Chris Philp
MP for Croydon South · Conservative · United Kingdom
“The Minister mentioned return numbers, but what she did not mention is that the return of 6,000 small-boat migrants in the past two and a bit years amounts to only 8% of illegal immigrants crossing the channel. That is to say, 92% of illegal immigrants crossing get to stay. There is no deterrent whatsoever in that.”
“I cannot give all the many examples, in the interests of time, but they cited one example in which apparently hundreds of Pakistani men claimed to be gay, based on a letter from an individual claiming to be the sexual partner of all of them. That is quite clearly fabricated with the assistance of immigration lawyers.”
“I was on the beaches of northern France just a few weeks ago, waist deep in water as one such dinghy embarked with about 100 illegal immigrants on it, while 10 members of the French gendarmerie nationale, who we pay for—who the Home Secretary pays for—with £660 million of our money, almost all of it unconditional, stood by and did nothing…”
“Numerous rapes have been committed by small-boat illegal immigrants, including the rape of a girl in Nuneaton aged just 12. The Government are using sleight of hand. They are moving illegal immigrants from hotels into apartments, then granting them asylum on an industrial scale.”
“I thank my constituency neighbour, the Minister for Policing and Crime, for advance sight of her statement. I am sure that we all agree that the right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy, but the right to protest should never be violently exercised or cause serious disruption to other people.”
“Since the general election, over 80,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the channel, all illegally and all unnecessarily, because France is a safe country—nobody is fleeing persecution in France. Almost 20,000 have crossed this year alone, and 625 crossed yesterday, with more coming in the early hours.”
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“As such, the duty to offer content reporting is to users and affected persons, so if the hon. Member for Aberdeen North was a user of Twitter but was not herself an affected person, she would still be able to report content in her capacity as a user. I hope that provides clarification.”
“Let me try to address some of the questions that have been raised in this short debate, starting with the question that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North quite rightly asked at the beginning. She posed the question, “What if somebody who is not an affected person encountered some content and wanted to report it?” For example, she might encounter some racist content on Twitter or elsewhere and would want to be able to report it, even though she is not herself the target of it or necessarily a member of the group affected. I can also offer the reassurance that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East asked for. The answer is to be found in clause 17(2), which refers to “A duty to operate a service using systems and processes that allow users and”— I stress “and”—“affected persons”.”
“Clause 18 contains provisions that explicitly require the complaints process to be accessible. Subsection (2)(c) states that the complaints procedure has to be “easy to access, easy to use (including by children) and transparent”, so the statutory obligation that she requested is there in clause 18.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her clarificatory question. I can confirm that in order to be a user of a service, she would not necessarily have to sign up to it. The simple act of browsing that service, of looking at Reddit—not, I confess, an activity that I participate in regularly—regardless of whether or not the hon. Lady has an account with it, makes her a user of that service, and in that capacity she would be able to make a content report under clause 17(2) even if she were not an affected person. I hope that clears up the question in a definitive manner. The hon. Lady asked in her second speech about the accessibility of the complaints procedure for children. That is strictly a matter for clause 18, which is the next clause, but I will quickly answer her question.”
“An organisation that represents a particular group—an obvious example is the NSPCC representing children, but it would apply to loads of other groups—has the ability to make super-complaints to Ofcom on behalf of those users, if it feels they are not being well treated by a platform. A combination of the parent or carer being able to make individual complaints, and the super-complaint facility, means that the points raised by Members are catered for. I commend the clause to the Committee. Question put and agreed to. Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 18 Duties about complaints procedures Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“There is in clause 17(2) “a duty to operate a service that allows users and affected persons to easily report content which they consider to be content of a…kind specified below”, which, of course, includes services likely to be accessed by children, under subsection (4). The words “easily report” are present in clause 17(2). I will move on to the question of children reporting more generally, which the shadow Minister raised as well. Clearly, a parent or anyone with responsibility for a child has the ability to make a report, but it is also worth mentioning the power in clauses 140 to 142 to make super-complaints, which the NSPCC strongly welcomed its evidence.”
“If the platform is notified of a piece of illegal content, or content that is harmful to children, or of content that it should take down under its own terms and conditions if harmful to adults, then it must do so. If it fails to do so, Ofcom will have the enforcement powers available to it to compel—ultimately, escalating to a fine of up to 10% of global revenue or even service disconnection.”
