Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge:

Moved by Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge

295BA: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—“Content removal reporting and enforcement(1) No later than 12 months from the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for—(a) the way in which offences under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film) can be reported, and(b) the mechanism by which content created as a result of offences under that section can be removed.(2) The mechanism must include—(a) a mandatory removal period for content that the reporting party reasonably believes to be in breach of section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 of 48 hours,(b) guidance on what constitutes clear and accessible reporting,(c) sanctions for malicious reporting,(d) sanctions for the failure to remove duplicates of offending material,(e) a review period after the initial 48 hours for assessing suspected offending content, and(f) guidance on which online platforms are within scope of this section.”

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 295BA and the other amendments in this group in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron, Lady Coffey and Lady Gohir. I am grateful for the wise legal counsel of Professor Clare McGlynn KC and the support of the Revenge Porn Helpline, My Image, My Choice, Not Your Porn and Jodie Campaigns.

Amendment 295BA is based on the precedent set in the Take It Down Act in the USA. It compels the Secretary of State to implement a 48-hour time limit for online platforms to remove non-consensually shared intimate content. It is important to note that there is also a Clause that allows for sanctions for malicious actors. In this way, we seek to protect those who may consensually share content from being targeted by people who may wish to silence them.

Sophie Mortimer from the Revenge Porn Helpline said that while we have an excellent track record on removal, the reality in most cases is that it takes hours, days, or months. There are a number of clients who have been reporting content for over five years. Sophie has emphasised that the handful of responsible and responsive platforms should not be the yardstick for all, when the Majority are painfully slow to respond or entirely non-compliant.

One Cornell University study found that violations of copyright are acted upon quicker than the reporting of NCII content. The amendment would ensure, vitally, that online services remove duplicates of the content. It is designed to complement the Online Safety Act, under which tech companies have to proactively ensure that this priority illegal content is removed from their sites. At present, however, there is no system in place for individuals to report directly to ofcom. This amendment would ensure a reporting and removal mechanism for victims or any other person who believes a breach of Section 66(b) of the Sexual Offences Act has been committed, and it would provide a maximum time frame.

Amendment 295BB would strengthen the law on deletion orders. While I am pleased to see the Government’s clarification in the Bill that intimate images used to commit an offence, and anything containing them, should be seen as being used to commit an offence under Section 153 of the 2020 Sentencing Act, I believe we must go further.

Research by journalist Shanti Das published in February this year found that, of the 98 intimate image abuse cases prosecuted in magistrates’ courts in England and Wales in the preceding six months, only three resulted in deprivation orders. No one should have to live in the knowledge that their convicted abuser is allowed to retain content used to commit the crime. This amendment would direct the prosecutor to lodge a deletion verification report within 28 days, verifying the destruction of the content and ordering the defendant to hand over the passwords and authenticators needed to access the material. There is still too much ambiguity in the law around this, and the victims of intimate image abuse are paying the price.

Amendments 295BC and 295BD would compel the Secretary of State to implement a hash registry for non-consensual intimate content, which providers must use to prevent the re-upload or distribution of NCII material. The amendment implements a hash-sharing system that offers survivors the peace of mind that their non-consensual content will remain offline. A hash is a unique value assigned to an image. Importantly, duplicates have the same hash value. Hashing preserves the victim’s privacy, as only the hash and not the content itself would be stored in the register.

This system means that victims can use two options to ensure that their content stays offline: prosecuting and going through a criminal court or privately hashing the content without prosecuting. Some survivors may use both options, but hashing is an important option for those who feel unable to face criminal proceedings. We already have a precedent for how this would work, as CSAM content is hashed in the same way. These amendments are a vital step to assure victims that their content will no longer trend online.

Amendments 295BE, 295BF, 295BG, 295BJ, 298A, 299A and 300B seek to tackle the growing concern of sexually explicit audio being used to circumnavigate the image-based abuse offences. This amendment mirrors the image-based abuse offences and would make it an offence to record, install equipment to record, request the creation of, create or share audio that a reasonable person would consider to be sexual in nature without their consent. The 2022 Law Commission report stated that:

“If, in the future, it is deemed necessary and appropriate to criminalise taking, sharing or threatening to share sexual audio-recordings without consent, it is possible that any such offences could be based on our recommended intimate image offences”.

This is exactly what these amendments seek to do.

It is now nearly a year since this issue was first raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, and the Government’s response was that they would continue to keep it under review. Since then, the Revenge Porn Helpline has seen an increase in the number of cases reported to it. In New Zealand, there was a case where a man was accused of secretly recording audio of sex workers. Other victims have come forward in the UK with cases of audio of them having sex or conversations about sexual activity being shared online. In this House, we frequently discuss the importance of continually horizon-scanning and ensuring that we are agile in our response as harms arise. I implore the Government to act now and not wait for the scale of abuse to escalate before we decide to take action.

Amendment 295BH provides a definition of what it is to take an intimate image. It uses the definition of “taking” from the Parliament of Victoria in Australia, which uses the word “capturing” in order to bring screen- shotting into scope. The Law Commission recommended that screenshotting should be in scope of the taking offence for cases where a person has consented to being in an intimate state on a video call but has not consented to the image being captured.

However, I believe that we should go further than the Law Commission advice and include the non-consensual screenshotting of intimate images sent by disappearing messages or Snapchats. It is common practice for intimate images to be shared in this way, but it is important that in these scenarios we remember that consent has been given for a limited time and that capturing the image to keep permanently is a violation of that consent. The wording would also allow for the legislation to be future-proofed for the way in which capturing an image may evolve over time.

Amendments 296, 297 and 299 seek to extend the time limits imposed by a summary offence and build on the precedent established for the creation and requesting offences in Sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act, as created by the data Act. They will give the pre-existing sharing offence, which is Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act, and the new taking and installation offences, which are new Sections 66AA and 66AC, parity in the law with other image-based abuse offences. I am pleased to see that the Government have tabled their own Amendment 300 in response to this, which is very welcome, to ensure that victims are not inadvertently timed out of seeking justice because of the six-month time limit on summary offences.

