Sir Jeremy Wright
MP for Kenilworth and Southam · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud my right hon. Friend’s passion and clarity on this issue. On the subject of democratic accountability, he knows that if, as the hon.”
“I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act.”
“The Electoral Commission has made no formal assessment of this. It would be a matter for Parliament to introduce such legal protections. It is prescribed in law that poll cards and ballot papers must be provided in English or Welsh, but there are no other prescribed language requirements relating to election materials.”
“We can all cynically speculate about the reasons why this sudden about-turn has taken place this week, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who spoke from the Front Bench, said earlier, it is our job to scrutinise this legislation and to ensure that whatever we put in place does justice to the determination o…”
“In today’s version of the amendment paper, for the first time, that amendment has disappeared and been replaced not with the detailed compromise that Intelligence and Security Committee members, who have been engaged with this process, have been working towards, along with many others, but with Government amendment 157.”
“As the House would expect, we engaged with that process as diligently as we could, with no partisan politics, in an effort to make good law in the pursuit of greater state transparency while preserving our national security equities. As the hon.”
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“We have to decide whether that is a wise and sensible thing to do, with all the ramifications it might bring, but as a matter of law it seems to me that the UK Parliament can, if it wishes, pass a law to say, “Despite or irrespective of our international responsibilities, this is none the less what we want to do.” That is not the same as deeming our own compliance with international law, which I worry this language almost certainly seems to do. The point I make about the UK Parliament being able to do things even when they contravene its international responsibilities is already in the Bill and reflected in the language of clause 1(4)(b), which points out that “the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law.” Quite right.”
“When the Bill says what a safe country is, it is potentially confusing two different things. One is deeming our own compliance with international law, which I do not think any country should be able to do, and the other is saying that Parliament resolves to do something even if it contravenes the UK’s international law obligations, which, going back to the previous intervention by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I do think the British Parliament can do. We as a legislature can resolve to do that if we so choose.”
“and learned Friend the Minister will tell me in a few moments’ or hours’ time that I do not need to worry about any of this. He may give two reasons for that. First, he may say that the Bill does not mean what I think it means. You will forgive me for saying this, Dame Rosie, but I am increasingly troubled that in this place we answer points such as mine by saying, “Yes, well, it doesn’t really mean that, and we don’t really mean that by it.” We should be concerned as legislators with what the language we are passing into law actually says, not what we meant to say. I am concerned that what this language says is not in accordance with what I am sure the Minister wants to do or what the Government want to do, but it might none the less have that effect, or be taken by others to mean the things that I am concerned about.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know, Dame Rosie, you would not want me to abuse the privilege you have given us to range slightly more widely in this debate to range quite that widely, so I will not. He is right that I am making a fairly precise point about what this language appears to me to say. I stress that I do not think it is necessary to include this language in order to achieve the objective that the Government have set in this legislation—with which I have some sympathy, although their methods make me nervous, and I make no bones about that. Worse than unnecessary, it presents some dangers that I do not think we need to present in order to achieve the Government’s objectives. I suspect my hon.”
“I do not want to prolong the discussion about prisoner voting, but like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I remember having conversations about it inside Government. I think it would be fairer to describe the situation as one in which the UK did not at any point refuse to comply with the judgment, would it not? We have perhaps adopted a more Augustinian approach to compliance: we just have not quite got around to it yet.”
“I understand the argument that my right hon. and learned Friend is making, and I will not be dogmatic about the approach that I set out earlier. Is there not a danger, if we retain the language that he is referring to, that we open up another channel of legal challenge, which is exactly what the Government are seeking to avoid? If the question becomes, “Is Rwanda in compliance with its international law responsibilities?”, that is something else that someone may choose to argue if they wish to resist their transfer to Rwanda.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the international law case for his Government’s action in the Red sea is, unusually in my experience, relatively straightforward? Does he also agree that the next significant challenge is to maintain and enhance a multinational consensus on deterring and combating more of these attacks, if they occur, and that acting in compliance with and respect for international law assists us in that task?”
“Will he confirm that it is not the Government’s intention to suggest that it falls to any country to deem itself in compliance with international law—he does not need me to explain what the consequences of that might be elsewhere in the world—and that he will look again at the language and whether it needs to be changed to clarify that point?”