“Let me address some of the issues raised in the debate. First, everyone in the House recognises the enormous problem at the moment with large social media firms receiving reports about harmful and even illegal content that they just flagrantly ignore. The purpose of the clause, and indeed of the whole Bill and its enforcement architecture, is to ensure that those large social media firms no longer ignore illegal and harmful content when they are notified about it. We agree unanimously on the importance of doing that. The requirement for those firms to take the proper steps is set out in clause 18(2)(b), at the very top of page 18 —it is rather depressing that we are on only the 18th of a couple of hundred pages. That paragraph creates a statutory duty for a social media platform to take “appropriate action”—those are the key words.”
“Let me develop the point before I give way. Our first line of defence is Ofcom enforcing the clause, but we have a couple of layers of additional defence. One of those is the super-complaints mechanism, which I have mentioned before. If a particular group of people, represented by a body such as the NSPCC, feel that their legitimate complaints are being infringed systemically by the social media platform, and that Ofcom is failing to take the appropriate action, they can raise that as a super-complaint to ensure that the matter is dealt with.”
“A later clause gives Ofcom the ability to levy the fees and charges it sees as necessary and appropriate to ensure that it can deliver the duties. Ofcom will have the power to set those fees at a level to enable it to do its job properly, as Parliament would wish it to do.”
“Facebook in the UK alone has tens of millions of users—I might get this number wrong, but I think it is 30 million or 40 million users.”
“As I said explicitly a few moments ago, the hon. Lady is right to point out the fact that the super-complaints process is to address systemic issues. She is right to say that, and I think I made it clear a moment or two ago. Whether there should be an external ombudsman to enforce individual complaints, rather than just Ofcom enforcing against systemic complaints, is a question worth addressing. In some parts of our economy, we have ombudsmen who deal with individual complaints, financial services being an obvious example. The Committee has asked the question, why no ombudsman here? The answer, in essence, is a matter of scale and of how we can best fix the issue. The volume of individual complaints generated about social media platforms is just vast.”
“I will in a moment. The volume of complaints that gets generated is vast. The way that we will fix this is not by having an external policeman to enforce on individual complaints, but by ensuring that the systems and processes are set up correctly to deal with problems at this large scale. [ Interruption. ] The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd, laughs, but it is a question of practicality. The way we will make the internet safe is to make sure that the systems and processes are in place and effective. Ofcom will ensure that that happens. That will protect everyone, not just those who raise individual complaints with an ombudsman.”
“Member for Pontypridd has repeatedly called for a systems and processes approach. This is the embodiment of such an approach and the only way to fix a problem of such magnitude.”
“In the case of financial services, if, for example, someone has been mis-sold a mortgage and they have suffered a huge loss, they can go to an ombudsman who will bindingly adjudicate that individual, single, personal case. The point that I am making is that having hundreds of thousands or potentially millions of cases being bindingly adjudicated on a case-by- case basis is not the right way to tackle a problem of this scale. The right way to tackle the problem is to force the social media companies, by law, to systemically deal with all of the problem, not just individual problems that may end up on an ombudsman’s desk. That is the power in the Bill. It deals at a systems and processes level, it deals on an industry-wide level, and it gives Ofcom incredibly strong enforcement powers to make sure this actually happens. The hon.”
“It is categorically not the Government’s position that this problem is too big to fix. In fact, the whole purpose of this piece of groundbreaking and world-leading legislation is to fix a problem of such magnitude. The point my right hon. Friend was making about the hypothecation of fines to support user advocacy is a somewhat different one, which we will come to in due course, but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent individual groups from assisting individuals with making specific complaints to individual companies, as they are now entitled to do in law under clauses 17 and 18. The point about an ombudsman is a slightly different one—if an individual complaint is made to a company and the individual complainant is dissatisfied with the outcome of their individual, particular and personal complaint, what should happen?”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful intervention. There are two separate questions here. One is about user advocacy groups helping individuals to make complaints to the companies. That is a fair point, and no doubt we will debate it later. The ombudsman question is different; it is about whether to have a right of appeal against decisions by social media companies. Our answer is that, rather than having a third-party body—an ombudsman—effectively acting as a court of appeal against individual decisions by the social media firms, because of the scale of the matter, the solution is to compel the firms, using the force of law, to get this right on a systemic and comprehensive basis.”
“I give way first to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North—I think she was first on her feet—and then I will come to the hon. Member for Pontypridd.”