Amendments 298B and 300A seek to address the frequent practice of perpetrators providing personal information about victims alongside the non-consensual requests for intimate content or the non-consensual sharing of intimate content by making it an aggravating factor for the offences. Victims have described the trauma invoked when they see perpetrators reference details such as where they went to college or the town where they live.

This amendment is based on the experience of a survivor, Jane, who stated:

“Intimate images of me and 18 other women in my area were posted without our knowledge, on a location-based, non-consensual image-sharing platform. Many of these images were stolen by hacking our social media accounts and grouped by our names and location. We became easily identifiable, and in some cases, women’s LinkedIn profiles were posted alongside their intimate photos. Since my personal information was published, I no longer feel safe in my own hometown. Places that once felt familiar and comfortable now feel threatening, and public spaces I used to enjoy are overshadowed by the constant fear that my safety is at risk”.

This amendment seeks to acknowledge in law the additional distress that the sharing of this type of information causes victims and would ensure that it is taken into account when prosecuting.

Amendment 299B would add to the definition of “intimate state” in Section 66D of the Sexual Offences Act the words,

“something else depicting the person that a reasonable person would consider to be sexual because of its nature”.

Noble Lords may remember that I tried to address the problem of semen images in my Private Member’s Bill. Sometimes sickeningly referred to as “tributes”, this is when men degrade women’s images with semen, whether real or AI generated. As our law stands currently, the definition of “intimate state” means that, if a woman is not nude or participating in a sexual act, her only legal recourse if this image is shared is by way of a communications or harassment offence. It is vital that this rapidly growing form of abuse is brought into the scope of the pre-existing requesting and sharing offences, as well as the new taking offence.

I was deeply concerned by the dossier that campaigner Jess Davies put together, demonstrating the scale of this issue. It detailed countless examples of women’s pictures being uploaded with sick and degrading requests for them to be Photoshopped with semen or for men to physically defile them. This abuse is happening not just in the dark corners of the internet but on platforms such as TikTok.

Jess has bravely shared her experience of being targeted by this form of abuse. She said:

“It feels extremely degrading to see yourself in those images and knowing I have no control over this image existing online made me feel powerless. A decade on from discovering my own images had been exploited in this way, during my research into this harm I discovered several accounts on TikTok dedicated to this content. Some of these videos had tens of thousands of views and saw users asking men to create semen videos and images of their family members. Some users were doing so for a fee, others just to take part in these women’s humiliation”.

This can be remedied with a simple adjustment to the law. We must not wait to act.

My Amendments 333 and 334 on spiking would add recklessness to the offence. It is important that this law reflects the reality of what can happen when a person is spiked. The perpetrator may not intend to injure, aggrieve or annoy the victim, or intend any particular outcome at all. However, they may be reckless as to the outcome of their behaviour. It is vital that we have clarity in law. The very point of this new offence is to bring clarity to the law. I ask the Minister for her assurance that scenarios such as a university friend claiming that they were helping to cheer up a friend by administering a substance without consent would be in scope of the offence as written. I would like reassurance on whether recklessness is covered within the law and why it is not explicitly written in.

My Amendment 356B seeks to extend Section 35 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to make domestic abuse protection orders suitable for a digital age. While the law is clear that a court may, by a domestic abuse protection order, impose any requirement that the court considers necessary to protect the person, and the law makes a list of suggestions under subsections (4) to (6), with examples of the type of provision that may be made, these suggestions tend to relate to physical locality. It is possible already under the law for someone to make an order that includes tech-facilitated abuse, but my concern and that of Refuge is that it may be dependent on the knowledge that the person imposing the order has of this form of abuse.

My amendment is based on the experience of a survivor, Iman, and supported by the charity Refuge. The amendment would add to the list of protections that may be imposed, such as preventing abusers using tech to contact their victims indirectly, publish material relating to the survivor or purporting to originate from them, or contact third parties to damage the survivor’s reputation, harass or intimidate them.

It is important that these orders reflect the reality of a digital age and that those imposing the orders are prompted to think of the way that technology may be used to circumnavigate pre-existing protections. Refuge gave the example of a perpetrator continuing to abuse their victim by leaving negative reviews on the victim’s business. Iman said:

“I continue to live in fear that, were my perpetrator to undertake these actions, the order I have in place does not prohibit such conduct”.

Future survivors should never have to face such fears.

We have made much progress on intimate image abuse and tech-facilitated abuse, but it is vital that we always remain one step ahead of those who seek to harm others in this appalling way and put in place clear, comprehensive legislation. I beg to move.

My Lords, I rise in support of all the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge. I signed two of the offences in relation to the time-limit extension, and therefore I share the noble Baroness’s pleasure that the Government have effectively accepted that principle and brought forward their own amendments as I understand it.

The noble Baroness’s other amendments, it seems to me, are worthy of an equivalent response. I need not repeat the reasons for this, because her speech was so comprehensive and clear. I will just say that, in a still relatively short period of time, not just in this Committee but in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, has raised herself to one of the leading human rights campaigners in this country. Let that silence all those who think that relative youth is a disqualification for being in your Lordships’ House.

With that in mind, and as a brief reminder of the two new sections of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 that are really down to the campaigning of the noble Baroness, I wonder if my noble friend the Minister, in her reply to the group, could give the Committee some insight into the timetable for implementing what will be, I believe, Sections 66E and 66F of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. These are the new offences of creating, and of requesting the creation of, sexually explicit deepfake images without consent. These were passed in the Data (Use and Access) Act earlier this year, after a great deal of sweat, toil and solidarity from around the House for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will be keen to get these implemented as soon as possible. In the light of frustrations expressed in earlier groups about the speed of implementing these policies, I wonder if we could hear on that.

My Lords, I enthusiastically join my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti in praising the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. I was in the House—it was on a Friday—when she first moved her Private Member’s Bill. The Minister then was the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and he promised that the Government would review and come to the assistance of the noble Baroness. What she is doing now is quite amazing, with a number of very detailed amendments. I will hold myself here to await what my noble friend the Minister will say in reply, but I do hope she will be very positive.

