Thursday 13 January 2022 This winter I know that many people are concerned about the rising cost of energy, and rightly so. Nobody should face unaffordable energy bills for using a reasonable amount of electricity, and the government has measures in place to support those who need it: from Winter Fuel Payments to the Warm […]
Thursday 6 January 2022 I would like to send my best wishes to all readers for the New Year. I’m sure we all want 2022 to be the year where we finally emerge from the pandemic and can live with and effectively manage any future variants of the covid virus. Our scientists have now reached […]
Article by Sarah Dawood for the New Statesman - published 15 December 2021 More online behaviour should be made illegal and fall under the scope of internet safety law, says Damian Collins, chair of the joint committee on the draft Online Safety Bill. The joint committee is made up of MPs and peers and has […]
Wednesday 15 December 2021 As you will have seen in the news, the Chief Medical Officer has raised the UK COVID Alert to Level 4 due to the rapid spread of the new highly infectious Omicron variant, with cases of this strain doubling every two to three days. Folkestone and Hythe is no exception to […]
Published in the The Times on 14 December 2021 As the father of two children, aged 14 and 12, their safety now, and the nature of the world we are building for them for the future, are my main concerns. The internet is already central to how most of us stay connected, access information, work and […]
Article by Mike Wright and Charles Hymas for the Daily Telegraph - published 14 December 2021 The Duty of Care Bill must protect news publishers from having articles removed from social media sites, MPs and peers have demanded. A joint parliamentary committee which has been examining the Government’s proposed internet laws, said bona fide journalistic […]
Article by Cristina Criddle, Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe and Madhumita Murgia for the Financial Times - published 14 December 2021 The UK should force social media companies to assess and report the harm caused by their algorithms, a parliamentary committee has recommended ahead of new laws to improve online safety. The recommendations came days after the photo-sharing app Instagram said it […]
Article by Tom Knowles for the Times - published on 14 December 2021 Scam financial adverts, “cyberflashing” and encouraging people to self-harm on social media are all expected to be made illegal after a group of MPs and peers said they should be included in a new bill designed to “call time on the Wild […]
Article by Dan Milmo for the Guardian - published 14 December 2021 Britain’s online safety bill needs a sweeping overhaul to prevent children from accessing pornography, vulnerable people from being encouraged to commit self-harm and negligent tech chiefs from failing to protect users, according to a committee of MPs and peers. A wide-ranging series of proposals to […]
Article by Jim Norton for the Daily Mail - published 14 December 2021 All pornography websites should have a legal duty to prevent children from accessing them, MPs and peers say today. A parliamentary committee also called for criminal offences to be created including the promotion of self-harm, ‘cyberflashing’ – sending unwanted obscene pictures – […]