Right, the short debate—Natasha Asghar.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. In this debate, I've agreed to give time to Peter Fox, Jayne Bryant and Heledd Fychan to contribute to this debate today.

It's a worrying fact that the scale and extent of child sexual abuse online has been steadily increasing. Research by the NSPCC shows a tenfold increase in online sexual abuse offences recorded by police in England and Wales over the last decade. There are now nearly as many crimes being recorded in a month as there were in a year 10 years ago. There is no doubt that technology is advancing at a tremendous rate. And the data shows that grooming is increasingly going up and up across platforms across England and also Wales, recording 70 different apps and games involved in grooming crimes in the last 12 months alone. Multiple social media sites were often used in the same offence. Girls are being disproportionately affected, with research revealing that 80 per cent of the victims in online grooming crimes are in fact girls.

The sheer scale and increase in online sexual abuse facing our children is fundamental and is indeed a contravention of their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly articles 19 and 39, which are concerned with freedom from and recovery from violence.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

The Online Safety Bill, currently at Report Stage in the House of Commons, delivers the UK Government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online, while defending free expression. The Bill has been strengthened and clarified since it was published in draft in May 2021, reflecting the outcome of extensive parliamentary scrutiny. So, let me tell you all today what the Bill does. The Bill introduces new rules for firms that host user-generated content, which ultimately allows users to post their own content online or interact with each other, and for search engines, which will have tailored duties focused on minimising the presentation of harmful search results to the user. The platforms that fail to protect people will need to answer to the regulator and could face fines of up to 10 per cent of their revenues or, in the most serious cases, being blocked.

It was great to hear about some of the work being carried out by Twitter and TikTok to keep people safe online when I met with the social media giants recently at their headquarters. Twitter, for example, allows users to mute certain words, phrases, emojis and hashtags, and also to control who can reply to tweets. Earlier this year, the company launched the Twitter Circle experiment. Users choose who is in their Twitter Circle and only the individuals you’ve added can reply and interact with the tweets that you share. These are just some of the safety tools Twitter users can access. Companies like Twitter take online safety incredibly seriously, and they remain committed to investing in the moderation of illegal or harmful content as they endeavour to provide a service that is safe and informative for all. From July to December 2021, Twitter removed 4 million tweets that violated their rules, and, of the tweets removed, 71 per cent received fewer than 100 impressions prior to removal, with an additional 21 per cent receiving between 100 and 1,000 impressions. Only 8 per cent of removed Tweets had more than 1,000 impressions.

For those who like numbers and statistics, like me, in total, impressions on these violative tweets accounted for less than 0.01 per cent of all impressions for all tweets during the time in this period. All platforms in scope will need to tackle and remove illegal material online, particularly material relating to terrorism and child sexual exploitation and abuse as well. Platforms likely to be accessed by children will also have an enormous duty to protect young children using their services from legal but harmful material such as self-harm content around eating disorders. TikTok has taken a safety-by-design approach to preventing harm online, which, I must admit, is truly commendable. The company has made a number of changes for users aged under 18, such as designing its settings to be private by default. For example, users aged 13 to 15 are given private accounts by default, meaning their videos can only be watched by people they approve as followers. TikTok also has appropriate age features, which restricts what can be sent via private messaging, has age checks and assurances. It also allows parents and caregivers to link their TikTok account with their teen’s and customise various safety settings.

Between April and June this year, it is worth noting that TikTok removed more than 113 million videos—roughly 1 per cent of the content that was uploaded to TikTok—for violating its community guidelines. Of these videos, it’s worth mentioning that 95.9 per cent of this content was removed proactively by TikTok before it was reported by a user, 90.5 per cent of content was removed before it had received a single view, and 93.7 per cent of content was removed within 24 hours.

Additionally, providers who publish or place pornographic content on their services will be required to prevent children from accessing that content. The largest, highest risk platforms will have to address named categories of legal but harmful material accessed by adults likely to include issues such as abuse, harassment or exposure to content encouraging self-harm or eating disorders. They will need to make clear in their terms and conditions what is and is not acceptable on their site, and enforce this, and enforce it properly. These services will have a duty to bring in user empowerment tools, giving adult users more control over whom they interact with and the legal content they see, as well as the option to verify their identity.