My Lords, I rise to add my voice to the praise for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen—me too—and to put on record my support. I believe the noble Baroness did such a detailed, forensic laying out of her amendments. I would just like to make a couple of points.

During the passage of the Online Safety Act, we had a lot of discussion about an ombudsman. It was very much resisted. At the same time—in the same time- frame as that Bill took place—I was an adviser to the Irish Government, who put in an ombudsman. I think we are missing something. It was a very big part of the previous discussion about chatbots and so on in an earlier group. I very firmly agree with what the noble Baroness said as she laid out her amendments: we really need a way of alerting the regulator to what is going on, and it is not adequate for the regulator to have only an emerging harms unit that is waiting for us to fill in a form, which is the current state of play. I leave that with the Minister as a problem that needs solving.

I also really want to reiterate this idea about things that happen online and how they land in real life. Some noble Lords will be aware of a quite horrific explosion of online abuse in Korea about a year ago. One of the things that struck me at the time was that knowing where the woman lived plus having something to shame them with then coerced them into further acts, some of which were not illegal, such as licking a toilet floor, but the coercion was built into a scenario by having more than one piece of information. Again, I really want to underline what the noble Baroness said about that and say that something that seems incremental, perhaps a little less important, in conjunction with other things becomes a hugely powerful tool of coercion.

I slightly hesitate to do this, but, on the basis that no good deed goes unpunished and the Government managed to put in a new priority for the strangulation offence—and I add my congratulations, as I did when I last spoke—but the detail with which the noble Baroness has laid out her amendments speaks to the need for the Government to transfer this into existing legislation to make sure that we have caught up, to use the Secretary of State powers and so on. We cannot keep on waiting. My biggest urging throughout the whole of this Committee stage will be for action and to say that better can be the enemy of best. The noble Baroness has done her homework, and I am sure she is open on the drafting itself, but the point she is making is that there are these holes and we need them fixed in order to protect women.

I will finish by saying this: I often stand up and say, “What’s wrong with innovation?”—certain sorts of innovation—but I would also like to say on the record that innovation is not a zero-sum game. If these things were a hoover or a fridge, they would be recalled by now if this were the harm they did. I really just want to say that I am delighted that the tech team around the House—which is ever growing, I might say—is very practical in its nature. None of us is looking for a 100% perfect world, but we do want 80%. The noble Baroness has put it forward, and I really hope that the Government listen.

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lady Owen. I will be mercifully brief, because I have spoken a lot this evening, but I want to reiterate—me too—that she has done an amazing job. She is so determined, she gets down into the detail and is so thorough, and she gets it over the line—she gets stuff done. Thank goodness for people like her in this House. I thank her for that.

My noble friend made the case very powerfully about how threatening and insidious the sharing of intimate images is, particularly with the location layered on. This is all about degradation, intimidation and scaring and threatening women, essentially. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said in an earlier debate, this is not the dignity and respect that we were promised, frankly, and technology is being used to take that away and is incredibly regressive.

I support all the amendments, but I want to talk briefly about the Amendment on upgrading domestic abuse protection orders to make them fit for the digital age. I cannot tell the Committee how many victims I have encountered who 100% say that the abuse by their perpetrator carries on. It gets worse, arguably. We must make sure that those orders reflect that, because that is where so much of the abuse is happening. It also affects the children involved in this situation. In a particular case that I am concerned about at the moment, the perpetrator is constantly posting on social media, knowing full well that his children are going to see those posts, and on it continues. I hope the Government will take on board these amendments. Again, I say well done to my noble friend.

My Lords, I am pleased to support the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, in the latest stage of her campaign to stop online image abuse. I too applaud her success against deepfakes in the Data (Use and Access) Act. The Government have done much good work to progress that campaign in this Bill, but the distribution of these images, which causes so much harm, must be stopped. As many other noble Lords have said, we need to ensure that the Bill creates the powers to stop the sharing of these images across the internet. Noble Lords who were involved in the debates on the Online Safety Bill understand that ensuring that the tech companies stop the prioritisation and dissemination of harms is central to stopping harm being spread on the internet. Amendment 299 and the others in this group will do that.

I shall focus on Amendments 295BC on hashing and 295BD on the NCII register, which will be crucial to ensuring that any sharing of intimate images will be radically reduced and, I hope, stopped. There has been good work by the Internet Watch Foundation in hash matching and setting up a register of illegal intimate images of children. It is funded by the industry and has been effective in massively reducing the traffic in CSAM. If these amendments are adopted, it will be a great thing to bring these protections to the adult online world. Verification of NCII is already expanding. It happens at platform moderation level, where there are measures to increase the number of images verified by training NGOs on submissions to the StopNCII.org portal. This will ensure that they will submit hashes globally via a global clearing centre. There is work under way with the national centre for violence against women and girls to improve police response to NCII abuse, so they can proactively report content for removal and hashing. However, it needs to be mandated to ensure that this system becomes more extensive.

I urge that, if these amendments are accepted, hash-matching technology remains nimble. I understand that MD5 video hash-matching technology might not respond to slight tweaks of a video. As a result, the video cannot be checked against the register, rendering hash matching ineffective. Other technologies, such as PDQ for stills, looks at the perceptual nature of the image and can still create a match, even if the image is cropped or edited. I urge the creators of hash-matching technology to continue the arms race against AI and ensure that subtle AI tweaks to a hash-matched image can be matched on the NCII register. StopNCIA software is already doing an amazing job in generating 1.8 million hashes and preventing thousands of intimate images being shared across the internet. Imagine how effective it will be if this technology is mandated for adult NCII for all platforms and enforced by ofcom. I urge the Minister to accept these amendments and save thousands of users from harm and misery.

