Maria Miller – 2022 Speech on the Online Safety Bill
The speech made by Maria Miller, the Conservative MP for Basingstoke, in the House of Commons on 5 December 2022.
I rise to speak to the seven new clauses in my name and those of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House. The Government have kindly said publicly that they are minded to listen to six of the seven amendments that I have tabled on Report. I hope they will listen to the seventh, too, once they have heard my compelling arguments.
First, I believe it is important that we discuss these amendments, because the Government have not yet tabled amendments. It is important that we in this place understand the Government’s true intention on implementing the Law Commission review in full before the Bill completes its consideration.
Secondly, the law simply does not properly recognise as a criminal offence the posting online of intimate images—whether real or fake—without consent. Victims say that having a sexual image of them posted online without their consent is akin to a sexual assault. Indeed, Clare McGlynn went even further by saying that there is a big difference between a physical sexual assault and one committed online: victims are always rediscovering the online images and waiting for them to be redistributed, and cannot see when the abuse will be over. In many ways, it is even more acute.
Just in case anybody in the Chamber is unaware of the scale of the problem after the various contributions that have been made, in the past five years more than 12,000 people reported to the revenge porn helpline almost 200,000 pieces of content that fall into that category. Indeed, since 2014 there have been 28,000 reports to the police of intimate images being distributed without consent.
The final reason why I believe it is important that we discuss the new clauses is that Ofcom will be regulating online platforms based on their adherence to the criminal law, among other things. It is so important that the criminal law actually recognises where criminal harm is done, but at the moment, when it comes to intimate image abuse, it does not. Throughout all the stages of the Bill’s passage, successive Ministers have said very positive things to me about the need to address this issue in the criminal law, but we still have not seen pen being put to paper, so I hope the Minister will forgive me for raising this yet again so that he can respond.
New clauses 45 to 50 simply seek to take the Law Commission’s recommendations on intimate image abuse and put them into law as far as the scope of the Bill will allow. New clause 45 would create a base offence for posting explicit images online without consent. Basing the offence on consent, or the lack of it, makes it comparable with three out of four offences already recognised in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Subsection (10) of the new clause recognises that it is a criminal offence to distribute fake images, deepfakes or images using nudification software, which are currently not covered in law at all.
New clauses 46 and 47 recognise cases where there is a higher level of culpability for the perpetrator, where they intend to cause alarm, distress or humiliation. Two in three victims report that they know the perpetrators, as a current or former partner. In evidence to the Public Bill Committee, on which I was very pleased to serve, we heard from the Anjelou Centre and Imkaan that some survivors of this dreadful form of abuse are also at risk of honour-based violence. There are yet more layers of abuse.
New clause 48 would make it a crime to threaten to share an intimate image—this can be just as psychologically destructive as actually sharing it—and using the image to coerce, control or manipulate the victim. I pay real tribute to the team from the Law Commission, under the leadership of Penney Lewis, who did an amazing job of work over three years on their enquiry to collect this information. In the responses to the enquiry there were four mentions of suicide or contemplated suicide as a result of threats to share these sorts of images online without consent. Around one in seven young women and one in nine young men have experienced a threat to share an intimate or sexual image. One in four calls to the Revenge Porn Helpline relate to threats to share. The list of issues goes on. In 2020 almost 3,000 people, mostly men, received demands for money related to sexual images—“sextorsion”, as it is called. This new clause would make it clear that such threats are criminal, the police need to take action and there will be proper protection for victims in law.
New clauses 49 and 50 would go further. The Law Commission is clear that intimate image abuse is a type of sexual offending. Therefore, victims should have the same protection afforded to those of other sexual offences. That is backed up by the legal committee of the Council of His Majesty’s District Judges, which argues that it is appropriate to extend automatic lifetime anonymity protections to victims, just as they would be extended to victims of offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Women’s Aid underlined that point, recognising that black and minoritised women are also at risk of being disowned, ostracised or even killed if they cannot remain anonymous. The special measures in these new clauses provide for victims in the same way as the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can confirm that the Government intend to introduce the Law Commission’s full recommendations into the Bill, and that those in scope will be included before the Bill reaches its next stage in the other place. I also hope that he will outline how those measures not in scope of the Bill—specifically on the taking and making of sexual images without consent, which formed part of the Law Commission’s recommendations—will be addressed in legislation swiftly. I will be happy to withdraw my new clauses if those undertakings are made today.
Finally, new clause 23, which also stands in my name, is separate from the Law Commission’s recommendations. It would require a proportion of the fines secured by Ofcom to be used to fund victims’ services. I am sure that the Treasury thinks that it is an innovative way of handling things, although one could argue that it did something similar only a few days ago with regard to the pollution of waterways by water companies. I am sure that the Minister might want to refer to that.
The Bill identifies that many thousands more offences are committed as crimes than are currently recognised within law. I hope that the Minister can outline how appropriate measures will be put in place to ensure support for victims, who will now, possibly for the first time, have some measures in place to assist them. I raised earlier the importance of keeping the Bill and its effectiveness under review. I hope that the House will think about how we do that materially, so we do not end up having another five or 10 years without such a Bill and having to play catch-up in such a complex area.
