My Lords, there is little for me to say. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, have left no stone unturned in this debate. They introduced this amendment superbly, and I pay tribute to them and to Reset, which was with us all the way through the discussions on online harms at the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, advocating for these important provisions.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said, there is a strong body of opinion out there. Insight from what might be called approved independent researchers would enable policy-making and regulatory innovation to keep pace with emerging trends and threats, which can span individual harms, matters of public safety and even national security. We have seen the kinds of harms taking place in social media, and it is absolutely vital that we understand what is happening under the bonnet of social media. It is crucial in detecting, identifying and understanding the systemic risks of online harms and non-compliance with law.
When we discussed the Online Safety Bill, it was a question of not just content but functionality. That was one of the key things. An awful lot of this research relates to that: how algorithms operate in amplifying content and some of the harms taking place on social media. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, referred to X closing its API for researchers and Meta’s move to shut CrowdTangle. We are going into reverse, whereas we should be moving forward in a much more positive way. When the Online Safety Bill was discussed, we got the review from Ofcom, but we did not get the backup—the legislative power for Ofcom or the ICO to be able to authorise and accredit researchers to carry out the necessary research.
The Government’s response to date has been extremely disappointing, given the history behind this and the pressure and importance of this issue. This dates from discussions some way back, even before the Joint Committee met and heard the case for this kind of researcher access. This Bill is now the best vehicle by which to introduce a proper regime on access for researchers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, asked, why, having had ministerial assurances, are we not seeing further progress? Are we just going to wait until Ofcom produces its review, which will be at the tail end of a huge programme of work which it has to carry out in order to implement the Online Safety Act?
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The Bill—the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, referred to this—gives greater freedom to existing commercial controllers in relation to large amounts of personal data without actively facilitating access to that data by independent researchers or other innovators. That militates against scientific research so, if we are not careful, the Bill will not only not take us forward but will put us in reverse as far as scientific research is concerned.
This is an extremely well-crafted amendment, and I hope that the Minister will be positive about it. I cannot understand what barriers the Government are seeing that prevent this provision being introduced—and I hope that he has some good answers to the noble Baroness’s questions, because that was a good set of questions and they raised some fundamental issues.