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. Since she arrived in your Lordships’ House, she has made the issue of online abuse her passion and her life’s work, and for that I congratulate her. These amendments deal with intimate image abuse, spiking, domestic abuse and the online abuse of women, by and large. Although there are many positive attributes of the internet and online and digital technology, there are also the downsides and how it is used as a weapon of abuse. Will the Minister see what she can do with her ministerial colleagues in the Home Department to try to accept some of these amendments by way of government amendments on Report? They are worthy of inclusion in this Bill.

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading about the amendments to which I have added my name. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for her persistence in pursuing the issues that she raised about a year ago. I highlighted the problem of sexually explicit audio recordings during the debate on her Non-Consensual Sexually Explicit Images and Videos (Offences) Bill. I am therefore thankful that she has brought forward amendments to this Bill to address audio abuse. I too admire her tenacity. I fully support everything that she has said today.

I will speak specifically about audio abuse and those amendments. Although I commend the Government on strengthening the law relating to non-consensual recording of intimate images and film, I cannot understand why audio has been excluded. It appears as though the Government wish to wait for there to be a significant number of cases before taking action, but why wait? How many cases do we need? It should surely be enough to recognise that this abuse is already occurring and that it can easily escalate further. Intimate audio can easily be captured on mobile phones. We can clearly foresee the consequences of sharing such recordings and how they can be used to humiliate and intimidate, and cause alarm and distress, because voices are recognisable. As I indicated last year, the helpline that my charity, Muslim Women’s Network, runs has had cases, and the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, gave examples of cases, so how many more do we need?

We are perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to responding to new forms of abuse. Perhaps for once we can get ahead of the problem before audio abuse becomes widespread. I want to borrow a phrase from my noble friend Lady Kidron, who said we should lay the tracks ahead of the train—or something like that. Today, time and again we have heard that the Government need to be one step ahead. The question is why they do not want to be one step ahead on so many of the amendments we are talking about today. As legislation around image abuse tightens, perpetrators will inevitably look for other avenues through which they can control, threaten and shame victims. I therefore urge the Minister to address intimate audio recordings in this Bill.

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Owen, which have been signed by noble Lords across the Committee. I welcome the Government’s Amendment 300 to extend the time limit for the sharing offence, which my noble friend’s amendments also seek to do.

My noble friend’s amendments on deletion, audio abuse, doxing, semen images and the definition of “taking” already aim to deal with activity that is, sadly, on the rise, and to recognise the real trauma that these activities cause the victims—trauma that sadly continues long after the initial offence. The technology around non-consensual images is very complicated, but we have some precedents where solutions have been found elsewhere. I am particularly interested to hear from the Minister on two issues: the 48-hour takedown, which we seen happen in the US, and the hash registry and hash sharing—I was grateful to my noble friend for setting out so clearly what they do. It strikes me as a bit chicken and egg here. The tech is there, but we need to demand progress in order to see progress.

Extending pre-existing domestic abuse protection orders would recognise another development that we are sadly witnessing, with perpetrators using the online world to further their abuse. Taking this opportunity to extend the scope of domestic protection orders will help stop this form of abuse and reflect the reality of the digital age that we are living in.

Technology is rapidly evolving, as we have heard in the example of audio abuse. It is a challenge to ensure that our legislation continues to be fit for purpose, but that is what these amendments seek to do, and in some cases to future-proof it as well. Non-consensual intimate images are an escalating harm. These amendments address critical operational gaps and work towards the systemic protection that we should have in this area.

My Lords, I too support these amendments. I declare an interest of sorts in that I have a young daughter who is fast approaching her teenage years. The idea that she might one day be the subject of the kind of despicable abuse that my noble friend Lady Owen and others have outlined is utterly terrifying, so I am determined to do my part to secure its eradication.

My noble friend Lady Owen outlined the case for her amendments with all the skill and more of any King’s Counsel, so I do not need to say very much, but I want to highlight, in particular, her call for Parliament to be agile on this subject. The speed of proliferation of the kinds of abuse she has talked about risks Parliament looking lead-footed and out of touch if we do not take the further steps that she advocates through her amendments. There is no place for wait-and-see incrementalism in this area.

Any concerns about freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act, which from time to time we hear whispers of, are in my view entirely misplaced. The right to freedom of expression is qualified; it is not absolute. It is plainly not a licence to abuse. I ask rhetorically, and genuinely seeking an answer from the Minister: why not do it?

My Lords, I have signed Amendment 334 on spiking, but I want to congratulate my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge as she yet again leads the way on the important issues in her other amendments.

Clause 101, on spiking, is certainly welcome. The measure appeared in the previous version of the Bill in the previous Parliament, and I give credit to Richard Graham, the former MP for Gloucester, who brought this to the attention of Parliament. More broadly, I have a little question for the Minister. I am always very nervous when civil servants recommend that we remove things from existing legislation. I notice that the clause will remove Section 22 and Section 23 at the beginning and then there is the broader new Section 24. What has driven that? Too often things disappear and end up with some kind of defect or loophole. That is exactly what concerned my friend Joe Robertson MP, who tabled an amendment like my noble friend’s Amendment 334 on Report in the Commons, having tabled something similar in Committee. His concern was that there is a loophole and that spiking by a reckless act should also be an offence.

I do not need to persuade your Lordships that spiking is a hideous, heinous activity which can destroy people’s physical and mental health. The evidence given by Colin Mackie from Spike Aware UK at Committee stage in the Commons was compelling, especially as it was driven by his personal experience of his 18 year-old son Greg dying through suspected spiking of the kind now known as prank spiking.

At the moment, Clause 101 provides that there has to be an intent to injure, aggrieve or similar. I know that Ministers in the other place felt that the Bill covers recklessness, but I think it is pretty clear that the legislation does not particularly seem to cover prank spiking.

Recklessness is a well-trodden principle in criminal law, dating back a couple of hundred years. It is definitively an alternative to intent so, if the prosecution fails to establish that someone meant to do something, it can also establish that their actions were so reckless that they should be convicted. Indeed, this is what manslaughter is—somebody gets convicted of killing but without having the intent to commit murder. The other example, perhaps not quite so dramatic, is actual bodily harm. The prosecution must establish the harm but can do so on the basis that what was done was reckless so that harm was bound to follow rather than simply that someone intended for harm to happen.

