Clause 5 - Operators of websites

Part of Defamation Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:45 am on 21 June 2012.

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Photo of Helen Goodman Helen Goodman Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport) 9:45, 21 June 2012

I rise to speak to my amendment 33, which would require website operators to have a complaints e-mail address and authors to release their identities to both website operators and complainants.

I agree with my hon. Friend’s remarks, particularly on amendments 18 and 20, which would ensure that the provisions give a clear basis for a claimant to get in touch with the author of a defamatory statement and give a proper process and entitlements to a claimant. I also agree with amendment 42, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, which I think drives at something similar.

My amendment was triggered by the attachment to the letter the Minister sent to all members of the Committee at the end of last week. I shall refer to that attachment in explaining my amendments in a little more detail. In the attachment, the Minister sets out not a draft of the regulations referred to in clause 5, but what he thinks those regulations should cover. One sentence leapt out at me:

“Website operators will be encouraged to set up and publicise a designated email address for this purpose as a matter of good practice.”

Encouragement is far too weak. If we are to have a system that enables people who have been defamed to contact website operators in order to get in touch with the authors of allegedly defamatory statements, it has to be clear cut. If the Minister tells me that the first part of my amendment is otiose because it already exists in another piece of legislation, I can accept it, but his regulations should make it clear, because they appear to be in conflict with provisions that are found elsewhere, so they would lead to confusion about the obligations on website operators.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South said, there is another question that I hope the Minister will address. Who are the website operators? Nowhere in the Bill do we see who the website operators are. There is a further problem: what happens if the website operator is not in the UK? I think clause 9 refers to cases where the claimant is in this country and the author is overseas in another jurisdiction.