ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY, SKY NEWS

SOPHY RIDGE: How to regulate the internet is one of the biggest challenges that politicians are currently grappling with. We’ve had some big talk from the government who say they want to make Britain the safest place in the world to be online so how exactly are they going to do that? Well let’s talk to the woman responsible, the Minister for Digital, Margot James. Hello to you, thanks for being with us this morning.

MARGOT JAMES: Morning, Sophy.

SR: So can you tell us a new law you are going to be introducing then?

MARGOT JAMES: Yes, we’ve been working, following talks with social media platforms, on a voluntary code of conduct, a code of practice that companies would have to apply in terms of what would be permissible online and what wouldn’t be, what steps they would take to remove content and over what time period. So that’s been the subject of some discussion and we want to consult on that. We also want to consult on age verification, on a number of other things. I think what’s changed this time is that we have accepted that we will need legislation to reinforce and back up whatever we decide to do as a result of the consultation which will take place over the rest of the year.

SR: So there aren’t any new laws that you can tell me about right now? I’m only asking because the first line of the press release that I’ve got in front of me says ‘New online safety laws to be created, new laws will be created to ensure that the UK is the safest place in the world to be online’, so what are those laws going to be?

MARGOT JAMES: Well the laws will be around what is acceptable online and what isn’t, it will be how it’s going to be enforced and it will be around age, the sort of age children will have to be before they open up a social media account. It will be on how material is policed and how it’s removed, it will be a host of those areas which were going to be conducted on a voluntary basis with companies which we now accept does require legislative backing.

SR: You see it sounds a little bit vague and the reason I am quite keen to keep asking the questions, because there is a real urgency to this, last week for example I spoke to two female MPs, Jess Philips and Nus Ghani, who were talking about some of their experiences online, some of the abuse that they’ve been getting, having to report rape threats and so on to the police. I mean it’s so depressing frankly to look at the details of this and it kind of feels slightly depressing as well to hear there isn’t any solid laws you can tell me about right now.

MARGOT JAMES: Well don’t forget some of this is already against the law and it is against the law already. A lot of the time, Sophy, what’s illegal offline is also illegal online, it’s just that the scale of it is very difficult to police which is why we need companies to take down content swiftly. There’s a lot of artificial intelligence mechanisms that can be used now to remove content, we are going to expect companies to take this stuff down immediately, no questions asked but we do need legislation in our view …

SR: But what if they don’t?

MARGOT JAMES: Well if they don’t, the consultation that we conduct is quite likely I think to result in measures that we will put in to law to oblige companies to take content down and obviously there will have to be consequences for them to face if indeed they don’t comply.

SR: What consequences are you talking about?

MARGOT JAMES: Well for example in the Data Protection legislation which is just finishing its passage through Parliament at the moment, there is the capacity for the Information Commissioner to fine companies up to 4% of their global turnover, we would envisage something similar in this area. Obviously that would be a cap, that would be like a maximum and there would be a scale of other deterrents en route to that but we do understand that companies need to face consequences if they do not comply with laws applicable online just as they are offline.

SR: So that could be billions then if we are talking about some of the big social media companies.

MARGOT JAMES: Yes, back to the Data Protection example that I gave, 4% of global turnover of a company like Facebook is in excess of a billion pounds, that’s right, so you wouldn’t obviously expect to see that level of fine applied very often, you would expect to see a scale of fines and other deterrents, other sanctions that companies will face if they don’t accept their responsibilities for making the internet a safer place to be.

SR: I’m interested to hear about your own experiences as a female MP and it kind of feels to me that if you speak to pretty much any woman in Westminster, or actually any MP in Westminster, they’ve experienced online abuse.

MARGOT JAMES: Yes.

SR: Have you ever reported anything to the police?

MARGOT JAMES: I have. I would like to comment just generally though, Sophy, because I conducted a roundtable of woman parliamentarians earlier this year and like you, I was completely horrified by what I’ve heard. It’s not just parliamentarians, it’s any woman in public life and some of our famous broadcasters have the most terrible abuse online which is completely unacceptable, if it’s not illegal it should be and I think some of it is, but I feel very strongly that it shouldn’t be up to the taxpayer to fund all of the mechanisms by which this content is removed, which is currently the case, it should be up to the platforms themselves. There is sufficient artificial intelligence available for them to make a huge impression in this and the fact that most of them don’t is highly irresponsible which is why we intend to bring in legislation to control it.

SR: On a slightly different angle, if you are serious about cleaning up the internet, protecting people online, then why is it that plans to try and make people verify their age before accessing pornography, to stop kids doing it basically, have been delayed. They were supposed to come in in April, what’s happened to that?

MARGOT JAMES: Well they have only really been delayed by three months. We introduced the legislation, the final stages of the legislation, about a month ago and we recognised that the independent body that’s going to oversee this process and hold companies to account, the British Board of Film Classification, they did request that they needed some extra time to establish mechanisms by which age verification will actually be obtained and they wanted this extra time so we’ve given it to them, but it will come in by the end of the year and that will I trust have a huge impact, particularly on the awful experiences of children having this material just pop up on their screens when they haven’t even searched for it, which is really appalling and the fact that this happens is just testament, isn’t it really Sophy, to the fact that we do need to bring in legislation.

SR: And just before you go, a quick thought on the Speaker, John Bercow, allegedly referring to Andrea Leadsom as ‘a stupid woman’ after facing other allegations of bullying that he does deny. Should he go?

MARGOT JAMES: Well Andrea is a good friend of mine, she does an excellent job as Leader of the House and she is the absolute opposite of what he is alleged to have described her as and it’s completely unacceptable. I’m not going to give my view on the Speaker in other respects but in terms of that, completely unacceptable.

SR: So what should happen then?

MARGOT JAMES: Well basically you don’t necessarily … the instances, the individual instances don’t necessarily mean that someone should lose their job, I think we’re getting in danger of being a bit hysterical about this. There is a pattern of accusations and allegations and the Commons Committee on Standards have investigated to a certain extent I believe – I’m not close to the situation – and they have found that these things shouldn’t reach a head. There are colleagues who disagree with that, we’ll have to see what happens. I’m afraid I’m not particularly close to the issue so I can’t really comment much further than that on the specifics.

SR: Understood. Margot James, thank you very much for your time today.

MARGOT JAMES: Thank you very much.