Kirsty Blackman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and I appreciate your chairing of it, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) on securing such an important debate. The subject has been one of my hobbyhorses for a significant number of years. In Aberdeen, we have seen a massive increase in the number of people who have no recourse to public funds. Despite the fact that Aberdeen is not a dispersal authority, a few years ago, third sector providers and those who provide licensed support found that they were struggling with new issues that we had not seen before. We started a volunteer group called the No Recourse North East Partnership, which is now run by the Grampian Regional Equality Council, whose purpose was to see what support could be provided to people who have no recourse to public funds. It looked at issues mentioned by the hon. Lady, including what local authority support is supposed to look like and the consistency of that support. I agree that there is still inconsistency in local authority support. Local authorities are often not being funded for the support that they provide. In some cases, they are terrified that they will upset somebody’s immigration status and the person or family will be deported because the local authority has provided them with some level of housing or financial support. The landscape is incredibly messy. It would be great if the Local Government Association and COSLA in Scotland could get together with the Government to agree what pathways should be in place. Local authorities have a responsibility to protect children and to ensure that they are not suffering from the extremes of poverty, for example by being homeless, but they are unsure exactly what action they can take when somebody has no recourse to public funds. If we had an agreed pathway, everybody would get a consistent level of support, but we would also need funding to flow from the Government for that to happen. Although I do not think it should be down to local authorities to have to fill that gap, such an agreement would be a step in the right direction. If it were up to me, I would get rid of no recourse to public funds entirely. I do not think it is a status that anybody should be faced with. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Hallam said, none of us wants any child to be living in poverty. That is not the future and that is not why any of us is here in Parliament; we are here to make our constituents’ lives better. I do not see how having the status of no recourse to public funds, which ensures that children are growing up in poverty, is a good thing for anyone. As the hon. Lady said, it does not discourage people from coming here from other countries, and those children are not responsible for which country their parents were born in.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Relocating Civil Service Roles · Hansard source

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  My party was pleased to hear the announcement that GB Energy is coming to Aberdeen, which we have consistently said is the only sensible place for it, as Members would expect an Aberdeen MP to say. Given that GB Energy will bring a maximum of 1,000 jobs over the next 10 years, will the right hon. Gentleman please encourage his ministerial colleagues not to suggest that those jobs will replace the 400 jobs a fortnight that we are set to lose in the offshore energy industry over the next five years?

• 5 Jun 2025 · Battery Energy Storage Sites: Safety Regulations · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing this important debate. Some of the newer Members may not know quite how much I love the geekiest possible debates. I have not had as much time since I became SNP Chief Whip, so I cannot reach the geeky heights managed by the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) in reading the International Fire and Safety Journal . I commend him on that, but I want to bring the debate to another geeky level and talk about the mechanisms by which the Government should take action. There has been a lot of talk today about planning mechanisms and regulations, but I urge the Government to look at health and safety regulations. I am from Aberdeen and a number of years ago we had the Piper Alpha disaster. The Piper Alpha disaster and the Cullen report that came afterwards resulted in a massive step change in safety. It was a huge, drastic change in how those things worked, with health and safety regulations that apply across the whole of the United Kingdom. Planning, for example, is devolved to Scotland and a lot of environmental rules are the preserve of the Scottish Parliament. Currently, there are no health and safety rules in this area. The House of Commons Library briefing for this debate states: “There are no laws that specifically govern the fire safety of battery energy storage systems”. It also states: “There are no specific health and safety laws relating to BESSs.” I have written to the Health and Safety Executive, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, the city council and the Scottish Government about this issue. I have done a lot around battery energy storage sites. The HSE wrote back to me saying that it is a member of the cross-Government group on battery energy storage, so it is working on that. It has a landing page on its website that brings together some of the regulations of battery energy storage, but most of them were written for the safety of individual batteries rather than for the safety of these storage sites. That, specifically, is what is missing: the health and safety guidance for battery energy storage sites. A number of Members have spoken about local or UK-wide issues, but across the world there have been 85 fires at battery energy storage sites. That is not a small number or a small percentage. This is a risky business. I do not disagree with those who say that these sites are necessary. We absolutely need them for our energy systems in the future, but they need to be safe. We need regulations in place. We should bring them together, even if it is just the best practice from all different places, to ensure that there is one place where the health and safety guidance is held. I would be even more flexible than having it updated by Parliament. I would give the HSE a level of control over changing and flexing that guidance, should more best practice come through. Again, that would apply across the whole of these islands, and I think that would be the best way forward. I want to mention two other things. First, an earlier speaker mentioned that we have extreme weather events—once-in-a-generation events—just about every week at the moment. It is really important that we look at both the extreme temperatures and the flooding events that may occur, as flooding events at battery energy storage sites are an issue; whether or not there has been a fire in advance of a water leakage, there could still be concerns. Secondly, I want to talk about the money. A number of people are looking at these sites with dollar signs in their eyes, thinking, “We can build these things and make a whole lot of money.” Actually, we should be telling the organisations that are creating the battery energy storage sites that they will need to pay for the fire safety assessment, consult the local fire service, and pay for the training of the local fire teams on tackling fires at these sites. I think that would be the most reasonable way forward. We should ask them to pay for that training, because it is those organisations that will be making a huge profit from the sites. It should not just be the public services that have to train up and increase the number of hours that retained firefighters, perhaps, are working. I think that is really important. I urge the Minister to look at HSE guidance as the method and mechanism for taking this on. I have pushed the Scottish Government to change some of their planning guidance already—particularly around notification of local community councils, for example—but that health and safety guidance is, I think, the key place to take action, make that change and bring it together in one place, so that all our constituents are safer as a result.

