Kirsty Blackman
MP for Aberdeen North · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“I first raised the issue of self-generated images in Parliament more than four years ago. I have asked almost every single Culture, Media and Sport team about the issue of livestreaming. I am pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that action is being taken, and about the belt-and-braces approach that is coming in.”
“Labour promised £200 million for Grangemouth, none of which has materialised. Labour promised 1,000 jobs for GB Energy, and it turns out that a third of the 130 delivered so far are not actually in Scotland.”
“There is a geographical divide on this issue starker than I have ever seen in this place. Across all parties, every Member representing a Scottish constituency has stressed the issue of jobs, and how important this is to the north-east of Scotland.”
“There is a fundamental question here about what our priority is. Is it to reduce the bill, to reduce the amount of money that we are spending, or to ensure that disabled people can access all the human rights that the rest of us can, access society and be supported? We must recognise the extra costs of disability. What is the priority?”
“May I continue to encourage the Minister to talk to Social Security Scotland and our colleagues in the SNP Government about their experiences of the adult disability payment and whether the changes that have been implemented in Scotland would make a positive difference to those claiming PIP?”
“I will point out where things are today and how we can improve them, rather than looking at what was done in the past, but first, I recognise that although Pride is about celebration, it is also about being angry. We should be angry about the injustices.”
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“I have questions about the management of the fees and the recovery of the preparatory cost. Does the Minister expect that the initial fees will be higher as a result of having to recoup the preparatory cost and will then reduce? How quickly will the preparatory cost be recovered? Will Ofcom recover it quickly or over a longer period of time?”
“They would ensure that Ofcom could take action against a group of sites, particularly if they were facing the same kind of issues, they had the same kind of functionality, or the same kind of concerns were being raised about them.”
“Thank you for chairing this morning’s sitting, Ms Rees. I agree with the hon. Member for Pontypridd that these clauses are necessary and important, but I also agree that the amendments are important. It seems like this is a kind of tidying-up exercise, to give Ofcom the ability to act in a way that will make its operation smoother. We all want this legislation to work. This is not an attempt to break this legislation—to be fair, none of our amendments have been—but an attempt to make things work better. Amendments 50 and 51 are fairly similar to the one that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children proposed to clause 103.”
“In this case, however, I do not have an issue with the Secretary of State being consulted, so I intend to support the inclusion of this clause, as amended by Government amendment 7. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“Apologies, Ms Rees, for coming in a bit late on this, but I was not aware of the intention to vote against the clause. I want to make clear what the Scottish National party intends to do, and the logic behind it. The inclusion of Government amendment 7 is sensible, and I am glad that the Minister has tabled it. Clause 129 is incredibly important, and the requirement to publish guidance will ensure that there is a level of transparency, which we and the Labour Front Benchers have been asking for. The Minister has been clear about the requirement for Ofcom to consult the Secretary of State, rather than to be directed by them. As a whole, this Bill gives the Secretary of State far too much power, and far too much ability to intervene in the workings of Ofcom.”
“We agree that misinformation and disinformation are very important matters that really need to be tackled, but there is just not enough clout in the Bill to allow Ofcom to properly tackle these issues that are causing untold harm.”
“We want to be able to pick up any teething problems that the Act might have. We want the committee to be able to say, “Actually, this is not working quite as we expected. We suggest that Ofcom operates in a slightly different way or that the interaction with providers happens in a slightly different way.” I would rather that problems with the Act were tackled as early as possible. We will not know about problems with the Act, because there is no proper review mechanism. There is no agreement on the committee, for example, to look at how the Act is operating. This is one of the few parts of the Bill where we have got an agreement to a review, and it would make sense that it happen as early as possible.”
“I want to briefly agree with the sentiments of the Opposition Front Bench, especially about the strength of the committee and the lack of teeth that it currently has. Given that the Government have been clear that they are very concerned about misinformation and disinformation, it seems odd that they are covered in the Bill in such a wishy-washy way. The reduction of the time from 18 months to six months would also make sense. We would expect the initial report the committee publish in six months to not be as full as the ones it would publish after that. I do not see any issue with it being required to produce a report as soon as possible to assess how the Act is bedding in and beginning to work, rather than having to wait to assess—potentially once the Act is properly working.”
“However, given the significant increase in the risk to consumers in the past few years, it would seem sensible that the Minister give some consideration to whether this is adequately covered in the Bill, and whether consumers are adequately protected in this section of the Bill, as well as in the additional flawed clauses that the Minister added between publication of the original draft Bill and the Bill that we have before us today.”
