Aberdeen, but around the north-east and the rest of Scotland and the UK. That is a point that I wanted to make: this is a significant problem not just for Aberdeen but for the rest of the UK, given that only 25% of the jobs in offshore oil and gas are in the north-east of Scotland.

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered transitional support for North Sea oil and gas workers. I appreciate the chance to have this debate, Sir Desmond, because this is an incredibly important time for the oil and gas industry and those employed in and around oil and gas. I will lay out the context and where we are right now, and then talk about my key asks for the Government, given the current situation and people’s worries about the direction of travel. I want to start with a quote from the seventh carbon budget: “As of 2021, direct employment in oil and gas in Aberdeen has declined by nearly one-third since 2015. Household disposable income has fallen and poverty has increased…Some estimates indicate that around 14,000 people in the region will need to have moved to other roles or sectors between 2022 and 2030.” That is such a stark comment from a well-respected organisation, which has produced an incredibly useful and informative report. It says that household disposable income has fallen and that poverty has increased, albeit not in line with the national average—everybody is feeling the pinch of the cost of living—but as a direct result of changes to the energy industry and the lack of pick-up in the renewables sector to compensate for that. As a result of political uncertainty, the current situation and direction of travel, there is a real lack of confidence in the energy industry. We expect companies that have previously majored in oil and gas to fund a significant part of the renewables revolution. We expect them to put their money in and fund the offshore wind power that we will need. We expect their skilled workers to transfer into those industries. We are at the point now where we risk losing the significant edge that we have in skills, manufacturing capabilities and people. We risk losing that if the Government do not take action now to ensure that the transition is just and, importantly for this debate, managed properly. As a result of the lack of confidence, final investment decisions by oil and gas companies, or companies working specifically in renewables and not so much in oil and gas, are being pushed back. Whether that is to do with their inability to get grid connections right now or the Government’s changes to the energy profits levy and extension of the windfall tax—which, by the way, has been stopped in every other country that had such a tax—companies feel that the Government are not going the right way. Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce’s energy transition survey shows that political uncertainty and concern about the political direction of travel has gone from the seventh top worry to the top worry in just two years. Whatever the Government think they might be doing, and whatever rhetoric they might use, the industry does not believe that they have quite got it right, so they need to change where they are going.

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister agree to consider the timescale of the consultation outcomes so that people have the earliest possible notice, in advance of next year’s budgets, if possible?

• 23 Apr 2025 · North Sea Oil and Gas Workers: Transitional Support · Hansard source

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  I had concerns about the windfall tax in the first place. I thought that a windfall tax should be applied, but that it should have applied across the board to all those companies that made significant profits during covid, whether that was supermarkets, Amazon or oil and gas companies. Singling out the oil and gas industry was the wrong thing to do at the time. In terms of the comparative level of the tax, I do not know the answer, and I do not want to say something that is not right, but I felt that it was wrongly applied. A number of other companies made significant profits, and the oil and gas industry felt singled out, as though it was somehow different. I accept that it is different from other industries in a number of ways, but the levels of profit were not as high as they were in 2014, for example, and singling that industry out when supermarkets were making a much higher percentage profit than they had in previous years did not seem like the right thing to do. I appreciate the Government’s work on a skills passport for the industry. That is important, but there is no point having a skills passport if the jobs are not there. We have not seen the offshore wind industry increase at the pace we would like it to, and we cannot do all the work necessary to reduce the amount of oil and gas without those jobs for people to move to. In response to ET40, the 40th energy transition survey by the Aberdeen and Grampian chamber of commerce, one company said that “Forcing the end of oil and gas for our company before offshore wind is ready to replace the lost revenues” is one of its biggest concerns. That is how a significant number of companies feel right now. Companies are struggling to find people with the skills they need, whether in oil and gas or offshore renewables. The people who will be building offshore renewables will be working three-on, three-off shifts, in the same way that oil and gas workers do. It is really difficult to adjust to life on three-on, three-off shifts—it is not easy for workers to change their lives and ensure that someone is home looking after their kids if they have a family. Oil and gas workers have that transferability, because their lifestyle is already set up to do that. We are at a tipping point. The risk is that these highly mobile, highly paid oil and gas workers will go abroad. The responses to the ET40 survey show that a significant percentage of these people are moving to postings abroad either within company or in other companies. Despite the massive disparities in disposable income, an unbelievable number of people who live in Aberdeen North have been on holiday to Dubai. The majority of Members in this room will not have many constituents who have spent holidays in Dubai, whereas I have heaps, because they have that level of transferability and portability—they can up sticks and move to another country, because drilling is the same there. They might be doing it at a higher carbon cost and with fewer terms and conditions, but they are still getting a highly-paid job. They can uproot to do that, because they are used to moving around the world. If we do not take control of the situation now, we will lose the skills we need to power the renewable future, which is incredibly concerning. One of the UK Government’s founding missions is to grow the economy. We will not be able to grow the economy if we do not take advantage of this situation, and the time is now.