We all love and appreciate freedom of expression, and it will be protected, because these laws are not about imposing excessive regulation or state removal of content, but ensuring that companies have the systems and processes in place to ensure users’ safety. For anyone here who thinks the Bill is weak or watered down, let me assure you that it offers a triple shield of protection, so it's certainly not weaker in any sense. The triple shield requires platforms to, firstly, remove illegal content, secondly, remove material that violates their terms and conditions, giving users controls to help them avoid seeing certain types of content to be specified by the Bill, and also remove material that violates their terms and conditions. This could also include content promoting eating disorders or inciting hate on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or even gender reassignment. The Center for Countering Digital Hate chief executive Imran Ahmed actually added that it was welcome the Government

'had strengthened the law against encouragement of self-harm and distribution of intimate images without consent'.

Much of the enforcement of the new law will be by communications and media regulator Ofcom, who we often hear about regarding tv and other online provision, which will be able to fine companies—which I mentioned earlier—up to 10 per cent of their worldwide revenue, which does accumulate into the billions. The actual rules themselves must now consult the victims' commissioner, the domestic abuse commissioner and the children's commissioner when drawing up the codes technology companies must follow moving forward. Proportionate measures will avoid unnecessary burdens on small and low-risk business. Finally, the largest platforms will need to put in place proportionate systems and processes to prevent fraudulent adverts being published or hosted on their service. This will ultimately tackle the harmful scam adverts that have been having a devastating effect on their victims, regardless of their age and background.

I know concerns have been raised about perceived delays in the progress of this Bill through Parliament, and I welcome the assurance given by a spokesperson at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and I quote:

'Protecting children and stamping out illegal activity online is a top priority for the government and we will bring the Online Safety Bill back to Parliament as soon as possible.'

So, I hope the Bill passes its remaining stages as soon as is practical. When this is achieved, we in the Senedd should focus on what we can do to ensure the new regulatory regime is implemented in a way that prevents, protects, supports, and advocates the rights of children in the online world right here in Wales. Passing the legislation will be a significant milestone. However, let’s be real—no online safety Bill can remove all threats and issues from the lives of children. Five years after the introduction of the first Welsh Government action plan on online safety, it’s time we look, take stock and define Wales’s role in the new regulatory regime. It's crucial that children’s voices should be at the heart of shaping Wales’s role post legislation. Every effort should be made to engage children and young people, to hear their concerns, but also to find solutions for how we can make the online world a safer place for them all.

I would like to ask the Welsh Government to set up an inquiry into child online safety to audit what exact gaps are remaining to realise children’s right to be safer online. Areas for consideration by this committee could and should include, firstly, how we ensure the new relationship and sexuality education curriculum supports and realises children and young people’s right to be safe and protected online. Secondly, it should examine what additional training should be rolled out for professionals who work with children and young people. Thirdly, it should also scrutinise the Welsh Government’s enhancing digital resilience in education action plan, the forthcoming peer-on-peer sexual harassment action plan and any successor to the action plan on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. This would ensure that they speak to one another, put politics aside and deliver an approach that protects children and young people, and enables them to speak out, seek and receive the support they need, as protecting youth, once again, for us is paramount. And finally, it could consider the risks and adequacy of responses relating to online communication through the Welsh language. Exploring children’s needs and experiences in this space would ensure that all children are receiving equality of protection.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the UK Government’s Online Safety Bill should not be an end but a means to an end. The Welsh Government must build on the Bill to tackle the drivers of online harm. The onus must not solely be on the child to be resilient or to keep themselves safe online; the Welsh Government must fulfil its duty to Welsh children under the UNCRC and ensure it responds to the unprecedented levels of grooming and child sexual abuse that we are currently seeing online every day. Thank you.

I would like to say 'thank you very much' to Natasha for raising this today. It's an incredibly important debate and, on the Children, Young People and Education Committee here in the Senedd, we've already heard about the importance of online safety in our work. Our inquiry into peer-on-peer sexual harassment told us that young people's behaviour in schools is a reflection of trends that are already well established across society. It's clear to us that those trends are exacerbated and amplified by children's unregulated access to inappropriate or illegal online content. The internet is not always harmful to young people, but unrealistic depictions of sex and relationships can create unhealthy attitudes among young people, and social networking platforms can create pressure for young people to look or behave a certain way.

