Mr.
Gray: It is curious that it is illegal in this country to
groom a child for sex but not illegal to groom a child for
suicide.
Mrs.
Moon: That is a helpful intervention. I am sure that the
Government will have considered that point when looking at the
legislation, and it is specifically covered in the
clause. When
one needs to report someone who is making inappropriate sexual
interventions towards a child, alerts are made through a “report
abuse” button, which leads to a specialist trained police
officer. I would welcome clarification about how the public,
researchers and professionals will be able to alert authorities to the
existence of websites with chat rooms that they fear are capable of or
intend to assist or encourage the suicide or attempted suicide of
another person.
Currently,
there is no official body to which they can complain. Complaints can be
directed to the police or the ISP. I have held meetings, however, with
Microsoft, Google and other ISPs, which made it clear that they do not
consider the policing role to be part of their function, although they
are more than happy to respond to directions from the police, CEOP or
the Internet Watch Foundation.
It seems
clear that either a new independent body needs to be created to assess
the legality of a site or, if necessary, ISPs need to be instructed to
take down or
block such sites. Alternatively, the Internet Watch Foundation could
include that function in its current remit. However, when that was
discussed by the all-party suicide prevention group, which I chaired,
the representative from the Internet Watch Foundation made it clear
that it did not feel that it had the capacity to expand to include that
remit. Search
engines, social networking sites and video-sharing sites, such as
YouTube, and ISPs, have a clear responsibility to respond to key words,
so that support sites, such as the Samaritans, can be optimised, but
such site optimisation is not covered by the
Bill.
Mr.
Gray: It is interesting to note that the Byron review
stated specifically that, once these two clauses have been passed and
such sites become illegal, sites that exist to promote suicide in a way
that contravenes UK law should be taken down once the relevant ISPs
have been notified of their existence. In other words, it will not be a
question of the ISPs policing the web, but as soon as they have been
informed of an illegal site, they should be reasonably expected to
remove it.
Mrs.
Moon: I am addressing the question of who will do the
informing. Who has the authority to do that, and how will it take
place? Will we have a button that says, “Press here to
alert”, and to whom does that alert go? That is
important. I
also think, however, that organisations such as social networking
sites, video-sharing sites and ISPs can take many steps without
legislation needing to be in place, to optimise help sites, such as the
Samaritans. If someone types, “Ways of killing yourself”
into a search engine, they should not immediately be taken to a recipe
site, but to a helpful and supportive site. I believe that they have a
moral obligation to pursue that in their own right. Some are doing that
already, and I must say that I have been impressed with much of the
work of social networking
sites. Biddle
found that attempts are being made to clear up the web. For example,
links to one prominent suicide site were often unavailable—it
had already been blocked and removed. However, efforts to remove some
of the more detailed and technical descriptions of methods seemed to be
circumvented easily, and several sites provide access to almost
identical files on suicide methods but under different names. I would
welcome the Minister’s comments on concerns expressed to me that
site authors could simply add disclaimers stating that they are not
promoting suicide and, in so doing, argue that they are not assisting
or encouraging
suicide. Mind
has produced statistics showing that one in 10 five to
15-year-olds are clinically diagnosable with mental health problems.
At-risk groups, especially teenagers who are lonely and isolated and
who have low self-esteem, psychological disorders and poor
relationships with parents and peers, value the internet in particular
for its anonymity and the opportunity to experiment with identity and
to share information and intimacy of thought. That is why we need to
modernise our legislation.
The majority
of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, while growing up, did
not have the opportunity to experiment with identity, share information
and intimacy of thought anonymously—through the
internet—but our children and grandchildren do. That group is
highly
vulnerable to being influenced by suicide sites, and
it is therefore our responsibility to do all that we can to protect
them. It is also
our responsibility to put in place all that we can to assist them.
Australia, for example, has an excellent site called Reach Out! It is
being expanded into the United States, Northern Ireland, and I have
heard recently that Portugal has expressed an interest in it. A site
such as Reach Out!, which has quite dramatically cut suicides among
young people in Australia, gives young people a place where they can go
safely—as the hon. Member for Cambridge mentioned—to
explore and discuss suicide, suicide methods and suicidal thoughts,
knowing that they will not be pursued and encouraged to take that step;
quite the opposite will happen. We need to expand that secure setting,
and we have a huge responsibility.