I hope the Government will reconsider their conclusion that what we have before us in Clause 101 is sufficient. I understand that it may be that one MP has got particularly focused on this campaign, but it took Richard Graham to get focused on the issue of spiking for it to make any progress into legislation in the other place. I am grateful to this Administration for picking that up. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and hope again that there may be room for some consensus, not just compromise, on how we can make sure there are no loopholes in this law.

My Lords, I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Owen and will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. As we have heard today, technology continues to provide new avenues for abuse, in particular for the abuse of women. Abusers use technology in ever more inventive ways to harm, harass and try to humiliate their victims. Thanks to the work of my noble friend Lady Owen and others in this House, the law has made huge strides in recent years; however, more needs to be done.

Broadly, these amendments fall into two categories: those that seek to update the law to ensure that it addresses new and growing forms of tech-enabled abuse, and those that seek to provide more effective support to the victims of non-consensual intimate image abuse. We need action on both fronts. I will not go into detail here, as it has already been covered, but I will just reiterate that some of the gaps that need to be closed are: updating our definition of what constitutes taking an image; including audio recordings in the framework for tackling non-consensual intimate images; ensuring that images which may have been innocuous when they were taken but are then transformed into something sexual or degrading are also captured by the law; and, finally, recognising the practice of doxing as an aggregating factor.

Unfortunately, we know that, however the law changes, abuse will not be eliminated any time soon, so we must also ensure that the law supports victims in the aftermath of their abuse. As it stands, there is no proper framework to ensure that intimate images that the courts have found to be taken or shared illegally are then removed and destroyed. Instead, survivors see their images being repeatedly uploaded, posted on to pornography sites, shared in anonymous chat forums and even allowed to remain untouched on their abusers’ devices or cloud accounts. It cannot be right; the law must change. Between them, Amendments 295BA, 295BB, 295BC and 295BD would create a proper mechanism for victims to ensure that images are promptly removed from online platforms, deleted and then hashed to prevent them from resurfacing elsewhere.

Making progress on this issue is crucial. We know the trauma caused to victims who have to live with their images remaining online or live with the knowledge that they could be re-uploaded at any point. As one survivor told the Women and Equalities Committee:

“I am terrified of applying for jobs for fear that the prospective employer will google my name and see. I am terrified when meeting new people that they will google my name and see. I am terrified that every person I meet has seen”.

We cannot allow this situation to continue. The amendments from my noble friend Lady Owen would make the law more effective, more enforceable and more protective to victims, and I hope that we will be able to make progress on them in this House.

My Lords, I add my voice to the support for my noble friend Lady Owen from across the Committee. She has done a great service to victims of these crimes all across the country, most of whom we know are women and girls, but men and boys can be affected too.

I will focus on Amendment 334 which, as my noble friend Lady Coffey has mentioned, would add the word “reckless” in relation to the spiking offence. This is very important. I remember being the Home Office Minister when the phenomenon of needle spiking first hit the headlines. It focused a lot of attention on spiking in general as a phenomenon and meant the Home Office had to put its focus and resources behind it. We found it was very difficult to prosecute these crimes. Often, the substance had left the body. Often, victims were blamed for their behaviour, for putting themselves in those situations.

When I went to talk to the victims, I often heard that they thought that people were just doing it for a laugh, and a lot of the hospitality industry—bars, clubs and festivals—said the same thing. They said that it was really inadequate to have the requirement to prove harm or a sexual motive. That was part of the reason, though not the whole reason, why we have seen such a woefully low level of prosecutions for this. It is my belief that we need to make sure we include this recklessness element, and that is also the belief of most of the campaigners that I have worked with, including Stamp Out Spiking and, of course, Richard Graham, who did a tremendous job. I hope that the Government will adopt this amendment and all the others.

My Lords, it has been a privilege to take part in today’s Committee. I think anyone reading Hansard subsequently will get a much better insight than they ever had before of the risks and experience of young women and girls in today’s world, sadly. It has been a privilege listening to all the speeches, particularly on these amendments.

Like others, started by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, for the forensic way she has identified the digital loopholes that currently allow abusers to evade justice. As we have been reminded, she has been a doughty campaigner on the Data (Use and Access) Act, with a winning streak that I hope will continue.

At the same time, I welcome the government amendments in this group, which at least signal a positive direction of travel. For far too long, victims of intimate image abuse have been timed out of justice by the six-month limit on summary offences. The noble Baroness, Lady Owen, identified this injustice, and I am delighted that the Government have listened with their Amendment 300. Then, of course, we have a number of other amendments. The noble Baroness’s amendments go further than time limits; they address harms that the Bill completely misses.

In particular, I highlight Amendment 298B, which addresses the malicious practice known as doxing. It is a terrifying reality for survivors that perpetrators often do not just share an intimate image; they weaponise it by publishing the victim’s address, employer or educational details alongside it. This is calculated to maximise distress, vulnerability and real-world danger. This amendment would rightly establish that providing such information is a statutory aggravating factor and would ensure that the court must treat this calculated destruction of a victim’s privacy with the severity it deserves.

While we welcome the government amendments regarding deprivation orders, I urge the Minister to look closely at Amendment 295BB, also in the name of the noble Baroness. Current police powers often focus on seizing the physical device—the phone or laptop—but we live in an age of cloud storage. Seizing a phone is meaningless if the image remains accessible in the cloud, ready to be downloaded the moment the offender buys a new device. Amendment 295BB would create a duty for verified deletion, including from cloud services. We must ensure that when we say an image is destroyed, it is truly gone.

I also strongly support the suite of amendments extending the law to cover audio recordings. As technology evolves, we are seeing the rise of AI-generated audio deepfakes—a new frontier of abuse highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, and the Revenge Porn Helpline, as we have heard today. I pay tribute to her for raising this issue. By explicitly including audio recordings in the definition of intimate image offences, these amendments could future-proof the legislation against these emerging AI threats.