“I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. As he says, international law and domestic law are both important, but they are different. The Bill seeks to give this House the power to deem Rwanda a safe country. Can he confirm for me that what it does not seek to do is suggest that this country, or this House, has the power to deem itself in compliance with international law? My worry stems from clause1(5) of the Bill, which, of course, reflects the Government’s intention to deem Rwanda a safe country, but then goes on to describe the safe country as one “to which persons may be removed…in compliance with all of the United Kingdom’s obligations under international law”.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for welcoming my constituent John Farringdon to Parliament this morning. At 110 years of age, John is among my more experienced constituents, and I know that he would want me to ask the Prime Minister to join us in thanking the staff of Cubbington Mill care home for looking after him so well. May I also ask my right hon. Friend to try to find a moment or two to speak to John when he comes to Downing Street this afternoon? It may be a useful conversation for those who are obsessed with the opinion polls, as John, I think it is fair to say, has some experience in surviving against the odds.”
“Before my right hon. Friend moves on to the specifics of the Government amendments, may I ask him about something they do not yet cover? The Bill does not address the availability of data to researchers so that they can assist in the process of, for example, identifying patterns in online safety. He will know that there was considerable discussion of this during the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023, when a succession of Ministers said that we might return to the subject in this Bill. Will he update the House on how that is going? When might we expect to see amendments to deal with this important area?”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Let me take the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) on his appointment. Does he recognise that it is important to be clear—and for the CMA and the DMU to be clear—that there could be a conflict between the interests of current consumers and those of future consumers? Therefore, it is important that the interests of both are balanced in what the CMA and the DMU eventually decide to do.”
“I think the Government amendments say that proportionality applies at an earlier stage and that when it comes to considering whether the CMA has behaved in a proportionate way in making its decisions, the assessment will be made by the Competition Appeal Tribunal on JR principles. Am I right about that?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. He will appreciate that we are all trying to get clarity, so we understand what the proposals really mean. In relation to the appeal standard that he describes, for cases that are not specifically related to fines, he mentioned the proportionality addition earlier in his remarks. When it comes to an appeal, are we right to understand that the question of proportionality applies when the CMA originally makes its decision to require an intervention and does not apply to the JR standard that is used to determine an appeal? It is important to be specific about that, because there are those who would argue that proportionality should be a part of the appeal process.”
“It seems to me—I would be interested in my right hon. and learned Friend’s view—that on the basis of the Government’s proposed wording, it is more likely that a firm will be able to challenge whether the CMA has applied its proportionality test appropriately, but the means by which it will do so will be under JR principles on appeal, rather than on a merits basis. It is not that proportionality is not subject to challenge, but that that challenge is limited by JR principles at the appeal stage. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done to put in place not just this consultation but the fund, which will be tremendously useful for these purposes too. Does he accept that there is a sense of urgency here; that there is a need to get on with removing these barriers? If he is not content with the timetable set out in this amendment, will he give the House an indication of what he thinks the right timetable is, so that community energy companies and others can know where they stand and get on with the good work that he and I are both in favour of?”
“It is sometimes right to ask our constituents to take local pain for national gain, but does my hon. Friend agree that the national gain of HS2 has always been argued to result from its being a network of high-speed rail lines, not a single line? If it is a single line, are we not in danger of the national gain being extraordinarily limited, and the local pain, including to my constituents, being extraordinarily extensive and long lasting?”
“I also think it is important, given the potential scale of this expanded responsibility, to make clear that the concept of proportionality applies to a service’s approach to this element of assessment and mitigation of risk, as it does throughout the Bill, and I hope the Minister will be able to do that when he winds up the debate.”
“For that reason, I cannot support those Lords amendments. However, the Government have proposed a sensible alternative approach in their amendments in lieu, particularly in relation to Lords amendments 17 and Lords amendment 81, which relates to search services. The Government amendments in lieu capture the central point that design of a service can lead to harm and require a service to assess that as part of the children’s risk assessment process. That is a significant expansion of a service’s responsibilities in the risk assessment process which reflects not just ongoing concern about types of harm that were not adequately captured in the Bill so far but the positive moves we have all sought to make towards safety by design as an important preventive concept in online safety.”
“That means asking the online platforms to address the harms that it is within their power to address, and to relate clearly the design or operation of the systems that they have put in place. The difficulty with the wording of the Lords amendments is that they bring into the ambit of the legislation behaviours that are not necessarily enabled or created by the design or operation of the service. The language used is “features, functionalities or behaviours (including those enabled or created by the design or operation of the service) that are harmful to children”— in other words, not limited to those that are enabled or created by the service. It is a step too far to make platforms accountable for all behaviours that are harmful to children without the clarity of that link to what the platform has itself done.”
“As she said, it is right to recognise and reflect in the legislation that a child’s online experience can be harmful not just as a result of the harm an individual piece of content can cause, but in the way that content is selected and presented to that child—in other words, the way in which the service is designed to operate. As she knows, however, I part company with the Lords amendments in the breadth of the language used, particularly the word “behaviours”. Throughout our consideration of the Bill, I have taken the view that we should be less interested in passing legislation that sounds good and more interested in passing legislation that works. We need the regulator to be able to encourage and enforce improvements in online safety effectively.”
