Speeches by Wright.

“In the spirit of working together, I will call the Front Benchers at 10.28 am. There are still eight people who want to speak, so I am afraid speeches will have to be less than two minutes or someone will be disappointed.”

“If she can limit herself to one minute, I call Catherine Fookes.”

“I thank all colleagues for their brevity. We now move to the Front Benchers.”

“I thank the Minister, who has worked a double shift this morning. Question put and agreed to.”

“I will call Andy MacNae to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.”

“The first and current strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission was published by the previous Government in February last year. The commission passed its report to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission this week, setting out how it has had regard to the statement as required by law. The c…”

“My hon. Friend is right that more can always be done to ensure that all those eligible for the franchise, which now includes a substantial number of overseas voters, understand what they are entitled to, and that we offer them all the assistance we can to participate in the process.”

“I can tell the hon. Gentleman that that is the commission’s view. He will know that the commission remains opposed to the principle of a strategy and policy statement, and views such a mechanism as inconsistent with its independent role.”

“I am interested in what you think about the fundamental design questions around social media, and in how much we can really counteract them. I agree with everything that has been said, but there is something specific, is there not, about the way that political debate unfolds on social media, as opposed to many other fo…”

“Can we talk about artificial intelligence? We have not mentioned it so far. How do you think artificial intelligence will change the picture that we have been describing, either positively or negatively?”

“I am interested in what you think about the fundamental design questions around social media, and in how much we can really counteract them. I agree with everything that has been said, but there is something specific, is there not, about the way that political debate unfolds on social media, as opposed to many other fo…”

“The right hon. Lady is absolutely entitled to explain the Government’s position, but if her argument is that there is legal uncertainty, she had better get used to it, because there is legal uncertainty about a lot of things. If her argument is that lots of people disagree with the UK’s position, she had also better ge…”

“Does my right hon. Friend agree that those who are led by lawyers—there is nothing wrong with that—should at least get the law right? If there is legal jeopardy here, does she agree that we should understand what that jeopardy is? She knows that the International Court of Justice cannot make a binding ruling against th…”

“I am grateful to everyone who has spoken in the debate. We have talked about the consensus there was in the passage of the Online Safety Bill. I think it is fair to say that that consensus is broadly still present, based on what Members have said this morning, and I am grateful for it. There is a need to get this Act i…”

“The Minister might be about to come to the point I want to raise with her, which is about proportionality. Will she say something about that? I am keen to understand whether the Government accept Ofcom’s understanding of the term—that proportional measures are those measures that can be evidenced as effective. I gave r…”

“The hon. Gentleman identifies a real risk in this space: we are always playing catch-up, and so are the regulators. That is why we have tried—perhaps not entirely successfully—to design legislation that gives the regulators the capacity to move faster, but we have to ask them to do so and they have to take responsibili…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. We have to balance two things, though. We want consistency, as he suggests, but we also want platforms to respond to the circumstances of their own service, and to push the boundaries of what they can achieve by way of safety measures. As I said, they are in a better posit…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and I am grateful for the opportunity to open the debate. Let me start with some positives. The Online Safety Act 2023 is certainly not the last word on t…”

“In terms of giving people the tools to exercise their scepticism about what they might be seeing, do you think that there is more scope for watermarking, or something similar, that enables people immediately to understand that something is an AI-generated image, text, video—whatever it may be?”

“Can we talk about artificial intelligence? We have not mentioned it so far. How do you think artificial intelligence will change the picture that we have been describing, either positively or negatively?”