Speeches by Hinds.

“Mrs Hobhouse, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair—I think, in my case, for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on securing the debate and bringing us together to discuss this important matter. It is very good to see this Minister in his place. I thank him and his Ministry …”

“Well, I have been there, but I represent East Hampshire.”

“These severely constrained budgets call for thinking smarter, not simply smaller, so what work are the Government doing with the World Bank and other international institutions to make sure that UK development spend is fully leveraged so that every penny is as effective as possible?”

“11. Which development programmes he plans to maintain funding for after the planned reduction of the official development assistance budget in 2027.”

“East Hampshire farmers will be relieved to hear what the Minister has said about food standards, including on hormone-treated beef and chlorinated chicken, after everything that has happened to them in the last period. Obviously we will have to see the detail, and see what else is in the agreement. I will ask about onl…”

“Our nominal minimum age for social media usage in this country comes from a well-meaning piece of American legislation originally passed in 1998. The age did not have to be 13. Back in 1998 it was going to be 16, but it was changed to 13. With the birth of GDPR, the age did not have to be 13: the default was 16. Variou…”

“The hon. Gentleman tempts me to broaden the debate, which I do not think you would encourage me to do at this late stage, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, he makes a very important point about self-regulation in this sector. The public, parents, and indeed children look to us to make sure we have their best interests at …”

“Very quickly, I want the Minister to confirm that the Ofcom children’s codes, to which he has referred, are all about the 18 age threshold. They are a very welcome move to filter out wholly inappropriate content that is designed for over-18s and other very harmful content, but they do not do anything for the initial th…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Under section 77, you can require information about disinformation from platforms and, I think, then publish that in the form of transparency reports. How will that manifest? Will you, for example, be able to report on the number of automated accounts, or the amount of inauthentic activity on platforms, because they ha…”

“Section 152 of the Act requires Ofcom to establish and maintain an advisory committee on disinformation and misinformation to publish a report within 18 months of being established. I think it has its first meeting next week, on Friday. What will it cover?”

“Is either regulator similarly looking at a systemic level at the role of programmatic advertising and/or creator funds in the type of material that is served up to people?”

“Yes, but they will come under your codes even if they were only served up once and no algorithm was involved.”

“I want specifically to come on to mis and disinformation in a moment. To be clear, unless the content is itself illegal and covered by your provisions on illegal content, howsoever it gets served up to the individual, the work of the algorithm is not part of your concern—I don’t mean that in a bad way—and neither is it…”

“To be clear, I did not mean only for children, but obviously that is a very important part.”

“Perhaps you can follow up to the Committee with a bit more on what we can expect to be in the transparency reports and how they will therefore be a useful tool for the public.”

“I totally agree. Lastly, the children’s code was a very important step forward, but there are also hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 13 accessing a service that is nominally meant to be for children aged 13 or above. There are also hundreds of thousands of children who are over 13, but because of the a…”

“It certainly is. But I think you are also saying that either Ofcom or the ICO—Ofcom would require additional legislation to do this—could enforce there being an effective age threshold at age 13, if that was what platforms were saying was the case. The ICO could do it instead of Ofcom. Is that correct?”

“You have made the point about your requirement that if platforms cannot demonstrate how old people are, they assume they have younger people on their platform. I think that principle is also hardwired into the age appropriate design code, which has been around since 2021, I think, but I am not sure many people believe …”

“Can I ask about the demarcation between Ofcom and the ICO, which I think sometimes confuses people a little bit and very understandably? The week before last, you had the children’s codes published, but it is the ICO that produces the age appropriate design code. On age checking in particular, could you say a word abou…”