• 22 Apr 2025 · “For Women Scotland” Supreme Court Ruling · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the Minister’s words about reducing the temperature. An awful lot of people are hurting a huge amount this week as a result of the announcement. I appreciate the commitment to reduce the temperature and hope that everybody will sign up to that. The SNP welcomes the clarity offered on the definition in the Equality Act, notes the judgment’s points of interaction between the 2010 Act and the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and notes the commitment of the Minister and the EHRC to deliver as quickly as possible the guidance on the new code of practice. I would like to ask her if and when she will be replying to the letter, sent by the Scottish Government, seeking an early meeting with the UK Government. I urge her to undertake that meeting as soon as possible, please.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  On the point the hon. and learned Gentleman is making about enfranchisement and the fact that he wishes this Parliament to be in control of the powers that it has, does he agree that it would be sensible for the UK Government to ensure that, where powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, for example, they seek consent from Scottish Ministers rather than just legislating? The Bill, as currently drafted, allows Ministers here to legislate in areas of devolved competency, much as he is making the case that the EU court would be allowed to do.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I wonder if the Minister can ask his friend, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), to get in touch with me about how he managed to find out where the 5,000 pensioners are that he was able to write to. I have tried to get that information so I can write to pensioners and tell them about pension credit, but it has not been available anywhere. If he could ask his friend to write to me, I would really appreciate it.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I start by acknowledging the clear impact that I have had on the hon. Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward). I am not sure why or how I have had that impact, but it was clear that she was drastically upset at me, despite the fact that I had been sitting quietly throughout the debate until that point. I will talk about why the Labour Government took this decision—why the Chancellor’s first decision was to target pensioners. It was because the Government talked in their manifesto about the fiscal rules that they would put in place, and said that they would not raise taxes on working people, among a number of other policies. However, they then found themselves in a bit of a bind: “What can we do to reduce the cost in-year? What is an easy target?” The Treasury team obviously said, “Well, how about cutting the winter fuel payment? You can do that in-year. You can make the change in this Budget, in the current financial year.” That has left the Scottish Government in a rubbish situation. Because those decisions were taken in-year, it reduced our block grant after we had set our budget in Scotland. We could not magically come up with the £147 million that the UK Government had taken from us with no warning, despite saying that they were going to reset the relationship with the Scottish Parliament. They took that money away in-year. This is supposed to be a Labour Government. My former Procedure Committee colleague, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), talked about the universality of benefits. I wholeheartedly agree that that is what we should have. I believe that we should have universal social security systems and universal basic income, and that everybody who deserves the social security net should be provided with it. Then we should tax non-doms, tax share buy-backs, rejoin the single market and have a more progressive tax system—like the one in Scotland—in order to pay for those things. Universal benefits mean that, yes, absolutely, one or two millionaires who buy champagne with their winter fuel payment will get it, but they also mean that every single person who needs it will get it. The choices being made will exclude some of those millionaires, but they will also exclude the people who were freezing in the minus 1°C weather in my constituency overnight. That is a shoddy decision by the Labour Government. I do not understand what the point of Labour is just now.

• 19 Mar 2025 · Ethnic Minority People: Discrimination · Hansard source

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  Aberdeen mosque and Islamic centre in my constituency was vandalised while worshippers were inside. I am pleased that the local community came together and helped with the clean-up. The University of Glasgow has published a report that says that one in three Muslim students are victims of Islamophobic abuse. Does the Minister agree that the Government and the House have a responsibility to ensure that racist stereotypes are not putting our Muslim community at risk of a rise in hate crime and far-right extremism?

