3rd ORAL QUESTION
Near-live transcript. Not the official record.
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The plan is strengthening apprenticeships, graduate programmes, doctoral research and technical career paths to develop the engineers, technicians and skilled workforce
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needed to support the UK's current and future nuclear ambitions, but we all know that economically that has a read across to other
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as a read across to other skills and there are supplier uh uh knock-on effects in that and can I say to him wedo want to um release this money to make it work twice to make sure that we do have high level well paid jobs that are of course our unionised too.
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Question, Baroness Morgan of Cotes.
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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My Lords, Ofcom assessed and designated services on the register in line with the regulations passed byParliament in February 2025. These set category one threshold conditions combining user numbers and functionalities.One is intended for platforms for
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the minimum seven million monthly UK users, reflecting their reach and
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influence. Smaller services are required to tackle illegal content including suicide, self-harm and antisemitic content.that meets the legal threshold and protect children from harmful content.
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The noble lady the Minister very much indeed for her answer, but the real reason
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that in 2025 then
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to accept Ofcom's advice to categorize online platforms on the basisof user numbers alone. So do current Ministers now accept that Ofcom would have been better able, for example, to block a notorious suicide forum, to tackle platforms promoting hate-filled
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activities hostile to the United Kingdom. If they had followed what this House legislated for in 2023 andministers had pushed back on Ofcom's advice to
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the House wanted to to categorise platforms on the basis of functionality or size, giving Ministers that flexibility.
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Categorisation, of course, as the noble Lady knows, does not determine whether a service is regulated or subject to the
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of Ofcom. The government did consider options to categorise small but risky services, including those proposed by many thoughtful people on this complicated issue.ultimately a workable and robust condition for capturing small but risky services was not found, but I would highlight and emphasize and underline that the
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shares the significant concerns about small but risky services.such as those which exist purely to stoke hate and division. We are
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Ofcom has established a small but risky task force. It has monitored and carried out active engagement with providers offour services that represent a significant
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risk of harm to children from harmful content they host or disseminate.
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take further action where the
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clear evidence it is needed.
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identified in these assessmentsDoes the noble Lady the Minister think the OSA should be amended to deal with that problem?
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The question of the Online Safety Act and the implementation is something that the government is is highly focused on. We have asked Ofcom to look at the capabilities
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The chair of Ofcom is looking at the capabilities around supervision and enforcement. That is something that we are doing.We have we are taking forward further measures to protect children with the under 16s restricting social media companies fromproviding services to under 16s. So we are very live to the effectiveness of the Online Safety
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As the Secretary of State and others have said, where we find evidence that
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Moore action is needed. We will take it.
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Online forums promote extremely dangerous content exacerbating eating disorders, yet Ofcom have chosen not to take powers.to tackle these pernicious sites, knowing that anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all eating disorders? Is the Government
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How Ofcom are using the powers this Parliament gave them to tackle small, high-harm eating disorder forums?
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if they're not, will they commit to do so?
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Does share the significance
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Ofcom's hosting priority harm content such as CSAM, hate and terror content, suicide, self-harm and eating disorder forums.and violence against women and girls. That is a very important focus of activity. As I also mentioned, the question of Ofcom's enforcement capabilities is something that we expect Ofcom to enforce robustly.
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Ofcom has the government's full backing to use its enforcement powers, and the chair of Ofcom is undertaking a review of Ofcom's's enforcement capabilities and powers, and the government is in discussion about what more needs to be done here.
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the case that once again Ofcom is hopeless and that what we need to do is review the roleOfcom, because unless we have an effective regulator, things like this will happen on a regular basis. We need to do something
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digital experience
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citizens and young people in this country, as my noble friend alludes to, is absolutely essential, and we expect robust enforcement of the Online Safety Act. We welcome the capabilities review
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commissioned by Sir Ian Cheshire as the new chair of Ofcom, that is expected to conclude this autumn, and we expect the review to identify practical improvements needed
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impact of Ofcom's enforcement function, so and enforcement goes hand in hand with the further measures the the government is is going to bring in in
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regulating the online environment for young people
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motion on quite rightly regulating the smaller
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The small but regu small and risky uh services are regulated under the OnlineSafety Act, they are subject to the duties around illegal content and harm for children. It is very important
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duties are abided by. It is very important, as I mentioned beforeOfcom enforces, focusing on those services who are disseminating or creating the environment for such harm. It is something that we absolutely back.My Lords.
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Can the noble Lady the Minister comment on how the exclusion of small, high
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three one support the government's violence against women and girls strategy
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Small small but risky or small services are subject to the illegal content and the child safety duties, so where there is evidence that they are
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Given concerns that online abuse
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not abiding by those duties, it is absolutely for Ofcom to enforce, and that is one reason we have looked we have asked Ofcom and Sir Ianis taking forward his review of capabilities of Ofcom. It is very important that the online and offline space is safe for women and girls and that illegal content is clamped down on.
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I thank the noble Earl for his reference, but I want to commend the noble Baroness Morgan for her work on this, my Lords. I'm not surprised that she's
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this again. We all thought when she put an amendment to the Online Safety Bull, my Lords, that this categorisationmatter was sorted, but my Lords, will the government now firmly commit to a fixed date for reviewing the categorisationthreshold informed by evidence of harm rather than user numbers so that this isn't left to drift until the statutory review of the Act.
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The focus in terms of taking forward the categorisation duties is to ensure that
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that that during 2027 those duties can take force, butLet me just come back to the question which I I think everyone in this house agrees with, which is small but risky services that
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providing illegal content or harm to children should not do so and Ofcom should take the necessary action to enforce the duties under the Act.
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Ofcom working with the consumer council to look at control of so-called toys targeted to children as young as three which have AI
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responses in them and that actually are linked through the internet and can give really disgusting answers if children pose even simple
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onwards, some of which are highly sexual.
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