“If consumers are losing significant amounts of money, or where there is risk of significant numbers of people losing significant amounts of money—for example, where a search engine allows fraudulent advertising to be the top result—including “consumers” in the Bill will allow organisations acting on behalf of consumers to take action. It may be that the Minister can give me some comfort in this, and let us know that organisations acting on behalf of consumers would potentially—if they meet other criteria—be able to put forward a super-complaint. I understand that there are other methods of complaining—it is possible for other complaints to be made.”
“We know it has a significant effect on people’s mental health. I am glad that the Government listened to the Joint Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and changed the legislation to include fraud. Amendment 143 is about expanding who can make super-complaints, in order to reflect the expansion of the Bill to include fraud. The Bill does not leave a lot of the details around super-complaints to be made in secondary legislation. These amendments specifically allow groups that are acting on behalf of consumers, or those who are making requests on behalf of consumers, to make super-complaints. I am not sure that if somebody is acting on behalf of consumers that fits into the definitions of users of the service and people representing users of the service. Perhaps the Minister can convince me otherwise.”
“The Committee has been flexible about grouping clauses should it make sense to do so. I ask that the Committee allow me to speak to this set of amendments alone. It does not make sense for me to discuss these amendments and amendment 77 at the same time. If I could separately discuss amendment 77, as it says on the Order Paper, then I would appreciate that. This group of amendments specifically relate to consumer protection. It is the case that online fraud facilitated through social media platforms and search engines is one of the most prevalent forms of crime today. Reported incidents increased significantly during the pandemic, and often resulted in victims losing life-changing amounts of money. In addition to the financial impact of being scammed, there is the emotional and physical impact.”
“Will the Minister explicitly say that he thinks that an eligible entity, acting on behalf of consumers, could, if it fulfils the other criteria, bring a super-complaint?”
“I thank the Minister for the clarification. Given that he has explicitly said that he expects that groups acting on behalf of consumers could, if they fulfil the other criteria, be considered as eligible entities for making super-complaints, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed : 66, in clause 140, page 121, line 8, at end insert— “(d) causing harm to any human or animal.” This amendment ensures groups are able to make complaints regarding animal abuse videos. — (Alex Davies-Jones.)”
“I do not want them to be able to go to Ofcom and say, “Hey, Ofcom, we’re challenging you on the basis that we don’t think this complaint is of particular importance” or “We don’t think the complaint relates to the impacts on a particularly large number of users of the service or members of the public.” I do not want them to have that ability to wriggle out of things because this subsection is in the Bill, so any consideration that the Minister could give to improving clause 140 and subsection (2) would be very much appreciated.”
“I get that people might want it there as an additional layer of protection, but I genuinely do not imagine that it can be justified in the case of the particularly large providers, where there is significant risk of harm happening. I will illustrate that with one last point. The Government specifically referred earlier to when Facebook—Meta—stopped proactively scanning for child sexual abuse images because of an issue in Europe. The Minister mentioned the significant amount of harm and the issues that were caused in a very small period. And that was one provider—the largest provider that people use and access. That massive amount of harm can be caused in a very small period. I do not support allowing Meta or any other significantly large platform to have a “get out of jail” card.”
“If he is unwilling to remove that subsection, I wonder whether we could meet halfway and whether, let us say, category 1 providers could all be excluded from the “single provider” exemption, because they have already been assessed by Ofcom to have particular risks on their platforms. That group is wider than the three names that I have mentioned, and I think that that would be a reasonable and realistic decision for the Government—and direction for Ofcom—to take. It would be sensible. If the Government believe that there is more information—more direction—that they could add to the clause, it would be great if the Minister could lay some of that out here and let us know how he intends subsection (2) to operate in practice and how he expects Ofcom to use it.”
“The reality is that if something affects one person on Facebook, it will affect significantly more than one person on Facebook because of Facebook’s absolutely massive user base. Therefore this additional hoop is unrealistic. Paragraph (a), about the complaint being “of particular importance”, is too woolly. Does it relate only to complaints about things that are illegal? Does it relate only to things that are particularly urgent—something that is happening now and that is having an impact today? Or is there some other criterion that we do not yet know about? I would very much appreciate it if the Minister could give some consideration to amendment 77, which would simply remove subsection (2).”
“Where a complaint relates to a very small platform that is not causing significant illegal harm, I understand that Ofcom may want to consider whether it will accept, investigate and give primacy and precedence to that. If the reality is that the effect is non-illegal, fairly minor and impacts a fairly small number of people, in the order of hundreds instead of millions, I can understand why Ofcom might not want to give that super-complaint status and might not want to carry out the level of investigation and response necessary for a super-complaint. But I do not see any circumstances in which Ofcom could justify rejecting a complaint against Facebook simply because it is a complaint against a single entity.”