• 18 Mar 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  Has the Secretary of State ever been diagnosed with depression? I have—I have been in a situation where just getting up in the morning, having a shower and brushing your teeth feels like the biggest fight. Does she think that putting people who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition through more reassessments will make their mental health condition better or worse?

• 17 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Can the Minister reassure people who have had an amputation or have schizophrenia, terminal cancer or uncontrolled epilepsy that tomorrow’s announcements will not mean a cut in their social security?

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

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  I thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Stringer, and I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. It is a subject we have talked about many times. I want to make a number of points. The first is about safety by design. Page 1 of the Act states that the internet should be “safe by design”, yet everything that has happened since in the Act’s implementation, from the point of view of both Ofcom and the Government in respect of some of the secondary legislation, has not been about safety by design. It has been about regulating specific content, for example, and that is not where we should be. Much as I was happy that the Online Safety Act was passed, and I was worried about the perfect being the enemy of the good and all that, I am beginning to believe that the EU’s Digital Services Act will do a much better job of regulating, not least because the Government are failing to take enough action on this issue. I am concerned that Ofcom, in collaboration with the Government, has managed to get us to a situation that makes nobody happy. It is not helpful for some of the tech companies. For example, category 1 is based solely on user numbers, which means that suicide forums, eating disorder platforms, doxing platforms and livestreaming platforms where self-generated child sexual abuse material is created are subject to exactly the same rules as a hill walking forum that gets three posts a week. In terms of proportionality, Ofcom is also failing the smallest platforms that are not risky, by requiring them to come to a three-day seminar on how to comply, when they might be run by a handful of volunteers spending a couple of hours a week looking after the forum and moderating every post. It will be very difficult for them to prove that children do not use their platforms, so there is no proportionality at either end of the spectrum. In terms of where we are with the review, this is a very different Parliament from the one that began the conversations in the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. It felt like hardly anybody in these rooms knew anything about the online world or had any understanding of it. It is totally different now. There are so many MPs here who, for example, have an employment history of working hard to make improvements in this area. As the right hon. and learned Member said, we now have so much expertise in these rooms that we could act to ensure that the legislation worked properly. Rather than us constantly having to call these debates, the Government could rely on some of our expertise. They would not have to take on every one of a Joint Committee’s recommendations, for example, but they could rely on some of the expertise and the links that we have made over the years that we have been embedded in this area to help them make good decisions and ensure some level of safety by design. Like so many Members in this place, I am concerned that the Act will not do what it is supposed to do. For me, the key thing was always keeping children safe online, whether that is about the commitments regularly given by the Government, which I wholeheartedly believe they wanted to fulfil, about hash matching to identify grooming behaviours, or about the doxing forums or suicide forums—those dark places of the internet—which will be subject to exactly the same rules as a hill walking forum. They are just going to fill in a risk assessment and say, “No children use our platform. There’s no risk on our platform, so it’s all good.” The Government had an opportunity to categorise them and they choose not to. I urge them to change their mind.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  Is the hon. Member as concerned as I am that the Government seem to be ignoring the will of Parliament in their decision? Is he worried that young people particularly will suffer as a result?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  The Minister is making the case that the Secretary of State’s hands are tied by the Act —that it requires stuff in relation to the number of users. Can she tell us in which part of the Act it says that, because it does not say that? If she can tell us where it is in the Act, I am quite willing to sit down and shut up about this point, but it is not in the Act.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  I completely agree. That is an additional reason why livestreaming is one of my biggest concerns. That functionality should have been included as a matter of course. Any of the organisations that deal with young people and the removal of child sexual abuse material online, such as the Internet Watch Foundation, will tell you that livestreaming is a huge concern. The hon. Member is 100% correct. That is the way I talk to my children about online safety: once something is put online—once it is on the internet—it cannot ever be taken back. It is there forever, no matter what anyone does about it, and young people may not have the capacity to understand that. If systems were safe by design, young people simply would not have access to livestreaming at all; they would not have access to that functionality, so there would be that moment of thinking