“I will address the review clause now, since it is relevant. If, in due course, as I hope and expect, the Bill has the desired effect, perhaps that would be the moment to consider the case for an ombudsman. The critical step is to take a systemic approach, which the Bill is doing. That engages the question of new clause 1, which would create a mechanism, probably for the reason the hon. Lady just set out, to review how things are going and to see if, in due course, there is a case for an ombudsman, once we see how the Bill unfolds in practice.”
“Let me finish the point. It is not a bad idea to review it and see how it is working in practice. Clause 149 already requires a review to take place between two and four years after Royal Assent. For the reasons that have been set out, it is pretty clear from this debate that we would expect the review to include precisely that question. If we had an ombudsman on day one, before the systems and processes had had a chance to have their effect, I fear that the ombudsman would be overwhelmed with millions of individual issues. The solution lies in fixing the problem systemically.”
“Because we need to give the new systems and processes time to take effect. If the hon. Lady felt so strongly that an ombudsman was required, she was entirely at liberty to table an amendment to introduce one, but she has not done so.”
“Obviously, the first line of defence is that companies comply with the Bill. The second line of defence is that if they fail to do so, Ofcom will jump on them. The third line of defence is that if Ofcom somehow does not notice, a super-complaint group—such as the NSPCC, acting for children—will make a super-complaint to Ofcom. We have three lines of defence, and I submit to the Committee that they are entirely appropriate.”
“Yes. My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. If there is a systemic problem and a platform fails to act appropriately not just in one case, but in a number of them, we have, as she has just described, the super-complaints process in clauses 140 to 142. Even under the Bill as drafted, without any changes, if a platform turns out to be systemically ignoring reasonable complaints made by the public and particular groups of users, the super-complainants will be able to do exactly as she describes. There is a mechanism to catch this—it operates not at individual level, but at the level of groups of users, via the super-complaint mechanism—so I honestly feel that the issue has been addressed. When the numbers are so large, I think that the super-complaint mechanism is the right way to push Ofcom if it does not notice.”
“It covers everything that Committee members would want to be reviewed. No doubt as we go through the Bill we will have, as we often do in Bill Committee proceedings, a number of occasions on which somebody tables an amendment to require a review of x, y or z. This is the second such occasion so far, I think, and there may be others. It is much better to have a comprehensive review, as the Bill does via the provisions in clause 149. Question put and agreed to. Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 19 Duties about freedom of expression and privacy Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“The third line of defence—the super-complaint process—is available immediately, as I set out a moment ago. In relation to new clause 1, which the hon. Lady mentioned a moment ago, I think six months is very soon for a Bill of this magnitude. The two-to-five-year timetable under the existing review mechanism in clause 149 is appropriate. Although we are not debating clause 149, I hope, Ms Rees, that you will forgive me for speaking about it for a moment. If Members turn to pages 125 and 126 and look at the matters covered by the review, they will see that they are extraordinarily comprehensive. In effect, the review covers the implementation of all aspects of the Bill, including the need to minimise the harms to individuals and the enforcement and information-gathering powers.”
“I hope all Committee members will strongly welcome the important provisions I have outlined.”
“As far as I am aware, for the first time ever there will be a duty on social media companies, via clause 19(2), to have regard to freedom of speech. There is currently no legal duty at all on platforms to have regard to freedom of speech. The clause establishes, for the first time, an obligation to have regard to freedom of speech. It is critical that not only Committee members but others more widely who consider the Bill should bear that carefully in mind. Besides that, the clause speaks to the right to privacy. Existing laws already speak to that, but the clause puts it in this Bill as well. Both duties are extremely important. In addition, category 1 service providers—the really big ones—will need proactively to assess the impact of their policies on freedom of expression and privacy.”
“Clause 19, on user-to-user services, and its associated clause 29, which relates to search services, specify a number of duties in relation to freedom of expression and privacy. In carrying out their safety duties, in-scope companies will be required by clause 19(2) to have regard to the importance of protecting users’ freedom of expression and privacy. Let me pause for a moment on this issue. There has been some external commentary about the Bill’s impact on freedom of expression. We have already seen, via our discussion of a previous clause, that there is nothing in the Bill that compels the censorship of speech that is legal and not harmful to children. I put on the record again the fact that nothing in the Bill requires the censorship of legal speech that poses no harm to children. We are going even further than that.”
“We may discuss this further when we come to clause 103, which develops the theme a little. It is also worth saying that Ofcom will be able to look at the risk assessments and, if it feels that they are not of an adequate standard, take that up with the companies concerned. We should recognise that the duty to have regard to freedom of expression is not something that currently exists. It is a significant step forward, in my view, and I commend clauses 19 and 29 to the Committee.”