“Subsection (2)(a) states that one of the tests of the complaint should be that it “is of particular importance” or, as subsection (2)(b) notes, that it “relates to the impacts on a particularly large number of users of the service or members of the public.” I do not understand what “large number of users of the service” would mean. Does a large number of the users of Facebook mean 50% of its users? Does it mean 10%? What is a large number? Is that in percentage terms, or is it something that is likely to impact 1 million people? Is that a large number? The second part— “large number…of members of the public”— is again difficult to define. I do not think there is justification for this additional hoop just because the complaint relates to a single regulated service.”
“I can understand the decision that a super-complaint picking on one certain company might be a bit extreme, but it does not make sense when we are considering the Facebooks of this world. If someone is making a complaint about a single regulated service and that service is Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or another large platform—or a new, yet-to-be-created platform—that significant numbers of people use, there is no justification for treating that complaint differently just because it is against a single entity. When a complaint is made against Facebook—I am picking on Facebook because 85% of the UK public are members of it; it is an absolute behemoth—I would like there to be no delay in its being taken to Ofcom. I would like Ofcom not to have to check and justify that the complaint is “of particular importance”.”
“I beg to move amendment 77, in clause 140, page 121, line 9, leave out subsection (2). This amendment removes the tests that complaints have to be of particular importance in order to be admissible . When I first read clause 140, subsection (2) raised a significant number of red flags for me. The subsection might be reasonable if we did not have giant companies—social media platforms particularly—that significant numbers of people across the UK use regularly. Facebook might be counted as a “single regulated service”, but 85% of UK residents—57.1 million people—had a Facebook account earlier this year. Twitter is used by 28% of people living in the UK, which is 19 million users. TikTok is at 19%, which is significantly less, but still a very high number of people—13 million users.”
“I welcome the Minister’s fairly explicit explanation that he believes that every category 1 company would be in scope, even if there was a complaint against one single provider. I would like to push the amendment to a vote on the basis of the comments I made earlier and the fact that each of these platforms is different. We have heard concerns about, for example, Facebook groups being interested in celebrating eight-year-olds’ birthdays. We have heard about the amount of porn on Twitter, which Facebook does not have in the same way. We have heard about the kind of algorithmic stuff that takes people down a certain path on TikTok. We have heard all these concerns, but they are all specific to that one provider. They are not a generic complaint that could be brought toward a group of providers.”
“I am glad the Minister confirms that he expects that that would be the case. I am clearer now that he has explained it, but on my reading of the clause, the definitions of “particular importance” or “a particularly large number of users…or members of the public” are not clear. I wanted to ensure that this was put on the record. While I do welcome the Minister’s clarification, I would like to push amendment 77 to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“In some cases, stuff will be really urgent and will need to be dealt with very quickly, especially if, for example, it includes child sexual abuse images. That would need to be dealt with in a matter of hours or days, rather than any longer period. I would like to see some sort of indication given to Ofcom about the timelines that we are expecting it to work to. Given the amount of work that third sector organisations have put in to support this Bill and try to make it better, this is a fairly easy amendment for the Minister to accede to—an initial response by Ofcom within a 90-day period; we are not saying overnight—so that everyone can be assured that the internet is, as the Minister wishes, a much safer place.”
“In earlier clauses of the Bill, primacy is given to complaints to social media platforms, for example—to regulated providers—about freedom of speech. The Bill says that they are to give such complaints precedence. They are to deal with them as important and, where some content has been taken down, quickly. That precedence is written into the Bill. Such urgency is not included in these three clauses on super-complaints in the way I would like to see. The Bill should say that Ofcom has to deal with super-complaints quickly. I do not mean it should do that by doing a bad job. I mean that it should begin to investigate quickly, work out whether it is appropriate to investigate it under the super-complaints procedure, and then begin the investigation.”
“If there is no timeline and it says, “We want to levy fees because we want to be able to respond on a 90-day basis”, it would not be beyond companies to come back and say, “That is unrealistic—you should not be charging us extra fees in order for you to have enough people to respond within a 90-day period to super-complaints.” If Ofcom is to be able to levy fees effectively to provide the level of service that we would all—including, I am sure, the Minister—like to see to super-complainants who are making very important cases on behalf of members of the public and people who are being harmed by content online, and to give Ofcom that backing when it is setting the structures and levying the fees, it would be sensible for the Minister to make some commitments about the timelines for super-complaints.”
“Ofcom has the ability to levy fees so that it can provide the service that we expect it to provide as a result of the Bill. It will have a huge amount of extra work compared with its current work. It needs to be able to levy fees in order to fulfil its functions.”