Last spring, we heard broad support for the UK Government's Online Safety Bill and, at that time, the Bill recognised that children and young people can be particularly vulnerable and need protection from illegal and inappropriate content. Our engagement as a committee with UK Government Ministers and officials about this Bill has been positive. It's a huge Bill, spanning hundreds of pages, and we will be receiving a technical briefing on the implications of the Bill from DCMS officials in early spring. I know that the Minister will be looking at the progress of this Bill very carefully, and I'd urge the Welsh Government to do what it can to ensure that the Bill retains the provisions that safeguard children as it continues its scrutiny journey at Westminster.

Can I thank you, Natasha, for bringing this debate forward and allowing me a minute of your time? I'm sure every Member in this Chamber will welcome the action taken by the Government to create a safety net for children with its Online Safety Bill. With internet usage and social media use by children vastly increasing, it's right that we are making the internet a safer place for them. It's right that we do all we can to protect the most vulnerable from that harmful content, and the Online Safety Bill will go a considerable distance to achieving this aim.

But, I recognise some of the anxieties caused by recent news of changes made to the Bill, most notably that tech giants are not being mandated to remove content that is legal but harmful. However, I was reassured, and I hope others were, to hear the digital secretary, Michelle Donelan, outline how the Bill will protect children. It will criminalise the encouragement of self-harm, requiring businesses to mandate user age limits and other necessary protective measures.

Child protection must be a priority at both national and devolved level. It would be remiss of me not to put on record the good work that is already taking place in this field, but more is needed. As Natasha has already suggested, a credible step forward would be delivering an inquiry into child online safety in Wales to establish any gaps that have not been filled by the Online Safety Bill. We need to build upon the Online Safety Bill.

As a grandfather of seven, I suppose I speak for so many people who have children, and the eldest of whom is five and is now accessing the internet, believe it or not—or rather, technology, and it won't be long before she's accessing the internet—I sincerely hope that the further regulations put in place here and in Government will protect her and the many thousands of children like her, and generations to come, because it's absolutely important for us to do all we can to protect the most vulnerable in our society from unscrupulous people out there. Thank you.

I thank Natasha for bringing this forward.

I have to say, I don't share Peter Fox's reassurances. I am concerned to see the 'legal but harmful' element removed. What concerns me the most has been the delay. I think it's in all of our interests to ensure that pressure is put on the UK Government to deliver this as quickly as possible.

NSPCC Wales have been clear that 200 and more children will suffer sexual abuse online for every month that the Online Safety Bill is delayed. Things change so quickly in this area, and it's impossible for us to safeguard children entirely, but I am very concerned to see the changes, with Twitter now also making redundant staff who have been working specifically in this area. We can see with any platform that changes can happen very quickly. So, of course, there is a very serious element for us in terms of the Welsh Government to look at the implications and the things that we want to see and can support here in Wales, but there is a duty on the UK Government to bring this Bill forward, to reconsider the elements that would strengthen and safeguard children, and we need to do that urgently, because the statistics do show clearly that this is having an impact on children and young people. We have to take action now.

I call on the Minister for Education and Welsh Language to reply to the debate. Jeremy Miles.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'd like to thank the Member for moving this important short debate. As a Government, we are eager to spread the benefits of the internet and encourage the safe use of technology.

Children and young people are highly engaged internet users at increasingly younger ages, as we've heard in the debate this evening. It's no surprise that Ofcom's latest 'Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022' found that 99 per cent of children went online last year. Growing up in this digital age, children do not differentiate their online and offline lives in the same way as older generations. They are one and the same. Children and young people expect their rights to be equally upheld online as they do offline, and they are right to do so. As a Government, we are fully committed to making the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child a reality for all children in Wales, and I was pleased that, last year, the UNCRC adopted general comment 25, which now sees children's rights apply online as they do offline.

Online safety is a complex societal issue. Tackling it requires a multi-agency approach. Our national digital resilience action plan outlines the commitments we are undertaking across Government, along with expert partners, to enhance the protection for children and young people online. A collaborative approach is essential to make real progress and, therefore, partnership working is at the heart of the action plan. Reflecting the continually evolving nature of the digital world, the action plan is updated annually, adding new work streams, as well as providing a summary of progress against work to date. This year's action plan sets out over 70 actions that we are delivering with our partners to enhance online safety provision and practice across Wales, and I'd like to highlight some of the key activities we continue to take forward.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of announcing the winners of our Safer Internet Day film competition, 'Respect me. My internet, my rights'. The films were extremely thought-provoking and they emphasised the power of young people's voices and their rights to be safe from online harm. It is essential that we listen to young people's experiences to truly understand the online world through their eyes, and their voice is central to our programme and drives our policy development.