• 20 May 2025 · Pensions: Expatriates · Hansard source

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  Eleven years ago, my colleague Ian Blackford stood in pretty much this spot talking about exactly the same thing. Exactly the same arguments that were made during that debate could be made today. Things have not moved on. We are not in a better position. At that time, we were talking about 550,000 frozen pensions; now we are down to 500,000. People are dying before they receive their entitlements. Pensions are a social contract. We pay our national insurance and our taxes into the system in the expectation and with the understanding that we will get something out of it when we become pensioners. This is not party political: it applies to all Governments over the last 70 years. No UK Government have been willing to fulfil the contract with pensioners who choose to live in a certain country. I do not think that that is fair. When we begin to pay taxes, we are not told that our pension entitlement will vary if we choose to live in one of these countries. That they are overwhelmingly Commonwealth countries seems even more bizarre. We have a special relationship with the Commonwealth: for example, 12% of Canadians claim Scottish heritage and 14% claim English heritage. Scotland is a nation of emigrants as well as a nation of immigrants—not an island of strangers. It is a brilliant thing that we Scots are found all over the world. In a significant number of places, people with Aberdeen accents can be found speaking the Doric. People should be allowed to go and live with their family in the expectation that the Government will continue to support them in older age, not pull the rug out from under them. They have paid into the system just the same as the people who choose to live here. In fact, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) says, they are taking less out of the system than those who continue to live here. The cost-benefit analysis shows that people overseas are not using the NHS here on a regular basis. They are not getting the free prescriptions in Scotland. They are not getting prescriptions down here. They are not getting a free TV licence—well, nobody is getting a free TV licence. They are not getting the benefits that an older pensioner living in the UK would expect. They are not taking those things out of the system, yet the UK is still unwilling to uprate their pensions. They are going to live with their families, in a significant number of cases, and not getting their entitlements. The Deputy Prime Minister previously said: “The situation is unfair, illogical and doesn’t make sense.” It has never been enough of a priority for any Government to sort out, but given the current Government’s electoral standing with some older people on the basis of WASPI and the winter fuel payment, it might be an idea to solve the situation now and gain back some of that capital. A lady who lives in Canada is coming to visit Scotland in June and is going to pop into my office while she is here. She is from Aberdeen. She went to St Margaret’s school and her husband went to the school I went to; there is an annual music prize awarded in his honour. At the end of her email asking to come and see me, Maureen added something about frozen pensions: “I believe the Prime Minister is not happy about us Canadians kicking up a fuss. We have been doing it for at least 15 years, but no one listens.” That is the biggest injustice of all: the fact that we are not listening. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) has secured this debate. Like many of us, he is standing on the shoulders of giants: the issue has been brought up for years and years, but we have never managed to make enough of an impact on the Government to get the change to happen and have them recognise that this is important. As several Members have said, now that we have had a change in the electoral rights of people overseas so that they are able to vote for longer, perhaps the Government will feel more under pressure. But it should not have taken that. It should have been understood that this was a moral decision. It does not matter where someone chooses to live out their twilight years; they should have the same entitlements as others who have paid the same amount over the years. The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) spoke about his constituent from Clydebank who worked in Govan. The country has been built—these islands have been built—on the hard work of these people throughout our manufacturing history. Anne Puckridge, who is an unbelievable human being, was in the RAF and made a huge input to our prosperity and the safety and security of these islands. We are paying these people back by saying, “Nah, you’ve paid the same as everybody else, but you’ve chosen to live in a different postcode, so we’re not paying it.” This is an injustice that needs fixed. I know that I have managed to speak for seven minutes, but actually it is pretty difficult to stretch this out. All there is to say is, “This needs sorted. Please could you sort it?” That is the passionate case that we are all making on behalf of our constituents and those who might choose to move to other countries in future. We do not want them to have to ask, “Do I want to live in Canada where my daughter lives? Do I want to live somewhere else, or do I have to stay here because I cannot get my pension uprated?” I am not asking for a full commitment on any of this. I am not asking for all the backdated stuff. I am not asking for a commitment for every single individual. I understand that some international agreements may have to be made to make some of this happen. But I want the Government to say, “We recognise that this is a priority for people and that there is an unfairness in the system. We will look at doing what we can to ensure that people, no matter where they choose to live, get the pensions that they are entitled to.”

