My Lords, we are dangerously on the same page this evening. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, about demonstrating the need for an independent complaints mechanism. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, captured quite a lot of the need to keep the freedom of expression aspect under close review, as we go through the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, have raised an important and useful debate, and there are some crucial issues here. My noble friend captured it when he talked about the justifiable limitations and the context in which limitations are made. Some of the points made about the Public Order Act offences are extremely valuable.
I turn to one thing that surprised me. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, quoted the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which said it had reservations about the protection of freedom of expression in the Bill. As we go through the Bill, it is easy to keep our eyes on the ground and not to look too closely at the overall impact. In its briefing, which is pretty comprehensive, paragraph 2.14 says:
“In a few cases, it may be clear that the content breaches the law. However, in most cases decisions about illegality will be complex and far from clear. Guidance from Ofcom could never sufficiently capture the full range or complexity of these offences to support service providers comprehensively in such judgements, which are quasi-judicial”.
I am rather more optimistic than that, but we need further assurance on how that will operate. Its life would probably be easier if we did not have the Public Order Act offences in Schedule 7.
I am interested to hear what the Minister says. I am sure that there are pressures on him, from his own Benches, to look again at these issues to see whether more can be done. The EHRC says:
“Our recommendation is to create a duty to protect freedom of expression to provide an effective counterbalance to the duties”.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, cited this. There is a lot of reference in the Bill but not to the Ofcom duties. So this could be a late contender to settle the horses, so to speak.
This is a difficult Bill; we all know that so much nuance is involved. We really hope that there is not too much difficulty in interpretation when it is put into practice through the codes. That kind of clarity is what we are trying to achieve, and, if the Minister can help to deliver that, he will deserve a monument.