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

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, for her efforts in bringing forward the Bill for debate today in your Lordships' House. She spoke with evident passion and conviction on this topic. We agree with her that the problem of children and young people buying items online that ought to be prohibited to them is real. In that the Bill is concerned with purchases online, I should perhaps declare an interest as a substantial shareholder in an IT support company of which the business in that sector, which I had jointly founded, was sold a few years ago. As it happens, my wife is also in the early stages of establishing a business to conduct online retailing—although, I am glad to say, not in the goods contemplated by the Bill. I take a close interest in this area. It is long established that there are items that should not be available to young persons. No one can possibly find that controversial. I understand that there are about 20 categories of item that are restricted, among them alcohol, tobacco, knives, solvents, and certain DVDs and video games, all of which are restricted for very good reasons to protect children from their various harmful effects. The noble Baroness explained that her Bill is intended to extend the restrictions that are already applied in shops—they require the vendor to ascertain whether a purchaser is old enough legitimately to complete the transaction—to vendors who sell goods and services online. She set out why she feels that that is a necessary step. As she explained, it is in essence because the age verification process online is often little more than clicking on a box, which amounts to a self-declaration of age that no one can really check. The Bill aims to close that loophole by placing a duty on the online vendor to verify the age of the purchaser of certain categories of goods and services. The vendor would be required to take all reasonable steps to verify the purchaser's age or would under Clause 2 be subject to prosecution and, on conviction, to a fine of up to the statutory maximum. We on these Benches absolutely agree that certain goods and services definitely should not be bought by children. We might differ on whether or not a particular film should have an 18 certificate, but that is not the issue here. What matters is that the film has an 18 certificate. It is against the law for children to be sold restricted items, and the law should be enforced; the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, spoke with some strength on this. We should expect the law to apply to online vendors as it does to supermarkets. It is worrying that it should be possible to circumnavigate the age verification requirement simply by dealing online. As the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said, we must consider how proposed laws will work in practice and whether they are enforceable. As I have said, we already have laws in place to prevent minors buying prohibited items. That does not, unfortunately, appear to have resulted in the Government enforcing those laws. My honourable friend in another place, James Brokenshire, tabled a Question to the Government in June last year on how many times the maximum fine was levied against a licensee for persistently selling alcohol to underage people in each of the last two years. At that stage, unfortunately, the Government did not have the requisite data available, so perhaps the Minister might us help today with up-to-date information. We know that in 2005 and 2006 just eight retailers received the maximum fine of £1,000 for selling alcohol to underage people. The Opposition also asked, just a few days ago in another place, how many people had received a custodial sentence, on conviction, for selling a knife to a person under the legal age in each of the past 10 years. The answer was one custodial sentence in 1997, and one community sentence in 2006. The total number of convictions in that decade ranged from 32 in 2007 and 51 in 2006 to a very firm zero in 2000. To say that these numbers are not large would be an understatement. They suggest one of two things: either that there is not much of a problem with young people purchasing prohibited goods, or that there is truly abysmal enforcement of the law. I suggest, unfortunately, that the answer is the latter. I raise this to highlight the fact that perhaps we should think deeply about how to sort out the enforcement of our existing laws before we enact too many more. While we on these Benches may have reservations about the detail—we would need to think further whether the Bill really would solve the problem which we all wish to see stopped—we agree with the principle behind the Bill. The Bill does two things; it requires the Secretary of State to come up with a proscribed list, and it requires retailers to take steps to enforce it. I am puzzled by Clause 1(2), which seems to allow the Secretary of State to include on the proscribed list items that are not age-restricted by law. I am not quite sure that I understand why the rules should be more onerous for online trading than for offline trading. I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about the "reasonable steps" requirements on vendors. There is, as yet, no suggestion about what those steps might be or how they will be judged to be reasonable, except by placing a duty on the Secretary of State to publish advice annually. That provision is certainly sensible, but unless we have a better idea of what such advice might be, I am cautious lest we put unbearable burdens on retailers. Various age verification programmes are, of course, already in use on the internet. One of the recommendations of the Byron review, which was published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families last year, was to ensure that the online industry continues to explore good practice in age verification mechanisms. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what progress the Government have made on this front. We must, however, balance the need to protect children with the common-sense position that if the expectations on retailers are so demanding that they are unachievable, there must be a risk that they will simply give up trying. Clause 1(1) also requires retailers to take steps to prevent minors purchasing "or otherwise obtaining" goods. We need to understand how that might be achieved. It seems quite a broad requirement. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned the Gambling Act 2005 as a template to be followed under which online users must provide certain pieces of information before engaging in gambling online. I am interested in the possibilities that this might offer in the area of goods and services, although it may be that gambling is relatively easily defined. Therefore, it may be more straightforward to apply the provisions there than in the much broader area of goods and services. Would it be practical or desirable for someone to have to provide various personal data—perhaps a credit record—simply to buy a set of kitchen knives for someone from an online wedding list? I do not know the answer, but there should be further consideration. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred to developments of guidance by the ASA, which is very encouraging and very relevant. We wait with interest to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing in this area. Of course, it should be possible to achieve considerably more even without further legislation. No system that we devise for online retailing will be foolproof, just as it is not foolproof on the high street. However, I emphasise that my reservations do not mean that we disagree with the principle behind the Bill. The noble Baroness has raised an important issue, which needs to be addressed.