Online safety has been an increasing concern for many local people - especially the online safety of children and young people.
Not only have parents contacted me about the issue but when I’ve visited schools and spoken to groups such as the Girl Guides, young people themselves have spoken to me about their concerns.
Last week marked one year since the Online Safety Act was passed as legislation.
The Act included numerous laws to improve everyone’s safety online, including strong requirements for tech companies to remove illegal and harmful content from their platforms, or else face significant fines or prosecution.
It was a good first step but we still need to ensure the Online Safety Act is enforced and ensure it delivers on its objectives.
To mark the occasion, I met with the Internet Watch Foundation, NSPCC, 5Rights Foundation, Molly Rose Foundation and Barnados calling for further improvements to the law.
These organisations are calling for the government to set out clear ambitions for Ofcom ensuring harm reduction for children is a central driving force.
This includes pushing for safety by design and calling for innovative solutions to meet these new regulations.
That’s why in a recent Parliamentary debate on tackling image-based abuse, I called for Ofcom to use their Codes of Practice to push social media companies for more innovative solutions to combat this issue.
I also met with the Online Safety Act Network and discussed measures such as the recent instrument I voted for to broaden online platform and search services responsibilities for tackling image abuse under Online Safety Act.
Another aspect of improving children’s online safety, which Liberal Democrats highlighted whilst the Online Safety Act passed through Parliament, is education, whether that’s schools teaching students about online dangers and responsibly using social media, or digital literacy education to empower parents to protect their children online.
These are all measures that I’ll keep supporting and calling for.
I’m also continuing to fight for our local area’s interests following the Budget. Many small businesses and health and care providers have contacted me with their worries about additional costs they’ll face from the government increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions, which could even force them to lay off staff.
These organisations shouldn’t be shouldering the burden of recovering our public services, and I’ll keep calling on the government to rethink this tax hike.
Last week, I signed a letter from Liberal Democrat MPs to the chancellor, calling for her to urgently exempt health and care providers from this rise.
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