“I expect that those people who are bringing super-complaints are likely to be third sector organisations. Such organisations do not have significant or excessive budgets. They will be making difficult choices about where to spend their money. If they are bringing forward a super-complaint, they will be doing it on the basis that they think it is incredibly important and it is worth spending their finite funding on legal advice in order to bring forward that super-complaint. If there is an unnecessary delay before Ofcom even recognises whether the complaint is eligible, charities may spend money unnecessarily on building up a further case for the next stages of the super-complaint. They should be told very quickly, “No, we are not accepting this” or “Yes, we are accepting this”.”
“That response does not have to be a final response saying, “We have investigated everything and these are the findings.” I understand that that may take some time. However, Ofcom must provide a response to super-complainants in 90 days. Even if it were to provide that information in the terms laid out in clause 141(2)(d)—whether a complaint is within clause 140, or is admissible under clause 140 or whether an entity is an eligible entity—and we were to commit Ofcom to provide that information within 90 days, that would be better than the current drafting, which is no time limits at all. It is not specified. It does not say that Ofcom has to deal with the complaint within a certain length of time. A quick response from Ofcom is important for a number of reasons.”
“However, I am not convinced that in the Policing and Crime Act 2017 we were left with quite so little information about what would be included in those complaints. I think the justification for the negative procedure is not great, especially given the concerns raised about the over-reach of the Secretary of State’s power and the amount of influence they have on Ofcom. I think clause 142 is fine; it makes sense that Ofcom is able to make guidance. I would have liked to see the regulation part involve more input from parliamentarians. If there is not going to be more input from parliamentarians, there should at least be more in the Bill about how the complaints procedure would work. The reason we have tabled amendment 153 is to ensure that Ofcom provides a response.”
“I appreciate that the Minister has chosen—or the people drafting the Bill have chosen—that way forward for deciding on the eligible entity. I am concerned that when it comes to clause 141(1), the regulations setting out how the complaints process will be made, and the regulation level, will be done under the negative procedure rather than under the draft affirmative procedure. I have got the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee memorandum, which tells us about each of the delegated powers of the Bill, and the justification for them. I understand that the Department is referring to the Police Super-complaints (Designation and Procedure) Regulations 2018, which were made under the negative procedure.”
“I appreciate the support from the Opposition in relation to amendment 153. I want to talk about amendment 153, but also about some of the issues there are with clauses 140 and 141—not so much 142. Clause 140(3) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations in relation to working out who an eligible entity is for making super-complaints. The Minister has helpfully been very clear that the definition is likely to be pretty wide—the definition of groups that are working on behalf of consumers is likely to be wide. The regulations that are made in this section are going to be made under the draft affirmative procedure. Although secondary legislation is not brilliant, the affirmative procedure will allow more scrutiny than negative procedure.”
“I am sorry to try the Minister’s patience. I think that we are in quite a lot of agreement about what an eligible entity looks like. I appreciate that this is being done by the affirmative procedure, but we seem to be in much less agreement about the next clause, which is being done by the negative procedure. I would like him to explain that contrast.”
“Some Acts that this Parliament has passed have provided for a time limit within which something must be considered, but the time limit can be extended if the organisation concerned says to the Secretary of State, “Look, this is too complicated. We don’t believe that we can do this.” I think that was the case for the Subsidy Control Act 2022, but I have been on quite a few Bill Committees, so I may be wrong about that. That situation would be the exception, obviously, rather than the rule, and would apply only in the most complicated cases.”
“Clause 141 Procedure for super-complaints Amendment proposed : 153, in clause 141, page 121, line 32, after “140” insert “, which must include the requirement that OFCOM must respond to such complaints within 90 days”— (Kirsty Blackman.) Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“Sorry, I phrased that quite badly. My point was more about having to justify things—having to say, “Look, we are sorry; we haven’t managed to do this in the time in which we were expected to. This is our justification”—rather than having to get permission. Apologies for phrasing that wrongly. I am glad that the Minister is considering including that point as something that could be suggested in the consultation. I appreciate what the Minister says, but I still think we should have a time limit in the Bill, so I am keen to push amendment 153 to a vote. Question put and agreed to. Clause 140 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.”
“It was a major security concern for parents. That very concerning situation genuinely could have resulted in children and other vulnerable people, who may not have even known that the feature had been turned on by default and would not know how to turn on ghost mode in Snapchat so as not to post their location, being put at risk. The situation could have been helped if media literacy duties had kicked in that meant that the regulator had to say, “This is a thing on Snapchat: geolocation is switched on. Please be aware of this if your children or people you are responsible for are using Snapchat.””
