I see that we have had a change of Chair. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as well, Mr Austin.
Coming back to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, we intend that the new system of regulation will take some of the burden off the police and place it on to the tech companies. Those companies should be accountable for taking care of their users by eliminating such content, hopefully before it comes online but certainly very swiftly after it is reported.
The law in Germany, which the shadow Minister referred to, requires content to be taken down within 24 hours of companies knowing about it; if it is later than that, swingeing fines can be applied. We want to create an environment in which companies deal with matters themselves and use less and less of our valuable policing time for the privilege.
As I mentioned earlier, we have committed to developing a media literacy strategy—one of the proposals made by Glitch—to ensure that we have a co-ordinated and strategic approach to online media literacy education. We have published a statutory code of practice for social media providers about dealing with harmful contact, and we have consulted on the draft code with a variety of stakeholders, including people with disabilities. The code includes guidance on the importance of social media platforms having clear, accessible reporting processes and accessible information on their terms and conditions, highlighting the importance of consulting users when designing new software, new apps and new safety policies.
There has been some discussion about whether the law itself is adequate, particularly with regard to hate crime. I will say a few words about the Law Commission’s review. In February last year the Prime Minister announced that the Law Commission would undertake a review of current legislation on offensive communications to ensure that laws are up to date with technology. The Law Commission completed the first part of its review and published a report at the end of last year. It engaged with a range of stakeholders, including victims of online abuse, the charities that support them, legal experts and the Government. The report concluded that abusive communications are theoretically criminalised to the same or even greater degree than equivalent offline behaviours—I did not necessarily accept that verdict myself—but practical and cultural barriers mean that not all harmful online conduct is pursued through criminal law enforcement to the same extent that it is in an offline context. I think the consensus in this room is that that is definitely the case.
The Government are now finalising the details of the second phase of the Law Commission’s work. The Law Commission has been asked to complete a wide-ranging review of hate crime legislation in order to explore how to make hate crime legislation more effective, including whether it is effective in addressing crimes targeting someone because of their disability. I urge Members present and organisations that might be taking an interest in this debate to give their input to the review.