• 14 May 2025 · Ministerial Code: Compliance · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question ): To ask the Leader of the House if she will make a statement on Government compliance with the general principles set out in paragraph 9.1 of the ministerial code.

• 14 May 2025 · Ministerial Code: Compliance · Hansard source

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  In recent times we have seen an increasing trend of the Government failing to make statements to the House first, despite there being no barrier to them doing so. Last Thursday was a mess, with the Minister of State for Business and Trade trying to withdraw the statement on the UK-US trade agreement, despite Members having waited here for seven hours for the statement to materialise. The decision to abolish NHS England was relayed to the House on 13 March, having been trailed in the media beforehand. On Wednesday 12 March, an urgent question was granted on an announcement that had been made the day before on the sustainable farming incentive being cancelled. On 6 March, a consultation on North sea energy that had been announced to the media the day before was relayed to the House in a statement. In February, the Government changed the refugee citizenship rules, and they still have not informed the House. On Monday this week, the Prime Minister announced the contents of the immigration White Paper via a speech that mirrored Enoch Powell, despite Parliament sitting later that day. This is a consistent pattern of behaviour by the UK Government. I am concerned that there is little point in having a ministerial code if the Government can ignore one of the key principles with no sanction and apparently no consequences. The Government are nearly a year into their term, so disorganisation or a lack of familiarity with the rules can surely no longer be cited as reasons for consistent breaches of the code. I believe that the UK Government should adhere to the principles set out in the ministerial code, and that the Leader of the House must urgently set out how she intends to improve the situation and ensure that there is adherence.

• 7 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People · Hansard source

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  It is really important that the Government work on co-production so that disabled people are involved in the decision-making processes. On the interaction with the Scottish Government, the UK Government have said that they are cancelling work capability assessments and are relying on the PIP assessment to make the decisions. In Scotland, we do not have PIP assessments; we have adult disability payment assessments. Will the right hon. Lady join me in encouraging the Minister to set out clear plans before the welfare Bill comes to Parliament? Otherwise, we will be taking a decision about something with no idea about its impact.

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

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  When I came into this debate, I did not expect the main thrust of the Labour party’s argument to be a concession that it will not win the next Holyrood election. Labour Members have consistently said that this is about handing powers to the SNP. Do they understand how democracy works? Or are they looking at the polls and saying, “Oh my goodness, we are totally in trouble before 2026, so it’s got to be an SNP Government next year”?

• 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 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.

• 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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  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.

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  This is a genuine question on the power to request information: will the DWP be able to request information from charitable organisations that are perhaps providing support to people, or from Members of Parliament, who may be providing support to constituents who come through our door?