before they do something. They would not be able to do peer-to-peer livestreaming that can then be shared among the entire school and the entire world. We know from research that a significant number of child sexual abuse materials are impossible to take down. Young people may put their own images online or somebody else may share them without their consent. Organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation do everything they can to try to take down that content, but it is like playing whack-a-mole; it comes up and up and up. Once they have fallen into that trap, the content cannot be taken back. If we were being safe by design, we would ensure, as far as possible—as far as the Government could do, we could do or Ofcom could do—that no young person would be able to access that functionality. As I said, it should have been included. I appreciate what the Government said about content recommendation and the algorithms that are used to ensure that people stay on platforms for a significant length of time. I do not know how many Members have spent much time on TikTok, but people can start watching videos of cats and still be there an hour and a half later. The algorithms are there to try to keep us on the platform. They are there because, actually, the platforms make money from our seeing the advertisements. They want us to see exciting content. Part of the issue with the content recommendation referenced in the conditions is that platforms are serving more and more exciting and extreme content to try to keep us there for longer, so we end up with people being radicalised on these platforms—possibly not intentionally by the platforms, but because their algorithm serves more and more extreme content. I agree that that content should have the lower threshold in terms of the number of users. I am not sure about the numbers of the thresholds, but I think the Government have that differentiation correct, particularly on the addictive nature of algorithmic content. However, they are failing on incredibly high-risk content. The additional duties for category 1 services involve a number of different things: illegal content risk assessments, duties relating to terms of service, children’s risk assessments, adult empowerment duties and record-keeping duties. As I said, the fact that those category 1-ranked platforms will be on a list is powerful in itself, but adding those additional duties is really important. Let us say that somebody is undertaking a risky business—piercing, for example. Even though not many people get piercings in the grand scheme of things, the Government require piercing organisations to jump through additional hoops because they are involved in dangerous things that carry a risk of infection and other associated risks. They are required to meet hygiene regulations, register with environmental health and have checks of their records to ensure that they know who is being provided with piercings, because it is a risky thing. The Government are putting additional duties on them because they recognise that piercing is risky and potentially harmful. However, the Government are choosing not to put additional duties on incredibly high-risk platforms. They are choosing not to do that. They have been given the right to do that. Parliament has made its will very clear: “We want the Government to take action over those small high-risk platforms.” I do not care how many hoops 4chan has to jump through. Give it as many hoops as possible; it is an incredibly harmful site, and there are many others out there—hon. Members mentioned suicide forums, for example. Make them jump through every single hoop. If we cannot ban them outright—which would be my preferred option—make them keep records, make them have adult-empowerment duties, and put them on a list of organisations that we, the Government or Ofcom reckon are harmful. If we end up in a situation where, due to the failures of this Act, young people commit suicide, and the platform is not categorised properly, there is then a reduction in the amount of protections, and in the information that they have to provide about deceased children to the families, because they are not categorised as category 1 or 2B. We could end up in a situation where a young person dies as a result of being radicalised on a forum—because the Government decided it should not be in scope—but that platform does not even have to provide the deceased child’s family with access to that online usage. That is shocking, right? If the Government are not willing to take the proper action required, at least bring these platforms into the scope of the actions and requirements related to deceased children. I appreciate that I have taken a significant length of time—although not nearly as long as the Online Safety Act has taken to pass, I hasten to say—but I am absolutely serious about the fact that I am really, really angry about this. This is endangering children. This is endangering young people. This is turning the Online Safety Act back into what some people suggested it should be at the beginning, an anti-Facebook and anti-Twitter Act, or a regulation of Facebook and Twitter— or X—Act, rather than something that genuinely creates what it says in section 1 of the Act: an online world that is “safe by design”. This is not creating an online world that is safe by design; this is opening young people and vulnerable adults up to far more risks than it should. The Government are wilfully making this choice, and we are giving them the opportunity to undo this and to choose to make the right decision—the decision that Parliament has asked them to make—to include functionalities such as livestreaming, and to include those high-risk platforms that we know radicalise people and put them at a higher risk of death.