“I confirm what the hon. Lady has just said. In response to the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, it is important to say that the duty in clause 19 is “to have regard”, which simply means that a balancing exercise must be performed. It is not determinative; it is not as if the rights in the clause trump everything else. They simply have to be taken into account when making decisions. To repeat what we discussed on Tuesday, I can explicitly and absolutely confirm to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North that in my view and the Government’s, concerns about freedom of expression or privacy should not trump platforms’ ability to scan for child sexual exploitation and abuse images or protect children. It is our view that there is nothing more important than protecting children from exploitation and sexual abuse.”
“I do not think it would be adequate to simply pay lip service to it and not give it any real regard, so I would not dismiss the legislation as drafted. I would point to the clauses that we have recently discussed, such as clause 15, under which content of democratic importance—which includes debating current issues and not just stuff said by an MP or candidate—gets additional protection. Some of the content that my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley referred to a second ago would probably also get protection under clause 14, under which content of democratic importance has to be taken in account when making decisions about taking down or removing particular accounts. I hope that provides some reassurance that this is a significant step forwards compared with where the internet is today.”
“As I have said, at the moment there is nothing at all. Platforms such as Facebook can and do arbitrarily censor content with little if any regard for freedom of speech. Some platforms have effectively cancelled Donald Trump while allowing the Russian state to propagate shocking disinformation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so there is real inconsistency and a lack of respect for freedom of speech. This at least establishes something where currently there is nothing. We can debate whether “have regard to” is strong enough. We have heard the other point of view from the other side of the House, which expressed concern that it might be used to allow otherwise harmful content, so there are clearly arguments on both sides of the debate. The obligation to have regard does have some weight, because the issue cannot be completely ignored.”
“I do not want to give an off-the-cuff assessment of an individual piece of content—not least because I am not a lawyer. It does not sound like it meets the threshold of illegality. It most certainly is offensive, and that sort of matter is one that Ofcom will set out in its codes of practice, but there is obviously a balance between freedom of speech and content that is harmful, which the codes of practice will delve into. I would be interested if the hon. Lady could report that to Twitter and then report back to the Committee on what action it takes.”
“At the moment, there is no legal obligation to do anything about it, which is precisely why this Bill is needed, but let us put it to the test. Question put and agreed to. Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 20 Record-keeping and review duties Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“Clause 25 Children’s risk assessment duties Amendment proposed : 16, in clause 25, page 25, line 10, at end insert— “(3A) A duty for the children’s risk assessment to be approved by either— (a) the board of the entity; or, if the organisation does not have a board structure, (b) a named individual who the provider considers to be a senior manager of the entity, who may reasonably be expected to be in a position to ensure compliance with the children’s risk assessment duties, and reports directly into the most senior employee of the entity.” — (Alex Davies-Jones.) This amendment seeks to ensure that regulated companies’ boards or senior staff have responsibility for children’s risk assessments.”
“The shadow Minister has eloquently introduced the purpose and effect of the clause, so I shall not repeat what she has said. On her point about publication, I repeat the point that I made on Tuesday, which is that the transparency requirements—they are requirements, not options—set out in clause 64 oblige Ofcom to ensure the publication of appropriate information publicly in exactly the way she requests. Question put and agreed to. Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill . Clauses 21 to 24 ordered to stand part of the Bill.”
“The first was whether the concept of a “significant number” applied to a number in absolute terms or a percentage of the people using a particular service, and which is looked at when assessing what is significant. The answer is that it can be either—either a large number in absolute terms, by reference to the population of the whole United Kingdom, or a percentage of those using the service. That is expressed in clause 31(4)(a). Members will note the “or” there. It can be a number in proportion to the total UK population or the proportion using a service. I hope that answers the hon. Member’s very good question.”
“Colleagues have spoken eloquently to the purpose and effect of the various clauses and schedule 3 —the stand part component of this group. On schedule 3, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South, asked about timing. The Government share her desire to get this done as quickly as possible. In its evidence a couple of weeks ago, Ofcom said it would be publishing its road map before the summer, which would set out the timetable for moving all this forward. We agree that that is extremely important. I turn to one or two questions that arose on amendment 22. As always, the hon. Member for Aberdeen North asked a number of very good questions.”
“As I said, someone does not have to be registered with a service in order to count as a user of that service. On amendment 22, there is a drafting deficiency, if I may put it politely—this is a point of drafting rather than of principle. The amendment would simply delete subsection (3), but there would still be references to the “child user condition”—for example, the one that appears on the same page of the Bill at line 11. If the amendment were adopted as drafted, it would end up leaving references to “child user condition” in the Bill without defining what it meant, because we would have deleted the definition.”
