I quite understand that the Minister wants buy-in from the commercial social media platform providers. In response to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), he sketched out a position that appears to be that there is no actual code of practice, but that codes are being developed. Perhaps I misunderstood the Minister because I thought he had said before the right hon. Lady’s intervention that codes of practice are in place and working well.
I will quickly mention the changing circumstances. The Minister is quite right that this is a fast-changing world. Subsection (4) of new clause 13 states:
“The relevant Minister may from time to time revise and re-issue the code of practice”,
so the very flexibility that he is praying in aid would be delivered by the new clause.