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Sir Christopher—I appreciate that prod. I did look at Standing Orders this morning, but could not find that bit, so that is incredibly helpful. On what the Minister said about schedule 11 and the notes that she has been passed from her team on that point, I appreciate her commitment to share the Government’s legal advice. That will be incredibly helpful; it would have been helpful to have it in advance of this Committee. In schedule 11, it says: “In making regulations under sub-paragraph (1), the Secretary of State must take into account the likely impact of the number of users of the user-to-user part of the service, and its functionalities, on how easily, quickly and widely regulated user-generated content is disseminated by means of the service.” Perhaps I cannot read English, or perhaps the Minister, her legal advisers and the team at DSIT read it in a different way from me, but the Secretary of State having to take something into account and the Secretary of State being bound by something are two different things—they are not the same. It does not say that the Secretary of State must regulate only on the specific number of users. In fact, schedule 11 says earlier that the Secretary of State “must make regulations specifying conditions…for the user-to-user part of regulated user-to-user services relating to each of the following”, which are the “number of users…functionalities of that part of the service, and…any other characteristics of that part of the service or factors”. The Secretary of State must therefore make regulations in relation to any other characteristics of that part of the service or factors “relating to that part of the service that the Secretary of State considers relevant.” He must do that, but he must only take into account the number of users. The Government, however, have decided that taking into account is much more important than “must” do something. They have decided to do that despite Parliament being pretty clear in the language it has used. I am not terribly happy with the Online Safety Act. It is a lot better than the situation we have currently, but it is far from perfect. As the Minister said, I argued in favour of keeping the stuff about legal but harmful content for adults. I argued against the then Government’s position on that, but the Act is the Act that we have. The Minister’s point does not make sense. The Secretary of State has to take into account the number of users and how quickly things are disseminated, but he must make regulations about functionalities or factors that he considers relevant. Therefore, it seems that he does not consider suicide forums and livestreaming to be relevant; if he did, he would surely be bound by the “must” and would have to make regulations about them. It is frustrating that the Act does not do what it is supposed to do and does not protect young people from livestreaming. The Minister said that it protects people from seeing that illegal content, but it does not prevent them from creating it. The Government could make regulations so that every platform that has a livestreaming functionality, or even every platform that has child users on it—there is a lot in the Act about the proportion of children who use a service—is automatically included in category 1 because they consider them to be high risk.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the opportunity to speak in this Committee, Sir Christopher. Like at least one other Member in the room, I lived the Online Safety Bill for a significant number of months—in fact, it seemed to drag on for years. As the Minister said, the Online Safety Act is long overdue. We have needed this legislation for 30 years, since I was a kid using the internet in the early ’90s. There has always been the risk of harm on online platforms, and there have always been places where people can be radicalised and can see misogynistic content or content that children should never be able to see. In this case, legislation has moved significantly slower than society—I completely agree with the Minister about that—but that is not a reason for accepting the statutory instrument or agreeing with the proposed threshold conditions. On the threshold conditions, I am unclear as to why the Government have chosen 34 million and 7 million for the average monthly active users. Is it 34 million because Reddit happens to have 35 million average UK users—is that why they have taken that decision? I absolutely believe that Reddit should be in scope of category 1, and I am pretty sure that Reddit believes it should be in scope of category 1 and have those additional duties. Reddit is one of the places where the functionalities and content recommendation services mean that people, no matter what age they are, can see incredibly harmful content. They can also see content that can be incredibly funny—a number of brilliant places on Reddit allow people can look at pictures of cats, which is my favourite way to use the internet—but there are dark places in Reddit forums, where people can end up going down rabbit holes. I therefore agree that platforms such as Reddit should be in scope of category 1. The Minister spoke about schedule 11 and the changes that were made during the passage of the Act. The Minister is absolutely right. Paragraph 1(5) of that schedule states: “In making regulations under sub-paragraph (1), the Secretary of State must take into account the likely impact of the number of users of the user-to-user part of the service, and its functionalities, on how easily, quickly and widely regulated user-generated content is disseminated by means of the service.” However, that does not undo the fact that we as legislators made a change to an earlier provision in that schedule. We fought for that incredibly hard and at every opportunity—in the Bill Committee, on the Floor of the House, in the recommitted Committee and in the House of Lords. At every stage, we voted for that change to be made, and significant numbers of outside organisations cared deeply about it. We wanted small high-risk platforms to be included. The provision that was added meant that the