We must be able to threaten tech bosses with jail

The protection of our children and grandchildren from predatory platforms on the internet, which is endemic, inducing self-harm and sexual abuse, is one of the greatest threats not only to the children involved, but to their families and society as a whole. Myself, Miriam Cates and at least 45 other MPs, almost entirely Conservative, but with cross-Party support, have tabled a new clause to the Online Safety Bill to make big tech companies and their senior managers and directors pay the price, not only with substantial fines, as proposed by the Government, but also with the threat of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other organisations strongly support our clause to toughen up child safety duties in the Bill which otherwise does make substantial progress in child safeguarding. Unfortunately, under the present Bill, senior managers will not be personally liable for breaching the safety duties, except where they merely fail to comply with information requests, or seek to mislead the regulator. Platforms at present are wholly negligent in their approach to child safety, with senior managers ignoring risk assessments with children at profound risk to harm. Yet they are not personally liable so long as they cooperated with the regulator’s investigation. 

Polling shows that four in five adults want these senior managers to be held legally responsible, which our new clause would achieve. We know that the Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, is gravely concerned about the need to improve the Bill. Ian Russell has also backed our new clause, the father of Molly Russell, who tragically died by suicide at the age of fourteen. The coroner at her inquest made clear the connection between the harmful content that she had been exposed to and her death. There are, sadly, a great many other similar cases.

Research into recent parliamentary and academic reports makes the case for strengthening the Bill crystal clear. 87 per cent of 12-15 year olds use social media platforms, and 50 per cent of 5-15 year olds. Ian Russell has pointed out that 26 per cent of young people who present at hospital with self-harm and suicide attempts have accessed such predatory, irresponsible and wilful online content.

This is not a party political issue in any sense, and support for this new clause is to be found in every quarter in the House of Commons, and the country as a whole. 

Despite suggestions to the contrary, jail sentences for senior managers in other UK legislation are commonplace for breaches of statutory duties, where the offence was committed by the body corporate if the offence was done with the consent, connivance or neglect of a senior officer of the company. Most recently, there has been a similar crackdown in Ireland with their Online Safety and Media Regulation Act (2022). This demonstrates that in Ireland, where so many big tech companies have their corporate base, they have had to accept such severe legislation, as also have international financial services companies located in the UK.

We have taken advice from King’s Counsel and also from pre-eminent drafting experts in the wording of our new clause. This Bill, of course, will go on to the House of Lords where the Bill and clause would receive further analysis and discussion, and where there are some distinguished experts in the protection of children, such as Baroness Kildron, who in the Sunday Telegraph stated: “Social media platforms were wilfully disregarding harms to children”. I myself was involved in the Protection of Children Act 1978.

It is unthinkable that our new clause should be criticised on the grounds of freedom of speech. The protection of our children is in every way as important as resisting racial injustice or any other harm to society as a whole, including families as well as the young victims themselves.

This is a watershed moment for the Government and the Conservative Party to demonstrate its commitment to its historic values and to weed out those who would knowingly seek to undermine them.

With the support of several former Cabinet Ministers with responsibilities in this field, including Andrea Leadsom, Maria Miller and Priti Patel, we are now in serious and constructive discussions with the Secretary of State. At the time of writing, we strongly urge a decisive breakthrough. I raised the matter with the Prime Minister on 20^th December in the Liaison Committee and pointed out the £27million spent by big tech companies in just one year on lobbying.

Academic and parliamentary research demonstrates that suicide and self-harm are directly connected to these platforms. Now is the time for the Government and this country to work with us and to take a stand in the national interest. 

Sir Bill Cash MP is a former Shadow Attorney General