Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have one or two points to make, although many have already been made. As an aside, I think that the spelling of "organisation" should be consistent, as it makes electronic searching easier. Hansard standardises on an "s", and I think the Bill should as well. First, I sympathise with the intentions of the people behind the Bill and I am not in favour of allowing anyone to break the law, but the practicalities worry me. Will it work? The great cry is "something must be done", and I very much associate myself with the comments of my noble friend Lady Coussins about the regulatory burden. We have to be careful about what we inadvertently introduce. I want to say something about the unintended consequences of something like this measure. We must allow young people to buy things online. Many things are only obtainable that way nowadays—certainly the better bargains. We must not outlaw methods of payment that will completely stop them buying anything. There is the loss of privacy every time one has to give personal details to yet another database. We have to be careful how that information is retained and that we do not have a plethora of databases that could be attacked or used for other purposes at some other point in their lives. Another unintended consequence is that children will learn how to even better spoof their identity. One suggestion may be the national identity card, but the current design of that scheme will not help small organisations reliably to verify online or over the telephone that the person holding the card is the one to whom it belongs. It does not have that capability. The second major problem refers to unconstrained powers. Clause 1(2) provides that the Secretary of State can make regulations that could extend to things that are not covered by legal ages or goods and services covered under current laws. The legal duty to comply with these laws already exists, and I do not think that Parliament should micromanage people in how they do these things. We should not be passing laws just to send a message. That is not a good idea. One of the challenges is enforcement. The Home Office currently argues that e-crime is no different from other crime. It has taken a long time to fund a police central e-crime unit, for instance. It would be better to fund people who can do something about the problem rather than passing more laws and regulations and making great statements. We need to have a body to do something about these issues.