Finally in this area, Amendment 295BD offers a systematic solution: a non-consensual intimate image register using hashing technology, which was so clearly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. We cannot rely on a game of whack-a-mole, where victims must report the same image to platform after platform. A hash registry that identifies the unique digital fingerprint of an image to block its upload across providers is the only scalable technical solution to this problem.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, we also welcome the new offence of administering harmful substances in Clause 101, but the current drafting requires specific intent to “injure, aggrieve or annoy”. Perpetrators of spiking often hide behind the defence that it was just a prank or done to liven up a friend. This leaves prosecutors struggling to prove specific intent. Amendment 334 would close this gap by introducing recklessness into the offence. If you spike a person’s drink, you are inherently being reckless as to the danger you pose to that person. The law should reflect that reality, and I urge the Government to accept this strengthening of the clause.

Finally, we support Amendment 356B, which would modernise domestic abuse protection orders. Abusers are innovative; they use third parties and digital platforms to bypass physical restrictions. This amendment would explicitly prohibit indirect contact and digital harassment, ensuring that a protection order actually provides protection in the 21st century.

This group of amendments, as I believe we all agree—there has not been a dissenting voice—represents a modernisation of our personal safety Laws that is long overdue. I hope the Minister will accept the logic of these proposals, particularly regarding doxing and recklessness, and I hope the Government recognise that they meet the Government’s own objectives.

In closing, I very much share the impatience of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. We have a widening group of those interested in online safety, who have taken a strong interest ever since the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill. We will keep pressure up on the Government, but I very much hope that they will not need too much pressuring and will respond with alacrity to these amendments.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge for bringing these important matters to your Lordships’ Committee and for speaking so passionately and clearly about the subject matter of her amendments. There is very little that I can add. My noble friend has an impressive track record in this area, her Private Member’s Bill being a striking example of that, and these amendments are very much in the same vein. As she made clear, we must all remember what is truly important here, and that is the victims of these events. They must be at the centre of all our debates, and today they have been.

I am very pleased that my noble friend has retabled Amendments 333 and 334, which were brought forward in the other place by my Honourable Friend Joe Robertson MP. The omission of recklessness as part of the offence of spiking is, as many noble Lords have said, a severe oversight by this Government; we believe that it should be rectified. My noble friend Lady Owen has our full support for this Amendment and our broad support for the rest of her amendments.

Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to my Amendment 295C, which is a probing amendment. By way of background, Schedule 9 inserts new Sections 66AA and 66AB into the Sexual Offences Act 2003. New Section 66AB contains exceptions to the new offences of taking or recording intimate photographs or films, and its subsection (3) contains an exemption for healthcare professionals who are taking intimate photos of a person who is under 16 and lacks the capacity to consent. My probing amendment would remove the provision that the person has to be under 16 for the exemption to apply. It seeks to probe the Government about a situation where, for example, a doctor has a 30 year-old patient with severe learning disabilities or an 80 year-old patient with dementia. Neither has the capacity to consent, but the doctor has to take a photo of the patient in an intimate state to show the patient’s condition to their consultant, for example. That doctor would not be included in the exemption and therefore would be liable to prosecution.

This is simply to try to understand the Government’s reasoning because, if the exemption is to apply—and it should—there should be no distinction based on age. The doctor is performing the same professional duty to a person who is 15 and cannot consent and a person who is 18 and cannot consent. I will be grateful if the noble Baroness can clarify that particular point.

My Lords, I join with all other Members of your Lordships’ Committee in expressing gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for bringing forward this large group of amendments, as well as to the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, for bringing forward Amendment 295C. I am also pleased to commend government Amendments 300 to 307 in my name, which make two changes to the existing intimate image abuse provisions in Clause 84 and Schedule 9.

This is an eclectic, disparate and rather large group of amendments. I will endeavour to address them in as concise a manner as I can, but it is going to take a bit of time, so I hope your Lordships will forgive me. I start by stressing that the Government are committed to tackling the complete violation that is non-consensual intimate image abuse. However, before I turn to the noble Baroness’s amendments, I want to make a few general comments that apply to many of the amendments in this group, and to some of the others that are being considered by your Lordships’ Committee today.

I start with a comment with which I am sure we can all agree: it is essential that the law is clear and easy to interpret. In that context, I make the following observation, not so much as a Minister, but drawing on my past experience as a senior prosecutor and judge. It is very tempting to add new offences to the statute book. Some of these are intended to spell out the conduct of which society disapproves, even when it is already caught by more general offences—or, some would say, to make something that is already criminal, more criminal.

It is tempting to say that, if such an additional offence makes no substantive change, then why not—the Government should simply accept it. However, such changes are not always without consequence. In my experience, it can sometimes make it harder to prosecute, and thus secure convictions, when there are a number of different offences on the statute book, all of which cover the same behaviour but often with slightly different elements or maximum penalties. I know that that is absolutely not the intended effect of many of these amendments, but I would gently suggest to your Lordships that it is worth bearing in mind that legislating for large numbers of new offences may not be without adverse consequences.

That said, I have the utmost respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. She and I share the determination to deal with some pretty repellent behaviour that has the ability to ruin victims’ lives; the question is how best to achieve it. As I said before, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government and I are very much in listening mode. I was very pleased to meet the noble Baroness recently, and I thank her for that. I wanted to understand better the intentions underlying some of her amendments, and I look forward to working with her closely over the coming months.

I am thankful for the contributions of my noble friends Lord Hacking, Lady Curran and Lady Chakrabarti. I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on the implementation date for the deepfake legislation, as she will probably not be surprised to hear. It will depend on a number of factors, and I cannot give her a date today. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin, Lady Maclean, Lady Sugg and Lady Shawcross-Wolfson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who was kind enough to leave the question of the ombudsman with me. I am also thankful for the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Banner and Lord Cameron, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville.