“Those Lords amendments insert harmful “features, functionalities or behaviours” into the list of matters that should be considered in the children’s risk assessment process and in the meeting of the safety duties, to add to the harms arising from the intrinsic nature of content itself—that is an important change. As others have done, I pay great tribute to the noble Baroness Kidron, who has invariably been the driving force behind so many of the positive enhancements to children’s online safety that the Bill will bring. She has promoted this enhancement, too.”
“Of course, as others have said, none of this means that the Bill is perfect; frankly, it was never going to be. Nor does it mean that when we pass the Bill, the job is done. We will then pass the baton to Ofcom, which will have a large amount of further work to do. However, we now need to finalise the legislative phase of this work after many years of consideration. For that reason, I welcome in particular what I think are sensible compromises on two significant issues that had yet to be resolved: first, the content of children’s risk assessments, and secondly, the categorisation process. I hope that the House will bear with me while I consider those in detail, which we have not yet done, starting with Lords amendments 17, 20 and 22, and Lords amendment 81 in relation to search, as well as the Government amendments in lieu of them.”
“I have been an advocate of humility in the way in which we all approach this legislation. It is genuinely difficult and novel territory. In general, I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and her Ministers—the noble Lord Parkinson and, of course, the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully)—have been willing to change their minds when it was right to do so, and the Bill is better for it. Like others who have dealt with them, I also thank the officials, some of whom sit in the Box, some of whom do not. They have dedicated—as I suspect they would see it—most of their lives to the generation of the Bill, and we are grateful to them for their commitment.”
“As others have done, I welcome the considerable progress made on the Bill in the other place, both in the detailed scrutiny that it has received from noble Lords, who have taken a consistent and expert interest in it, and in the positive and consensual tone adopted by Opposition Front Benchers and, crucially, by Ministers. It seems that there are very few Members of this House who have not had ministerial responsibility for the Bill at some point in what has been an extraordinarily extensive relay race as it has moved through its legislative stages. The anchor leg—the hardest bit in such a Bill—has been run with dedication and skill by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who deserves all the praise that she will get for holding the baton as we cross the parliamentary finish line, as I hope we are close to doing.”
“I now turn to the amendments dealing with the categorisation process, which are Lords amendment 391 and the Government amendments arising from it. Lords amendment 391 would allow Ofcom to designate a service as a category 1 service, with the additional expectations and responsibility that brings, if it is of a certain scale or if it has certain functionalities, rather than both being required as was the case in the original Bill. The effect of the original drafting was, in essence, that only big platforms could be category 1 platforms and that big platforms were bound to be category 1 platforms. That gave rise to two problems that, as my hon. Friend the Minister knows, we have discussed before.”
“We should also recognise that Government amendment (b) in lieu of Lords amendment 17 and Government amendments (b) and (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 81 specifically require consideration of “functionalities or other features of the service that affect how much children use the service” As far as I can tell, that introduces consideration of design-related addiction—recognisable to many parents; it cannot just be me—into the assessment process. These changes reflect the reality of how online harm to children manifests itself, and the Government are to be congratulated on including them, although, as I say, the Government and, subsequently, Ofcom will need to be clear about what these new expectations mean in practical terms for a platform considering its risk assessment process and seeking to comply with its safety duties.”
“The Government amendments in lieu do not replicate the reference to design in the safety duties themselves, but I do not see that as problematic because, as I understand it, the risks identified in the risk assessment process, which will now include design risks, feed through to and give rise to the safety duties, so that if a design risk is identified in the risk assessment, a service is required to mitigate and address it. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that.”
“Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and others have made about the nature of parliamentary scrutiny that is then required to ensure that we are all on top of this progress as it develops. I was talking about what I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to say when he winds up the debate. I know he will not have a huge amount of time to do so, but he might also confirm that the balancing duties in relation to freedom of speech and privacy, for example, continue to apply to the fulfilment of the safety duties in this context as well. That would be helpful.”
“My hon. Friend makes a fair point. One difficult part of our legislative journey with the Bill is to get right, in so far as we can, the balance between what the regulator should take responsibility for, what Ministers should take responsibility for and what the legislature—this Parliament—should take responsibility for. We may not have got that exactly right yet. On my hon. Friend’s specific point, my understanding is that because Ofcom must report to Parliament in any event, it will certainly be Ofcom’s intention to report back on this. It will be quite a large slice of what Ofcom does from this point onwards, so it would be remarkable if it did not, but I think we will have to return to the points that my hon.”
