Lords Communications Committee to question Ministers on the Online Safety Bill
Monday 23 January 2023
The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee will this week quiz DCMS Ministers on the Online Safety Bill ahead of its Second Reading in the House of Lords.
The Communications Committee will hold Ministers to account over proposals empowering the Government to direct the work of the independent regulator Ofcom; the implications of changing the way ‘legal but harmful’ content is tackled; and the possibility of senior executives at technology companies facing imprisonment for breaches of their safeguarding requirements.
The session comes ahead of the Bill’s Second Reading in the House of Lords on 1 February. Second Reading in the House of Lords is a general debate on the Bill where Members will set out the issues they may want to scrutinise further at Committee Stage and possibly vote on at Report Stage.
The evidence session will start at 12:10pm on Wednesday 25 January in Committee Room 4 of the House of Lords. Giving evidence to the Committee will be:
- Paul Scully MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
- Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Arts and Heritage and Lords Minister), Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
- Orla MacRae, Deputy Director of Online Harms Regulation, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