We also have
a responsibility to warn our children of the risks. I recently produced
two leaflets about internet safety—one for children and one for
parents. I took them around my primary schools, and in each one, I
talked to the top year—those who will go into comprehensive
schools next year. In each class, I handed out the leaflets and asked
the children to take one home to mum and dad. I asked how many of them
knew more about the internet, its management and how to use it than
their parents, and in every class, 100 per cent. of hands went up. One
hundred per cent. of those children knew more about this medium than
their parents. I asked how many of them had had access when using the
internet to material that had upset, disturbed or worried them, and 100
per cent. of hands went up.
I asked the
schools to send me back comments from parents and children about the
leaflets, and the number of parents who found it helpful was
remarkable. The desire of parents to protect their children is one of
the strongest motivating forces. The problem arises when parents do not
know how to protect their child without appearing foolish. Most do not
discuss this issue, because they do not know the language, which safety
methods to promote or how to give advice and support.
We could
address this issue by having parental controls implemented in computers
once they are sold. I see no reason why PC World, Currys and so on
cannot sell a range of computers with appropriate parental controls
already embedded. If the various ISPs could agree on a common set of
programmes to provide parental measures, that would be
helpful.
I welcome the
clause. It puts down a marker that the internet will not provide a
hiding place for those who take malicious pleasure in supporting and
encouraging people in crisis, particularly those who, with the right
help and support, could live long and fruitful lives. If such people
choose help and support rather than suicide, their lives can be
fulfilled.
At a
conference that we attended together, Dr. Robert Colgate, a
psychiatrist from my constituency said, “Suicide is a rubbish
choice—you never know the end of the story if you choose
suicide.” There are other ways in which we can prevent people
from taking their own lives, but this is a particularly helpful
way.
Dr.
Iddon: Obviously, when the Suicide Act 1961 was brought on
to the statute book, the internet was not developed to the extent that
it is today. I warmly welcome
the amendments tabled by the Government, following the Byron report;
they are necessary now, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend has
illustrated. Apart
from the clarification in the Bill, the law needs no further
clarification; it is quite clear, despite what has been argued in the
press and in various articles. It has a harsh face, of course, because
part of the purpose of the law is to deter people from helping others
to kill themselves, whether for compassionate reasons or
self-interested motives—a will around the corner,
perhaps—and it is there to provide protection especially for
vulnerable people: the elderly, the seriously handicapped and even the
mentally ill, because they should be protected, too, as my hon. Friend
has just
explained. Yesterday,
I typed “suicide” into Google and within an amazing 0.7
seconds, it came up with 68,200,000 entries. Most of them are reports
of people having committed suicide around the world and, of course,
searches can be limited on any search engine. So I typed “How to
commit suicide”, which reduced the number of entries, but only
to 3,150,000 in 0.9 seconds. Plenty of information is out there, and
two Committee members have already demonstrated how evil some of that
information
is. The
social networking sites are probably the most dangerous of all, as my
hon. Friend has also illustrated. I have come across postings where a
desperate user, for example, who wants to know how to hang themselves
gets into a chat room where somebody somewhere in the ether comes in
and says, “Okay, I can tell you the websites where nooses are
described that will not unravel when the weight of your body takes hold
of the rope and I can tell you which knots to use as well.” So
not only is this information written on the internet, it is also
personal, face-to-face information if you know how to browse the
internet, as most teenagers
do. I
had an article on e-safety published in the November/December 2008
edition of the magazine, “Public Sector Executive”. Most
parents and teachers are pretty naive and believe that, by buying
commercial filters or building firewalls into the system, they can
prevent their young people from accessing the kind of undesirable
websites that we are talking about. Well, I have got news for those
people: yes, commercial filters and firewalls are a barrier, but nearly
all teenagers know how to Google their way round them. In my article, I
explain how easy it is and how to do it within seconds. If people think
that young people are being prevented from accessing such websites,
they are living in cloud cuckoo
land. Packages
are now available that can remotely monitor the use of computers in a
town library, for example, or in a school, whether primary or
secondary, and see what the children are doing. Of course, that takes
away some of the users’ privacy, but children in school are
supposed to be using the computers for education purposes. My article
shows that they are not always using them for such purposes and that
they are accessing mainly pornography and, just occasionally, suicide
sites and other undesirable sites, too. Packages can be bought that
monitor the use of all the computers in the school by all the children,
whether they are using them in the school or accessing them from home
by a link at
night. 5.19
pm Sitting
suspended for a Division in the
House.
