UK Parliament / Open data

Online Safety Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Bethell (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Monday, 10 July 2023. It occurred during Debate on bills on Online Safety Bill.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for that reassurance. He put the points extremely well. I very much welcome his words from the Dispatch Box, which go a long way towards clarifying and reassuring.

This was a short and perfectly formed debate. I will not go on a tour d’horizon of everyone who has spoken but I will mention the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam. He is entirely right that no one wants gratuitously to hound out businesses from the UK that contribute to the economy and to our life here. There are good regulatory principles that should be applied by all regulators. The five regulatory principles of accountability, transparency, targeting, consistency and proportionality are all in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. Ofcom will embrace them and abide by them. That kind of reassurance is important to businesses as they approach the new regulatory regime.

I take on board what my noble friend the Minister said in terms of the application of regulations regardless of size or capacity, and the application of these strengthened duties, such as “highly effective”, regardless of any economic or financial capacity. I feel enormously reassured by what he has said. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
831 c1575 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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