My Lords, we are to be an independent trading nation, but while the terms upon which that happens are deeply contested, I am sure there is not one iota of disagreement that we must safeguard the UK’s children. However, it seems that the Trade Bill and the trade agreements it enables are a threat to our children from an unexpected quarter. I declare my interest as chair of the 5Rights Foundation.
The UK has committed to creating a safe online environment for children. The age-appropriate design code successfully completed its parliamentary passage only last week, and the online harms Bill is promised by the Government this Session, with protections from a range of issues: from child sexual abuse and pornography to hate speech, promoting suicide and self-harm, and so on. It is widely expected to make the UK the most advanced country in the world for child online safety, but as we build a better digital world for children, the power of the tech sector is impacting on US trade agreements. This was visible during President Obama’s Administration, with TTIP and the failed EU deal, and is now fully realised in the Trump era.
Recent deals have seen Japan, Korea, Mexico and Canada forced to adopt the broad online platform liability waiver, Section 230, and an obligation to allow free flow of data as a trade right, thereby locking in the wild-west, anything-goes policies and a yawning absence of basic data privacy protections and asymmetric benefits from data flow. The Prime Minister has expressed his concern that a proliferation of non-tariff barriers is
“letting the air out of the tyres of the world economy”,
but I do not believe for a moment that he means to characterise the safety, privacy and security of our children as non-tariff barriers. He has staked his reputation on the UK’s sovereignty and I believe that parents up and down the country expect that to include an explicit commitment to protections for the UK’s children.
Others have made the case that any trade deal should be subject to parliamentary oversight but, at a minimum, the Bill must give our negotiators a power and the explicit instruction to demand full carve-outs for our domestic priorities. This would, in the case of a
UK-US trade deal, give negotiators the authority to carve out existing and future UK domestic legislation that protects children, and the underlying legislation and policies upon which those laws are built.
I warmly welcome the Minister to the House, and I thank him for his letter, in which he stated that the objective is to ensure that the Government maintain their ability to protect users, including children, from emerging online harms. However, this welcome objective needs an amendment to the Bill, delegating an authority and an obligation to preserve domestic legislation and related policies that enact the social goals and values of the UK as they relate to children. Such an addition to the Bill will carry weight through the inevitable conflicts of future trade agreements, and send the clear message that, with respect to the protection of children, the UK is not for sale.
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