“I want to talk about a specific example. Perhaps the Minister will be able to explain why the legislation is written this way around when I would have written it the opposite way around, much more in line with proposed new clause 10. Snapchat brought in the Snap Map feature, which that involved having geolocation on every individual’s phone; whenever anyone took a photo to put it on Snapchat, that geolocation was included. The feature was automatically turned on for all Snapchat users when it first came in, I think in 2017. No matter what age they were, when they posted their story on Snapchat, which is available to anyone on their friends list and sometimes wider, anyone could see where they were. If a child had taken a photo at their school and put it on Snapchat, anyone could see what school they went to.”
“We have talked already about the fact that the Secretary of State cannot be an expert in everything. The Secretary of State cannot necessarily know the inner workings of Snapchat, Strava, TikTok and whatever other new platforms emerge. It seems like an unnecessary hurdle to stop Ofcom taking that action on its own, when it is the expert. The Minister is likely to say that the Secretary of State will say, “Yes, this is definitely a problem and I will easily instruct you to do this”—”
“I was aware that Strava did that mapping, which is why my friends list on Strava numbers about two people, but I was not aware that it had been publicly displayed. There are similar issues that routes can be public on things such as Garmin, so it is important to keep a note of that. I did not know that that information was public on Strava. If Ofcom had had the duty to ensure that people were aware of that, it would have been much easier for parents and vulnerable adults to take those decisions or have them taken on their behalf. My reading of the clause is that if Ofcom comes across a problem, it will have to go and explain to the Secretary of State that it is a problem and get the Secretary of State to instruct it to take action. I do not think that makes sense.”
“I appreciate that national security is also very important, but I thought I would take the opportunity to highlight specific concerns with individual platforms and to say to the Minister that we need Ofcom to be able to act and to educate the public as well as it possibly can, and to do so without having to wait for an instruction.”
“The Minister will get the chance to make a proper speech in which he can respond. It could be that the process is different from the one I see from reading the Bill. The Minister’s clarifications will be helpful to allow everyone to understand how the process is supposed to work, what powers Ofcom is supposed to have and whether it will have to wait for an instruction from the Secretary of State, which is what it looks like. That is why proposed new clause 10 is so important, because it would allow action to be taken to alert people to safety concerns. I am focusing mostly on that.”
“The Minister said “a present threat”, but the clause says “present a threat”. The two mean different things. To clarify, could he confirm that he means “present a threat”?”
“In the interests of transparency, it would be helpful for something like that to be included in the guidance, if it was being changed outside the normal three-year structure.”
“I have a question about subsection (4)(b), which says that the guidance can be replaced more frequently than once every three years. I understand subsection (4)(a)—that is fine—but subsection (4)(b) says that the guidance can be changed if “the revision or replacement is by agreement between the Secretary of State and OFCOM.” How will those of us who are not the Secretary of State or Ofcom know that there has been an agreement that the guidance can be changed and that the Secretary of State is not just acting on their own? If the guidance is changed because of an agreement, will there be a line in the guidance that says, “The Secretary of State has agreed with Ofcom to publish this only 1.5 years after the last guidance was put out, because of these reasons”?”
“I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would consider a belt and braces approach as the best way forward? We could have it in the Bill and have the other legislation, in order that this will definitely protect people and companies will not be able to wriggle out of it.”
“My question was about the announcement that the Minister is hoping to make on Report. I appreciate that he has committed to introduce the new offence, which is great. If the Bill is to be the legislative vehicle, does he expect to amend it on Report, or does he expect that that will have to wait until the amendment goes through the Lords?”
“If that were included, we would not be making such a passionate case here. We would already have a code of conduct and assessments that have to take place on the basis of the specific harm to women and girls from such offences. We would not be making the case so forcefully because it would already be covered. I wish the Minister would take on board how difficult it is for women and girls online, how much of an issue this specific action causes and how much pain and suffering it causes. It would great if the Minister could consider moving somewhat on this issue in order to protect women and girls.”
“I would like to make a couple of comments. The shadow Minister mentioned education and prevention projects, which are key. In Scotland, our kids’ sex, health and relationship education in schools teaches consent from the earliest possible age. That is vital. We have a generation of men who think it is okay to send these images and not seek consent. As the shadow Minister said, the problem is everywhere. So many women have received images that they had no desire to see. They did not ask for them, and they did not consent to receive them, but they get them. Requiring someone to prove the intent behind the offence is just impossible. It is so unworkable, and that makes it really difficult. This is yet another issue that makes it clear that we need to have reference to violence against women and girls on the face of the Bill.”