I turn now to this group of amendments. Amendment 295BA seeks to create a reporting mechanism for non-consensual intimate images to be removed within 48 hours. The Government recognise the calls to go further than the existing protections afforded by the Online Safety Act. We share the concern that some non-consensual intimate images remain online even after requests for removal have been made by the Revenge Porn Helpline. Worse still, some remain online following a successful conviction for non-consensual intimate image offences. We absolutely acknowledge this problem. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are considering how best to tackle this issue, and I hope to be able to provide more detail on the work in this area on Report.

I turn to Amendment 295BB. As I have just said, the Government recognise the harm caused by the continued circulation of intimate images and thus share the intention underlying this amendment. There are existing mechanisms that allow the courts to deprive offenders of images once they have been convicted of intimate image abuse offences. We are already amending deprivation orders so that they can be applied to seizing intimate images and any devices containing those images, regardless of whether the device was used in the offence itself. An example would be an external hard drive: even if it was not used to perpetrate the offence, it can be seized if it has the images on it. This will significantly limit the defendant’s ability to retain or access intimate image abuse material.

That said, we recognise that these existing powers were not originally designed with intimate images in mind, and that, as a result, they currently do not extend to devices that contain images but were not directly used to commit the offence. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are taking steps to strengthen the framework.

I turn to Amendments 295BC and 295BD, which were also spoken to by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I must say that the noble Viscount slightly lost me with some of the more technical details of what he was describing.

Will the Minister meet with me?

I am always delighted to meet with the noble Viscount.

Through these amendments, the noble Baroness wishes to create a statutory register of non-consensual intimate images and hashes. Once again, I commend the intention behind the amendments, but I believe that they will lead to duplication of work that I can confirm is already taking place. Organisations such as the Revenge Porn Helpline play a vital role in detecting and removing non-consensual intimate image abuse. That organisation has in place a database of existing hashes of non-consensual images that are shared with participating companies to detect and remove the images from circulation online.

Furthermore, in March this year, ofcom published its first codes of practice for the Online Safety Act regulatory regime, which set out a range of measures that platforms should implement to tackle non-consensual intimate image abuse. Ofcom is currently reviewing consultation responses on new measures for the codes, which include measures for platforms to use scanning technology to detect intimate images by matching them against appropriate databases of digital fingerprints or hashes of such images. I reassure the noble Baroness that finalised measures will be published in due course.

Amendments 295BE to 295BG, 295BJ, 298A, 299A and 300B all share the purpose of expanding all intimate image offences to include real and purported audio recording of those in an intimate state. The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, spoke powerfully about the need for this. However, the Government cannot accept these amendments for two reasons. The first is the difficulties in proving such offences, and the second is that we consider that the harm in question is covered in the main by existing offences.

As far as proof is concerned, it is a general truth that being able to identify voices is a great deal more problematic than identifying images. Awkward and possibly embarrassing though this is to be considering in your Lordships’ Committee in the middle of the working day, a few moments’ thought about the kinds of sounds recorded, given the context, will illustrate some of the difficulties. First, it would be difficult for tribunals of fact, whether magistrates, judges or juries, to determine whether the recorded audio is or purports to be that of a particular person. Secondly, the proposed definition of an intimate audio recording as one “which a reasonable person considers sexual in nature” might be hard to determine from the audio alone. In short, there are concerns about how this could be proved to the criminal standard.

In this context, I refer back to the point I made earlier: the law must be clear and enact only offences that are capable of enforcement. The Government have looked at this closely and seriously, and we have tried to identify cases where intimate audio abuse is alleged. It is our view that there does not appear to be a large number of cases where this happens in isolation. Instead, the reason for the audio abuse is usually to blackmail or harass someone. Both are criminal offences already, with blackmail carrying a significant maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment. If we are wrong about this, I know that the noble Baroness has said that she will share further evidence with me, and I am sure that this will also apply to the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir. I am happy to discuss this issue further with both of them.

Amendment 295BH seeks to define “taking” for the purposes of the new intimate image-taking offences. In our recent meeting, following the question the noble Baroness raised at Second Reading, I confirmed to her that the proposed “taking” offences as currently defined would not include screenshots, but I understand the harm that the noble Baroness seeks to prevent, and I have asked officials to look at this issue closely. I hope to provide a further update on Report.

Amendment 295C, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Lochiel and Lord Davies of Gower, seeks to amend the base offence set out in Schedule 9. This applies where an image of a person under 16 in an intimate state is taken or recorded for the purposes of medical care or treatment. The noble Lord’s amendment recognises the need for the medical exemption, but it would remove the age restriction to prevent the criminalisation of those taking or recording intimate images of a person of any age. Section 5 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 already provides for specific medical exemptions in cases where an intimate image is taken of someone over 16. I hope the noble Lord will agree that it is therefore unnecessary to extend the provision in this Bill.

Related to this are Amendments 296, 297 and 299, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, and government Amendment 300. Once again, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward these amendments. As she set out, they seek to extend the time limit for bringing a prosecution for the remaining summary-only intimate image offences. As your Lordships will be aware, the usual time limit for the prosecution of summary-only offences is six months, but we agree that the very nature of intimate image abuse is such that victims may be unaware that these images of them have been taken, recorded or shared until that period has already passed. It simply is not right that victims of these nasty offences are denied justice in this way.

Therefore, I am pleased to introduce government Amendment 300, which extends the time limit for all summary-only intimate image offences to a period that is both within three years of the offence being committed and six months of the prosecutor having sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution. We consider that this strikes the right balance between the rights of victims and those of defendants, and in the light of this government amendment I hope the noble Baroness will be content not to press her amendments that cover this issue.

Turning to Amendments 298B and 300A, as I have mentioned before, this Government wish to ensure that the courts have adequate sentencing powers to deal with those who are convicted of intimate image offences, but this must be balanced against the principle I set out at the beginning of this short speech: ensuring that the law and available mechanisms for courts are clear and do not simply replicate existing offences or existing powers in another form. So, in this spirit, I hope to reassure the Committee that this kind of behaviour can be—and, in my experience, is—already taken into account at sentencing. Although sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the independent courts, sentencing guidelines already make it clear that, when an offender did something to maximise the victim’s distress or humiliation, this can be considered as aggravating that particular offence. My personal experience of sentencing defendants is that judges would not hesitate to do so.