This year, we've set up a new youth panel for digital resilience. This panel brings together young people from across Wales to influence and directly inform our work to enhance online safety. I look forward to hearing from the panel, and wish to extend my thanks to those young people for volunteering their time to support this important work.

With so much information at their fingertips, we know that young people often go online to seek support and advice. Earlier this year, we launched 'Online issues and worries', a new area on Hwb's 'Keeping safe online', specifically for children and young people. This advice was co-constructed with young people and aims to support them if they are concerned about an online issue. This new advice expands the reach of Hwb's 'Keeping safe online', our dedicated one-stop-stop, which hosts news, advice and guidance on a breadth of digital resilience issues. This critical area has continued to evolve. It now hosts over 400 resources to support children and young people, as well as their families and school communities. Through 'Keeping safe online', schools have access to an extensive offer of bilingual teaching resources, as well as training opportunities, and these cover a range of topical online safety issues, including sharing nude images, peer-on-peer online sexual harassment and misinformation.

I was able recently to attend the launch of resources developed with the Football Association of Wales, targeted at boys, around some of the online harms that can be caused and, equally, visited a school in the Cynon valley to hear from young women there about the experiences they'd had of working with technology companies to provide guidance to their peers as well. There is a wealth of resource that is being generated, including by young people themselves.

Online safety is constantly evolving, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's important that we keep pace and equip our education practitioners with knowledge about the latest trends and risks, and how to support their learners to navigate them. For the first time, next March, we will host two national digital resilience in education conferences. These events will shine a spotlight on online safety and will provide schools with the knowledge and resources that they need to continue to drive the development of online safety in education. It's critical that online safety is embedded firmly within a safeguarding culture. It should not be seen as merely an IT or digital issue. Digital resilience is now integral within our statutory safeguarding in education guidance, and firmly on the agenda of the national safeguarding in education group.

This year, my officials are working in partnership with Estyn, meeting local authorities and headteachers to examine how they've embedded online safety within their safeguarding policy, provision and practice. While education plays an important role, many of the online safety issues schools report take place beyond the school gates and outside of school hours. Therefore, it's critical that we engage with parents and carers, and the action plan includes several actions to provide families with support and advice on a range of online safety issues. Recognising that many online issues play out on social media, the Welsh Government developed 'In the Know'. The series provides parents and carers with key information about social media and gaming apps popular with children and young people. We continue to build on this series, as well as exploring other ways to support parents.

Across the world, there is a strong debate about the role that legislation should play in making the internet safer, and that's been highlighted in today's debate. It is vital that the onus must not rest with children to protect themselves from online harms. The UK Government has outlined its plans through the introduction of the long-awaited Online Safety Bill earlier this year. I welcome the ambition of the Bill in respect of the enhanced protection for children and young people. It is essential that the UK Government now priorities this work, and I support the calls made by many of our partners to take forward the Bill with no further delays, and I echo the point that Heledd Fychan made in the debate.

I was pleased to see the recent amendment brought forward outlining the intention of crimialising the assisting or encouraging of self-harm online, to which Natasha Asghar drew particular attention. Abhorrent behaviour such as this should have no place in our society, and I'm also glad to see that controlling and coercive behaviour will be added to the list of priority offences within the Bill.

While the UK Government seeks to strike a balance between free speech and safety, it is critical that changes made to the Bill are not at the expense of children's safety and do not dilute the impact this legislation can have. I urge them to commit to maximising the much-needed protection this Bill affords for children.

Social media and online platforms must be challenged, in the way we've heard in the debate today, to ensure that they tackle harmful content on their platforms. Ofcom will ultimately play a key role as they develop robust codes of practice to hold online platforms to account. We look forward to continuing to engage with them to make social media and online platforms a safer and better place for all.

Let me be clear, Dirprwy Lywydd, our children and young people have the right to be safe online. They have the right to be free from online bullying, they have the right to be free from online hate and violence, and the right to be free from online abuse and harassment. The Welsh Government is playing its part to ensure that our children and young people are empowered to be responsible, ethical and informed citizens. It is my firm commitment to drive our mission to ensure their rights to be safe are fully realised, and I call on the UK Government to act without further delay.

Thank you, all. That brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 19:13.