5.34
pm On
resuming—
Dr.
Iddon: In The Daily Telegraph of 26 February 2008,
there was an interesting article about how predators tell children how
to kill themselves. It alleged that people have unearthed a network of
suicide gurus who actively go about encouraging children to commit
suicide and telling them how to do it. Unfortunately, two of the
suicide guru sites are active in chat rooms, so there is no doubt that
we have to take some action on the internet.
I am sorry
that some Members are seeking to use the Bill to bring in assisted
suicide. Three attempts to do that have already been made in the House
of Lords, by Lord Joffe. Each attempt has failed, including the last
one in 2006, which was defeated by 148 to 100 votes. The proper way to
have a debate on assisted suicide, or to attempt to bring in assisted
suicide, in this country, is not by parasite amendments on a Bill such
as this one, which has clear intentions, but to bring in a separate
Bill. I know that at least one Liberal Democrat Member who believes in
assisted suicide has come out with a private Member’s Bill, but
has chosen an entirely different topic. That Member could have used his
Bill to test the temperature of the House on the point. Debates such as
this split political parties, as we have seen this afternoon. It is a
moral issue and I hope that it will be given a free vote, like
abortion.
I shall
address amendments 9, 10 and 12 to 16, which the hon. and learned
Member for Harborough tabled. They appear to be designed to refine the
wording of the Bill so that it does not criminalise acts which,
although arguably capable of encouraging or assisting suicide, are not
intended to do that. For example, a mother might respond in a moment of
anger to a difficult teenager who has threatened to kill themselves.
She believes that they are merely posturing and tells them to get on
with it.
Although I
accept that the Conservative amendments are well intentioned, they are
unnecessary. I would prefer that the clauses in the Bill be relatively
uncluttered, as they stand, without making them more complex. I suggest
to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that it is unlikely that
the Crown Prosecution Service—as a lawyer, he will
know—would prosecute in circumstances such as those I have
described. One could probably describe another 100 similar
circumstances. The Crown Prosecution Service would simply not take a
mother to court in such circumstances.
Mr.
Garnier: The CPS would not do so because the mother would
not come within subsection
(2)(1)(b): “D’s
act was intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at
suicide.” Both
provisions have to be read together and clearly the mother would not
have had the necessary intention. Although I am interested in hearing
what the hon. Gentleman has to say, and I am quite happy to be
criticised about all sorts of things, the point that he has just made
is not a terribly good one.
Dr.
Iddon: Let me make another point. The hon. and learned
Gentleman’s amendments would mean that to secure a conviction,
it would presumably be necessary to show that the publicity given had
encouraged, or assisted, a particular suicide, which is an almost
impossible task to achieve.
However,
I have more difficulties with the amendments tabled by the hon. Members
for Cambridge and for Cardiff, Central. If accepted, they would not
only seriously weaken the Suicide Act 1961, but they would bring in
assisted suicide in this country for the very first time, as I have
explained, and on the back of a Bill that is not intended for that
purpose.
All
euthanasia campaigners are now proposing that the law should draw a
distinction between malicious encouragement, and actual assistance, of
suicide. I believe that is a silly position to take. Moreover, the
amendments that the hon. Member for Cambridge has tabled would not be
limited to assisting particular classes of people such as those who are
terminally ill, whom he has mentioned this afternoon, but would refer
to all people, including young, mentally ill people. If accepted, the
Liberal Democrat amendments would take the House much further than any
of the three Lord Joffe Bills have suggested that we
go.
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