In addition, this conduct, commonly known as doxing, is already covered by a range of criminal offences, including several different harassment and communication offences. The Crown Prosecution Service has issued specific guidance for prosecutors in dealing with social media-facilitated crimes such as these. We have seen no evidence that the police, CPS and courts are failing to consider the existing offences and the statutory aggravating factors available, but of course, as I have already said, I would be happy to consider any evidence and information that the noble Baroness wishes to provide on this matter.

The Government will oppose Amendment 299B, which stipulates that a photograph or video depicting the victim alongside something sexual should be considered intimate. The difficulty is that, as drafted, this is extremely broad, and the reality is that such an amendment is likely to incorporate some images that are not sufficiently harmful to warrant criminalisation. For example, images of fully clothed people posing with sex toys in a sex shop would be caught by this proposed offence, and even a fully clothed person posing with a topless male stripper at a hen night would be caught.

To conclude this cluster of intimate image abuse amendments, I turn to the remaining government Amendments 301 to 307. These make small but important changes to ensure that a court can deprive an offender of an image produced as part of a breastfeeding voyeurism recording offence, as set out in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Although this offence is not one of our new intimate image offences, it is an important offence, and it is part of a wider package aimed at protecting women.

Amendments 333 and 334, on spiking, were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, and supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Maclean. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, may be interested to know that it was the Law Commission that recommended the repeal of the 1861 offences, so that is the reason for doing so. The Government do not support these amendments. We are content that extending the definition to recklessness is not necessary for prosecuting or securing convictions. The new offence as drafted deliberately covers a wide range of spiking and non-spiking behaviours, as well as the substances that can be administered. Importantly, there is no requirement, as there was under the previous law, to prove that harm was caused by the administration of substances. So, in short, this offence is very wide and it carries a 10-year maximum penalty.

Although every case will turn on its own facts, where someone spikes another person as a joke or part of a prank, we consider that this is covered by the new offence, as that person will have the intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy. In criminal law, there is a difference between the legal concept of intention and the different, non-legal concept of motive. The motive of the defendant might be to play a joke, but we anticipate with confidence that the courts will readily find that the intention was to injure, aggrieve or annoy. We are fortified in this by the fact that there is case law—

I was spiked at the age of 16 at a dance by a cousin of the hosts where I was staying. He said afterwards, “I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone”. So there are such situations—having listened to what the Minister said, I note that no one could prove that he had been anything other than rather silly. He was in his 20s and was probably drunk. He filled an orange juice jug with gin, and I spent two days in bed.

I am extremely sorry to hear about that experience. As ever, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, for whom the entire Committee has great respect.

As I was about to say, the Government are fortified in our belief that the concept of intention would be proved by the fact that there is case law that establishes that, where ecstasy was administered to another to “loosen them up”, that amounted to an intent to injure—intention being separate from the motive. The fact is that defendants say all sorts of things about what they did or did not mean; it will be for the tribunal of fact, looking at what happened, to see whether it can be sure that the intention was as specified in the statute.

We are confident that the types of behaviour that should be criminalised are already captured. Once again, I go back to the important point I set out at the beginning of this group: this new spiking offence aims to simplify the legal framework and to make enforcement straightforward. We do not want to do anything that risks undermining that by overcomplicating the offence.

Amendment 356B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, proposes to expand the scope of prohibited conduct under domestic abuse protection orders. Although I appreciate the motive underpinning this amendment, these orders already allow courts to impose any conditions that they consider both necessary and proportionate to protect victims from domestic abuse. Put simply, setting out a prescriptive list risks narrowing the flexibility and discouraging conditions that are tailored to the conditions of the offender. The police statutory guidance already includes examples, such as prohibiting direct or indirect contact and restricting online harassment, but we are happy to update this guidance to include the additional behaviours mentioned.

This has been a long speech, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me. My intention has been to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and all other noble Lords, for whom I have great regard, why the Government cannot support these amendments today. For the reasons I have set out, I invite them not to press their amendments, but I hope they will join me in supporting government Amendments 300 to 307, which I commend to the Committee.

Before the Minister sits down, can I just check something? On Amendment 299B, she knows that my intention is not to create something that is too broad but to tackle the very real and rapidly proliferating problem of semen images. It would be helpful to get clarification that the Government understand this to be an issue and are willing to work with me so that we can bring back an amendment on Report. Further, on Amendment 295BB, the Minister spoke about physical devices, but I am keen to know how the Government will tackle images shared on the cloud, because this is the real problem. Finally, on Amendment 295BA, the Minister said that more detail would be given. I just want to know whether that will be on Report or between now and Report, so that we can bring back something about the 48-hour takedown on Report. America has already won the battle on this.

As far as the revolting practice of semen images is concerned—and I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would think it was anything other than that—if an offence can be drafted that is sufficiently specific, then of course we will consider it. Our concern is that the drafting of the proposed amended offence is so wide that it would capture a lot of behaviour that should not be criminalised. As for the other two matters raised by the noble Baroness, please may we discuss them?

I am sorry, I realise that people want to get to the dinner break, but will the noble Baroness commit to meeting me, the noble Viscount and the Revenge Porn Helpline on Amendments 295BC and 295BD? She spoke about duplication. These amendments are suggested by the Revenge Porn Helpline; therefore, I do not believe that it believes it duplicates its work. It would be very helpful for us to meet and clarify that.

The answer to that is a short one: of course.

I thank the Minister for her responses. I am grateful for the engagement so far with her and Minister Davies-Jones, and I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. I am going to take these points away for further considerations, and I look forward to the meetings that we are going to have, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment 295BA withdrawn.

Amendments 295BB to 295BD not moved.

Schedule 9: Offences relating to intimate photographs or films and voyeurism

Amendments 295BE to 296 not moved.

Amendment 296A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendments 297 to 299B not moved.