On 11th December 2015 the House of Lords considered in Committee the Online Safety Bill which had been tabled by Baroness Howe. The Bishop of Bristol, Rt Revd Mike Hill supported the Bill and spoke favourably to an amendment, later withdrawn, by Lord Morrow on filtering of adult content and age verification policies.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol: My Lords, I do not want to add too much to the way that the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, has framed his amendment today, but his point is worthy of serious scrutiny, simply because children living in households that are not serviced by the big four ISPs surely require the same level of protection as those in homes whose services are provided by the big four ISPs. Everyone in your Lordships’ House agrees that every child matters; I think that it is not at all controversial to say that.
It is a little confusing that the Prime Minister should seem so robust in his statement in the other place on 28 October, suggesting that the Government wanted to introduce legislation, yet the Minister—unless I misunderstand her—seems very happy to continue with a kind of voluntary regulation. I am not quite sure how that squares up. The point—and the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, makes it well—is that whatever we come up with cannot apply only to some children; surely it must apply to them all. Continue reading “Online Safety Bill – Bishop of Bristol supports aims and amendments”
the subject in a slightly different way.