• 3 Feb 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  The individuals who are going to do the independent assessment will be appointed by the Secretary of State. Would it not be better for Parliament to agree the appointment of those individuals, so that we can be assured that they are actually independent?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Thank you for chairing this debate, Dr Murrison. I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing it and allowing us the opportunity to speak. It is truly shocking that the Government were willing to apologise, admit that there had been maladministration and then to say, “Sorry, we’re not doing anything about it.” The WASPI women have run one of the best campaigns I have ever seen. Imagine this society and economy without the contribution of the WASPI women. These women were told throughout their careers to be quiet, and were told that they were not as valuable as the men who were working with them. These women quietly got on with the job, raised children, looked after parents and worked incredibly hard for less money than their colleagues. These women put so much in, and made these islands what they are today. The UK Government are sitting there knowing that they wronged this group of women and are unwilling to do anything about it. What would the Treasury’s coffers look like if they did not have the £200 billion from equalising the state pension age? Imagine what we have asked those women to put up with throughout their time, and this Parliament is saying to them, “You’re still not worth it. You’re still not valuable. You still do not deserve compensation, despite the fact that we’ve wronged you.” The Government know that they are wrong; they know this is the wrong decision. What they need to do now is put it to a vote on the Floor of the House and give every single MP the opportunity to walk through the Lobbies to make clear their individual views on the actions being taken towards the WASPI women and the principle and administration of compensation. The WASPI women deserve compensation. The Government need to give us a vote.

• 26 Nov 2024 · Online Safety: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  I could talk for hours on this subject, Mr Dowd, but, do not worry, I will not. There are a number of things that I would like to say. Not many Members present sat through the majority of the Online Safety Bill Committee as it went through Parliament, but I was in every one of those meetings, listening to various views and debating online safety. I will touch on one issue that the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) raised in her excellent and important speech. I agree with almost everything she said. Not many people in Parliament have her level of passion or knowledge about the subject, so I appreciate her bringing forward the debate. On the issue of features, I totally agree with the hon. Member and I moved an amendment to that effect during the Bill’s progress. There should be restrictions on the features that children should be able to access. She was talking about safety by design, so that children do not have to see content that they cannot unsee, do not have to experience the issues that they cannot un-experience, cannot be contacted by external people who they do not know, and cannot livestream. We have seen an increase in the amount of self-generated child sexual abuse material and livestreaming is a massive proportion of that. Yesterday, a local organisation in Aberdeen called CyberSafe Scotland launched a report on its work in 10 of our primary schools with 1,300 children aged between 10 and 12—primary school children, not secondary school children. Some 300 of those children wrote what is called a “name it”, where they named a problem that they had seen online. Last night, we were able to read some of the issues that they had raised. Pervasive misogyny is everywhere online, and it is normalised. It is not just in some of the videos that they see and it is not just about the Andrew Tates of this world—it is absolutely everywhere. A couple of years ago there was a trend in online videos of young men asking girls to behave like slaves, and that was all over the place. Children are seeing a different online world from the one that we experience because they have different algorithms and have different things pushed at them. They are playing Roblox and Fortnite, but most of us are not playing those games. I am still concerned that the Online Safety Act does not adequately cover all of the online gaming world, which is where children are spending a significant proportion of their time online. A huge amount more needs to be done to ensure that children are safe online. There is not enough in place about reviewing the online safety legislation, which Members on both sides of the House pushed for to ensure that the legislation is kept as up to date as possible. The online world changes very rapidly: the scams that were happening nine months ago are totally different from those happening today. I am still concerned that the Act focuses too much on the regulation of Facebook, for example, rather than the regulation of the online world that our children actually experience. CyberSafe Scotland intentionally centred the views and rights of young people in its work, which meant that the programmes that it delivered in schools were much more appropriate and children were much better able to listen and react to them. The last thing that I will mention is Girlguiding and its girls’ attitude survey. It is published on an annual basis and shows a huge increase in the number of girls who feel unsafe. That is because of the online world they are experiencing. We have a huge amount of responsibility here, and I appreciate the hon. Member for Darlington bringing the debate forward today.

• 3 Sept 2024 · Living Standards · Hansard source

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  Means-testing the winter fuel payment increases the burden on many vulnerable people and reduces their living standards. Unlike the Scottish Government, who have many statutory constraints on their budgets, the Chancellor’s fiscal rules are entirely self-imposed. Does the Minister think that sticking to the Chancellor’s fiscal rules is more important than the health and wellbeing of pensioners?