“It has just crossed my mind that the Minister might be saying that he agreed with everything that I said, which cannot be right. Let me be clear about the two points. One was in relation to whether, when we look at design harms, both proportionality and balancing duties are relevant—I think that he is saying yes to both. The other point that I raised with him was around encryption, and whether I put it in the right way in terms of the Government’s position on encryption. If he cannot deal with that now, and I would understand if he cannot, will he write to me and set out whether that is the correct way to see it?”
“It states: “It is a defence for the relevant body to prove that, at the time the fraud offence was committed…the body had in place such prevention procedures as it was reasonable in all the circumstances to expect the body to have”. Why would one of those circumstances not be the size and capacity of the organisation in question?”
“I know that my hon. Friend will come on to make points about failure to prevent offences in relation to burdens on small businesses. May I tell him first that I welcome wholeheartedly the arrival of failure to prevent offences? Like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland), I have argued for that when I was Attorney General and since, and I am glad to see it. In relation to failure to prevent and Lords amendment 151 in particular, the Minister will wish to argue that he is seeking to prevent excessive burdens on smaller organisations by limiting that offence to large organisations, but can he explain why subsection (4) of the new clause introduced by Lords amendment 151 does not do that job?”
“Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that part of the answer to the point made by our hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) is that the vast majority of businesses will not need to do anything differently, because what they do now is perfectly reasonable. If what they are doing is reasonable, they will be perfectly safe from this legislation. This legislation is intended to catch those who do not behave reasonably and those who behave dishonestly, which will be a tiny minority. We accept that the legislation will not lead to a huge number of prosecutions or convictions; it is supposed to lead to a change in behaviour where that is needed.”
“The Minister is right, but subsection (4)(a) refers to “such prevention procedures” as are “reasonable in all the circumstances”, so in very many cases that would be a very minimal requirement and probably only what companies that are behaving responsibly are doing already. Secondly, as I am sure the Minister is about to point out, subsection (4)(b) states that it might not be “reasonable in all the circumstances to expect the body to have any prevention procedures in place.” So if it was not considered reasonable to have any, it would be possible to rely on that defence if they did not.”
“We should be clear, should we not, that what this motion means is that while an inquiry is ongoing, it is wrong to impugn the integrity of any member of the Committee?”
“I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Lady is being continually interrupted, but may I ask her for some clarity on the point she is making? She has mentioned impugning the integrity of members of the Committee in part of the motion, with which I have considerable sympathy. I just want to understand this point. I do not suggest that this has happened here or at any time in the past, but she will recognise that it is conceivable that it would be right to impugn the integrity of a member of the Committee, or of more than one of its members, if there were evidence to do so. May I just be clear that what this motion should be taken to mean is that someone should not impugn the integrity of members of the Committee while an inquiry is ongoing? If there is evidence to do so later, there are mechanisms by which we can do so.”
“The Committee’s special report makes the strong point that there are legitimate opportunities for Members to oppose a referral of a matter to the Committee in the first place—as has been observed, in the case of Boris Johnson nobody did, not even Boris Johnson. The Committee is also right to say that criticism of its conclusions is perfectly valid, as is a decision not to support those conclusions. What is not valid is to attack or to seek to influence or undermine a Committee that this House has charged with an inquiry while that inquiry is ongoing.”
“It must be legitimate to do that if the position is—as it is—that the Committee makes recommendations to the whole House, and the whole House then decides whether to accept them. The report that we are debating today is entirely about the Privileges Committee’s authority and integrity, and about how that should be upheld. Just as criticism of the Committee’s conclusions can be perfectly legitimate, and just as it is not right to say that any criticism of it is an attack on its authority, so it is not right to say that all attacks on the Committee must be allowable as exercises of free speech. We recognise, do we not, that free speech is sometimes properly restricted in the interests of broader freedoms? That is exactly what we are considering here.”
“It is a privilege to speak in this debate. I will try not to take too long or to repeat things that have already been said. It is a great shame that the debate on the Privileges Committee’s fifth report, on Boris Johnson, became largely a debate about the integrity and standing of the Committee itself, rather than just the behaviour of Boris Johnson, which was the subject of the report. I can understand why many Members saw it as such, but it is important to establish in this debate that it is possible and legitimate to be in disagreement with some of the Committee’s conclusions, yet still respect and uphold the Committee’s authority and integrity. I say that because that is exactly the position I took in relation to that report.”