“I am concerned to ensure that children are appropriately protected, as the hon. Lady sets out. Let me make a couple of points in that area before I address that point. The hon. Lady asked another question earlier, about video content. She gave the example of TikTok videos being viewed or accessed not directly on TikTok but via some third-party means, such as a WhatsApp message. First, it is worth emphasising again that in order to count as a user, a person does not have to be registered and can simply be viewing the content. Secondly, if someone is viewing something through another service, such as WhatsApp—the hon. Lady used the example of browsing the internet on another site—the duty will bite at the level of WhatsApp, and it will have to consider the content that it is providing access to.”
“No, is the short answer. I was just mentioning in passing that there is that drafting issue. On the principle, it is worth being very clear that, when it comes to content or matters that are illegal, that applies to all platforms, regardless of size, where children are at all at risk. In schedule 6, we set out a number of matters—child sexual exploitation and abuse, for example—as priority offences that all platforms have to protect children from proactively, regardless of scale.”
“I have a few more things to say, but I am happy to finish here if it is convenient. Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned. —(Steve Double.)”
“We find similar qualifications in other legislation; that includes the way the age-appropriate design code works. Therefore, I respectfully resist the amendment. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“When the sitting was suspended for lunch, I was concluding my remarks and saying that where children are the victim of illegal activity or illegal content, all of that is covered in other aspects of the Bill. For areas such as gambling, we have separate legislation that protects children. In relation to potentially harmful content, the reason there is a “significant number” test for the child user condition that we are debating is that, without it, platforms that either would not have any children accessing them or had nothing of any concern on them—such as a website about corporation tax—would have an unduly burdensome and disproportionate obligation placed on them. That is why there is the test—just to ensure that there is a degree of proportionality in these duties.”
“When Ofcom publishes the codes of practice, it might consider such a duty, but we would rather leave Ofcom, as the expert regulator, with the flexibility to implement that via the codes of practice and leave the hard-edged duty in the Bill as drafted.”
“The shadow Minister is right to raise them, but they will be tackled holistically by the online advertising programme, and of course there are already codes of practice that apply and are overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority. Although these matters are very important and I agree with the points that she makes, there are other places where those are best addressed. New clause 6 is about the verification process. Given that the Bill is primary legislation, we want to have the core duty to prevent fraudulent advertising in the Bill. How that is implemented in this area, as in many others, is best left to Ofcom and its codes of practice.”
“I am happy to assure the Committee that that is already covered, because the definitions at the beginning of the Bill—going back to clause 3(5)(b), on page 3—make it clear that companies are in scope, both user-to-user and search, if there is a significant number of UK users or where UK users form one of the target markets, or is the only target market. Given the reference to “target markets” in the definitions, I hope that the shadow Minister will withdraw the amendment, because the matter is already covered in the Bill. New clause 5 raises important points about the regulation of online advertising, but that is outside the purview of what the Bill is trying to achieve. The Government are going to work through the online advertising programme to tackle these sorts of issues, which are important.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen North for her latter remarks. We made an important addition to the Bill after listening to parliamentarians across the House and to the Joint Committee, which many people served on with distinction. I am delighted that we have been able to make that significant move. We have heard a lot about how fraudulent advertising can affect people terribly, particularly more vulnerable people, so that is an important addition. Amendments 23 and 24 seek to make it clear that where the target is in the UK, people are covered.”
“The hon. Lady is perfectly entitled to press to a vote whatever amendments she sees fit, but in relation to amendments 24 and 25, the words she asks for, “where the UK is a target market”, are already in the Bill, in clause 3(5)(b), on page 3, which set out the definitions at the start. I will allow the hon. Lady a moment to look at where it states: “United Kingdom users form one of the target markets for the service”. That applies to user-to-user and to search, so it is covered already.”
“That is of course our objective as well, but let me just return to the question of the definitions. The hon. Lady is right that clause 3(5)(a) says “a significant number of United Kingdom users”, but paragraph (b) just says, “United Kingdom users form one of the target markets”. There is no significant number qualification in paragraph (b), and to put it beyond doubt, clause 166(1) makes it clear that service providers based outside the United Kingdom are within the scope of the Bill. To reiterate the point, where the UK is a target market, there is no size qualification: the service provider is in scope, even if it is only one user.”