• 25 Jul 2024 · Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee · Hansard source

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  Congratulations to you and your colleagues on your new roles, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish you the very best of luck in dealing with all of us in our time here. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) on her excellent maiden speech, and particularly on her passionate message to her students, who I am sure miss her very much too. I want to speak about the motions on the Order Paper. There is a huge amount I could say about the ways in which this House should be modernised; I have been speaking and thinking about it for years. I am probably one of the few Members who has spent many hours poring over the Standing Orders, considering how they could best be changed to improve this House. Not many people are quite as geeky about that as I am. However, I will not focus on that. Instead, I want to talk about the motions in front of us. Motion 4 has been badged as a “second jobs” motion. It relates to paid employment, but it does not include the paid employment that constituents think of when they think about second jobs. They think about the Members appearing on GB News weekly, but that is not covered in the proposed changes. As the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) said, constituents think about the people doing work for a financial institution, but again, that is not included in the motion. The changes to the rules are good, but the motion should not be badged as relating to second jobs. What it does is increase the transparency and restrictions on Members of Parliament who seek to use their privileged knowledge to get paid employment. We all have knowledge of parliamentary procedure because we are MPs, and the motion prevents us from using that to get money. That is a laudable aim, but it is not the change that the House needs in order to fix the issue of second jobs. I will support the Government’s changes, but they need to go far further. I have several concerns about the motion on the Modernisation Committee, beginning with its incredibly woolly remit, which is: “to consider reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards, and working practices; and to make recommendations thereon”. Its remit is not to modernise the House of Commons, which I would have been more supportive of. If we gave the Committee an understanding that it needs to drag the House into the 20th century—never mind the 21st century —by increasing the amount of modern working practices and the ability of MPs to represent their constituents in Parliament, that would be helpful, but the remit is not there. It is just “to make recommendations”, so I am disappointed that the Government have not gone further on that. The issue of the make-up of Members is significant. It is not just about the smaller parties that are not the first, second or third in the House wanting to have a voice, but about the way that the Government have chosen to arrange the Committee and the number of Members that they have chosen to have on it, which mean they have guaranteed that it cannot have a Northern Ireland member. The membership will be divvied up between the Labour party, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, so there will never be a DUP Member or anyone making decisions on the Committee who is struggling with the geographical challenges that are unique to Northern Ireland Members. The SNP would have liked a seat on the Committee. I am pleased to hear what the Leader of the House said about trying to ensure that all voices are heard, but like the shadow Leader of the House, I would like to have had more conversations with her beforehand about it, so that we could have suggested our views on the best way for our voices to be heard. If she really wants to work collegiately, we are happy to do that, but unfortunately this has not got off to the most collegiate start. The Government should consider the best way to do that, because I am concerned about the geographical issue. The Leader of the House spoke specifically about the experience of all Members in this place. I would like the Committee to consider hearing from former MPs who also have significant experiences. It may be that we do not currently have MPs with certain disabilities, or who have experienced the proxy voting system, but we did formerly. During covid, I did a huge amount of work with the Procedure Committee, which met online almost every day in the early days of lockdown. We considered every possible way to make the House covid compliant and made a huge number of recommendations to the Government, some of which could be incorporated to make the House more modern as time goes on. I am pleased that the Leader of the House committed that the Modernisation Committee will take evidence from those Committees, but there will still be no SNP voice to feed into the Modernisation Committee, because we are unlikely to get a seat on any of those Committees. It is all well and good taking advice from those places, but the smaller parties are again being restricted in how they are being heard. I am happy to support the creation of the Committee, but I would appreciate it if the Leader of the House tried to work in a more collegiate way than she has so far.

• 22 Jul 2024 · CrowdStrike: IT Outage · Hansard source

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  I am aware that the Minister is new to her role, so I will ask her to consider things, rather than to commit to doing things. Will she please consider continuing with the annual statement to Parliament on civil contingencies and risks, which the previous Government committed to? When she looks at the cyber-security and resilience Bill, will she consider assessing whether there is widespread use of certain software or hardware that could cause mass outages in the event that it is affected, as happened with CrowdStrike? I am not aware that we have seen an analysis of that in previous outputs by the Cabinet Office, and it would be incredibly helpful for us to be aware of where those risks are.