Secretary of State must make regulations relating to “any other characteristics of that part of the service or factors relating to that part of the service that the Secretary of State considers relevant.” That was what the Government were willing to give us. It was not the original amendment that I moved in Bill Committee, which was specifically about small high-risk platforms, but it was enough to cover what we wanted. What functionalities could and should be brought in scope? I believe that any service that allows users to livestream should be in the scope of category 1. We know that livestreaming is where the biggest increase in self-generated child sexual abuse material is. We know that livestreaming is incredibly dangerous, as people who are desperate to get access to child sexual abuse material can convince vulnerable young people and children to livestream. There is no delay where that content can be looked at and checked in advance of it being put up, yet the Government do not believe that every service that allows six-year-olds to livestream should be within the scope of category 1. The Government do not believe that those services should be subject to those additional safety duties, despite the fact that section 1 of the Online Safety Act 2023 says platforms should be “safe by design”. However, this is not creating platforms that are safe by design. The regulations do not exclude young people from the ability to stream explicit videos to anyone because they only include services with over 34 million users, or over 7 million when it comes to content recommendation, and I agree that services in those cases are problematic. However, there are other really problematic services, causing life-changing—or in some cases, life-ending—problems for children, young people and vulnerable adults that will not be in the scope of category 1. Generally, I am not a big fan of a lot of things that the UK Government have done; I have been on my feet, in the Chamber, arguing against a significant number of those things. This is one of the things that makes me most angry, because the Government, by putting forward this secondary legislation, are legislating in opposition to the will and intention of the Houses of Parliament. I know that we cannot bind a future Government or House, but this is not what was intended or agreed and moved on, nor what Royal Assent was given on; that was on the basis that we had assurances from Government Ministers that they would look at those functionalities and small but high-risk platforms. For what Ofcom has put out in guidance and information on what it is doing on small but high-risk platforms, why are we not using everything that is available? Why are Government not willing to use everything available to them to bring those very high-risk platforms into the scope of category 1? The changes that category 1 services would be required to make include additional duties; for a start, they are under more scrutiny—which is to be expected—and they are put on a specific list of category 1 services which will be published. That list of category 1 services includes platforms such as 4chan, that some people may have never heard of. Responsible parents will see that list and say, “Hold on a second. Why is 4chan on there? I don’t want my children to be going on there. It is clearly not a ginormous platform, therefore it must be on there because it is a high-risk service.” Parents will look at that list and talk to their children about those platforms. In terms of the category 1 list, never mind the additional duties, that would have a positive impact. Putting suicide forums on that list of category 1 services would have a positive impact on the behaviour of parents, children, and the teachers who teach those young people how to access the internet safely. I guarantee that a significant number of teachers and people that are involved with young people have never heard of 4chan, but putting it on that list would give them an additional tool to enable them to approach young people and talk about the ways in which they use the internet.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree, and that is a helpful clarification. If the Government have decided that it is too difficult to regulate high-risk platforms as category 1, and that they do not matter enough because they do not have enough of an impact, they should stand up and tell us that. Rather than saying that their hands have been tied by the Act—they manifestly have not—they need to take ownership of their actions. If they have decided that such platforms are not important enough or that they cannot be bothered having a fight with Ofcom about that, they should be honest and say, “This is the position we have decided to take.” Instead, they are standing up and saying, “Our hands have been tied,” but that is just not correct: their hands have not been tied by the Act. I appreciate that the Minister will get in touch with me about the legal advice, but it will be too late. This statutory instrument will have been through the process by that time, and people will have been put at risk as a result of the Government’s failure. They have the power to take action in relation to functionalities and factors, and in relation to suicide forums, livestreaming and the creation of child sexual abuse material, and they are choosing not to. If the Government have decided that it is too difficult to do that, that those platforms are not risky enough and that not enough people are being harmed by them, they need to hold their hands up and say, “We’ve decided that this is the position we are going to take.” They must not hide behind the legislation, which does not say what they are telling us it says. They should just be honest about the fact that they have decided that they cannot be bothered to take action. They cannot be bothered to have a fight with Ofcom because it is not important enough. Hiding behind the legislation is incredibly cowardly—it does not say that.