UK Parliament Watch

A few unelected members of the House of Lords are introducing their own internet censorship law because they think it is unreasonable to wait a year for the government to work through the issues.

Tom McNally, previously involved in TV censorship law has challenged the Government to back his proposed new law. This is set to be introduced in the House or Lord on January 14.

The bill gives Ofcom censorship powers requiring that internet companies accept a duty of care with provisions to be enforced by Ofcom.

McNally told The Daily Telegraph:

We are in danger of losing a whole year on this. The Government's commitment to develop safer internet legislation in the Queen's Speech, though welcome, did not go far enough.

The Government has yet to reveal the findings from its consultation on its White Paper which was published in the Summer. The results had been expected before the end of this year but have been delayed by the general election.

McNally is drafting the bill with the Carnegie Trust who campaign for internet censorship in the name of thinking of the children. Lord Puttnam and Baroness Kidron, the film director and children's internet rights campaigner are being canvassed as sponsors of the bill.

The English Collective of Prostitutes has been giving evidence to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry into Universal Credit and survival sex

Laura Watson from the English Collective of Prostitutes, which gave evidence to the Committee says:

The fury against Universal Credit (UC) is growing. Women and children are its first targets and single mothers have been hit particularly hard losing on average £2380 per year -- that's £40-50 a week.

The committee, by listening to sex workers and the organisations that support us, has recommended action against some of the worst aspects of universal credit, for example, abolishing the five week delay that has massively increased destitution and homelessness and pushed many more women into survival sex As a result, the report strengthens demands for universal credit to be scrapped.

Along with other organisations, the ECP gave evidence about an increase in women going into prostitution because of UC and in some cases going back into prostitution having left. The report quotes a woman in our group who spoke about being terrified of what will happen because she will lose money when she is transferred over to UC and she is already living on the breadline struggling to support her children. The report specifically mentions evidence we gave that many of those who turned to survival sex were single mothers, who may also fear losing custody of their children.

We are particularly glad for the emphasis in the report on the five week wait before any money is paid. The Committee acknowledged that this alongside sanctions and the debt that resulted from being made deliberately destitute drives women to engage in survival sex. The five week wait is called a fundamental design flaw and the Committee reiterated its recommendation that it must be eliminated.

In addition, the Committee recommends that benefits be raised in line with the cost of living saying that even when people get their money the amount they receive is simply not enough to live on. People will continue to be driven to survival sex for as long as benefit rates fail to match the amount of money that they actually need to live on .

The report recommends that alternatives to the digital application system, that appears to be designed to put obstacles in the way of people making an application, are put in place -- shockingly it reports that this results in one in five applications are closed without payment because people don't comply with the universal credit process.

Damian Collins, the chair of the House of Commons' digital, culture, media and sport select committee has written to Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice-president for global affairs and communications, querying Facebook decision to exempt political adverts from fact-checking

Collins, presumably speaking from planet Uranus where all politicians always tell the truth, demanded to know why Facebook has decided to exempt political statements from its fact-checking programme -- removing all bars on political candidates lying in paid adverts.

Collins wrote to Clegg with five questions for Facebook to answer , three of which covered the rule change. Why was the decision taken to change Facebook's policy, the MP asked, given the heavy constraint this will place on Facebook's ability to combat online disinformation in the run-up to elections around the world, and a possible UK general election in particular?