“Friend is that it is important to the integrity of the Committee’s investigation that Members of this House, having delegating authority to that Committee to do the work, do not seek to derail it while it happens. That does not mean that they are not entitled to criticise any conclusions that the Committee may reach, and nor is it inappropriate, as I have done myself, for a Member not to agree with the conclusions the Committee has reached.”
“Yes, I understand entirely the point my right hon. Friend makes. But there are, of course, significant differences between the work done by the Committee and the work of a court. It comes back to the speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), which I enjoyed too much to interrupt. It seemed to me that the point he was making about Lord Hoffmann also bears some scrutiny in this respect. Courts are decision-making bodies. The Privileges Committee is not a decision-making body. The House of Commons as a whole is the decision-making body. There is therefore a difference between the way the Privileges Committee operates and the way in which a court operates. Where I do agree with my right hon.”
“With that clarity that the impugning of the Committee’s integrity, if any, is not appropriate while an inquiry is under way, again that seems to me a sensible inclusion. On the second question, the position should surely be equivalent for standards and privileges. Although I fully subscribe to the view, expressed by many, that we really need to move on from this, I am afraid that on another day we will probably at least have to return to the question of whether we need to improve the language on the protections we offer to the Standards Committee, so that it can match this motion, which I hope the House will pass this evening. As others have said, I hope it will pass without a vote, but if it does not, I shall vote in favour of it.”
“As for impugning the integrity of the Committee, as I mentioned in an intervention on the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), it must be a possibility that the integrity of a future Committee—not, of course, this Committee or any previous Committee—could be impugned. The Committee cannot be invulnerable to challenge and criticism, if that criticism is merited. But were that to be the case, as Members of this House we have the right to raise our concerns in debates about the Committee’s recommendations and about any allegations about another Member’s integrity. Members of the Privileges Committee, or not, may well raise themselves the sorts of standards and privileges matters that should be the subject of separate investigations.”
“That is a good point, but I think it is also worth noting that the motion does not quite achieve that equality. For standards matters, as is quoted in the special report, the code of conduct states that there must be no lobbying of members of the Committee. There is no mention in the code of conduct in that regard of intimidation, or of impugning the integrity of the Committee, as there is in this motion. Two questions surely arise. First, should those additional considerations of intimidation and impugning the integrity of the Committee be included? Secondly, if so, should they not be included in relation to standards matters also? On the first, it should not really be necessary to say that intimidation is unacceptable, but it surely cannot be wrong to say it, so I completely support its inclusion in the motion.”
“I certainly do not think that material of that kind should be leaked to newspapers before it is discussed in this House. I have no knowledge of the facts of who did what, but I agree with my hon. Friend that there should be no leaking of that kind. We can only, in the context of this debate, discuss the motion before us. If for nothing other than novelty’s sake, perhaps I should speak a little bit about the motion. The Committee makes a good argument that, given there is little material difference, either in process or in the potential consequences for a Member being investigated, between privilege cases on one hand and standards cases on the other, the protection that this House gives to the Privileges Committee and the Standards Committee in the exercise of their duties should be the same.”
“For that reason, I am afraid, I do not think that either the Lords amendment that we have received or the Government’s amendment in lieu are sensible responses to the challenge we face. In my view, both are flawed.”
“If that is not the case, all the consequences flow that have been described so well by my Committee colleagues, which I do not need and have not got time to repeat. My last point relates to a deficiency in both Lords amendment 122B and the Government’s amendment in lieu. Both say that the consideration or the review—depending on which version we choose—of the memorandum of understanding must begin within six months of the passage of the Bill. The problem with that, it seems to me, is that it is far from inconceivable that the Government may make a machinery of government change or a process change beyond that six-month point. It does not seem sensible to artificially limit the capacity for having that review or consideration of the memorandum beyond that point.”
“Either there are hardly any such donations in British politics, in which case the work involved to identify and deal with them appropriately is hardly likely to be onerous, even for smaller parties; or there are substantial numbers of such donations, in which case the case for greater transparency is overwhelming. Let me turn to Lords amendment 122B and Government amendment (a) in lieu. It is worth being honest: there is very little difference between the Government amendment in lieu and the amendment from the other place, but both, as others have said, are operating on the margins of the real issue. The real issue is that there needs to be the capacity for the Intelligence and Security Committee’s remit, and the memorandum of understanding that relates to it, to adapt as the processes and structures of Government adapt.”
“It says, first, that a political party should be able to identify donations from a foreign power and, secondly, that it should be transparent with the Electoral Commission about such donations. It is worth stressing that the donations we are talking about are those from a foreign power—not necessarily from an individual, but from a state, perhaps funnelled through an individual. It is surely important to recognise the significance of such donations—potentially, at least—on our democratic process. It seems to me that there are two scenarios here.”