My Lords, as is so often the case on this subject, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the three amendments that I have added my name to: Amendments 142, 143 and 150. I will speak first to Amendments 142 and 143, and highlight a couple of issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has already covered.
6.30 pm
The first issue is the speed with which the regulator needs to act to keep up with companies. Companies in the digital space move extremely fast commercially, but they are also extraordinarily adept at moving slowly in complying with regulation that does not meet their commercial endeavours. I will never forget a senior technology executive saying to me, when I was the chief executive of a challenger tech firm, TalkTalk, that their regulatory strategy was to walk backwards slowly—that they recognised the validity of the regulator’s stance but, to protect their position, would fight every issue and move as slowly as possible backwards. I am afraid that that is the case in all things digital regulation. We need to recognise that the big companies will just try to walk backwards as slowly as possible.
We have already debated in the Committee this afternoon one of the techniques they use. Sadly, for me at least, I arrived too late for the debate on Amendment 135 to talk about research. One of the ways companies slow the process down is by making it
very difficult for the regulator to get access to the data to truly understand what is happening; the inequality of arms in access to research is enormous. Had I been here, I would have wished to speak in support of the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Bethell.
The other way that companies slow the process down is by encouraging the regulator to look in more detail in the very areas that they are withholding the information. That is why I support Amendments 142 and 143, because you have to guillotine that process. It is extremely important to put time pressure on everyone to get the regulation to move forward. There is a real danger otherwise that no one really wants to move it forward, because everyone has an incentive to move slower and slower.
On Amendment 150, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, says that codes often lose their champions. I trust that my noble friend the Minister is under no illusions that the age-appropriate design code will never lose its champion. However, it is really sad that that is necessary and that we have to keep fighting that fight. I have been trying to think of the right analogy, and the only one I can come up with is that I am Robin to the noble Baroness’s Batman in this endeavour. I feel that for the best part of a decade I have been following up on the age-appropriate design code, as we have attempted to ensure that all of the best intentions have actually turned into reality. I worry, because the longer we spend in Committee on the Bill, the clearer it is to me that this Bill risks us losing all the ground we have gained.
Amendment 150 needs to be seen in the context of all the other debates that we have had in Committee. I urge my noble friend the Minister to hear from all sides of the House our desire to sit down and discuss how to ensure that the age-appropriate design code is at the right level of detail in this Bill and firmly established on a legal footing going forwards, given how intertwined it is in the Act of Parliament that the Bill seeks to replace. This is but one of many amendments that together we have tabled to attempt to do that.
I very much hope that we will not hear that we will be receiving another letter but, instead, that we can sit down and make sure that, as the UK updates its data protection legislation, we genuinely protect children going forward.