I want to write to Baroness Benjamin
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, although I arrived a little late, I will say, very briefly, that I support the amendments wholeheartedly. I support them because I see this as a child protection issue. People viewing AI, I believe, will lead to them going out to find real children to sexually abuse. I will not take up any more time, but I wholeheartedly agree with everything that has been said, apart from what the...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I wrote to the Prime Minister in February suggesting that, like his predecessors, he host a reception at No. 10 to celebrate Windrush Day and to meet the Windrush community and Windrush victims to hear their harrowing stories. I have not received a reply. He did not attend the Stephen Lawrence 30th memorial service, despite being down to speak. The Windrush community is questioning...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I support everything that was said by the intrepid noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I will speak to Amendment 185, which is in my name and is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer. My amendment seeks to bring the regime for online pornography content in line with what exists offline. The Video Recordings Act 1984 makes it a criminal offence to have...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I support Amendment 220E in the names of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes. I also support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and Amendment 226, which deals with children’s mental health. I have spoken on numerous occasions in this place about the devastating impact child sexual abuse has and how it robs...
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to providing entitlement to legal aid to Windrush scandal victims to navigate the compensation process; and what steps they plan to take, if any, to improve the accessibility of the compensation scheme.
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I wish to speak in support of Amendments 29, 83 and 103 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie. I am extremely pleased that the Minister said last Tuesday that pornography will be within primary priority content; he then committed on Thursday to naming primary priority content in the Bill. This is good news. We also know that pornography will come within the child safety...
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to grant victims of the Windrush scandal the right to have a hearing at the Home Office.
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assist victims of the Windrush scandal who still face long waits; and what plans they have to review the levels of compensation granted to applicants of the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of findings by Human Rights Watch that human rights are being violated as a result of the failure to implement an effective compensation scheme under the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I speak in support of these amendments with hope in my heart. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for leading the charge with such vigour, passion and determination: I am with them all the way. The Government have said that the purpose of the Bill is to protect children, and it rests on our shoulders to make sure it delivers on this mission....
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I add my support for all the amendments in this group. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, for bringing the need for the consistent regulation of pornographic content to your Lordships’ attention. Last week, I spoke about my concerns about pornography; I will not repeat them here. I said then that the Bill does not go far enough on pornography, partly because of the...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, as might be expected, I will speak against Amendment 26 and will explain why. The children’s charity Barnardo’s—here I declare an interest as vice-president—has said, as has been said several times before, that children are coming across pornographic content from as young as seven. Often they stumble across the content accidentally, unwittingly searching for terms such as...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I will speak in support of the amendments in this group in the names of the intrepid noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and my noble friend Lord Storey—we are kindred spirits. As my noble friend said, the expectations of parents are clear: they expect the Bill to protect their children from all harm online, wherever it is encountered. The vast majority...
Baroness Benjamin: I thank the noble Lord. I hope that the amendments I support will be supported by CEASE, Refuge and Barnardo’s—I declare an interest here. Let us not let the chance of creating a robust Online Safety Bill slip through our fingers. It is now time to act with boldness, vision, morality and determination. I trust that we will continue to focus on the purpose of the Bill: to make the online...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, this day has not come early enough for me. I am pleased to join others on embarking on the Committee stage of the elusive Online Safety Bill, where we will be going on an intrepid journey, as we have heard so far. Twenty years ago, while I was on the Ofcom content board, I pleaded for the internet to be regulated, but was told that it was mission impossible. So this is a day I...
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, the report highlights how the treatment of the Windrush generation has caused significant and unbelievable harm. The feeling of mistrust and the daunting requirements have left emotional trauma that cannot be quantified. Many have died without their cases being resolved. Recently scrapping the three recommendations from Wendy Williams was careless and heartless, so will the...
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to include in the National Crime Agency’s Missing Persons Data Report data on the ethnicity of people who go missing including (1) the recorded risk factors of those people, such as mental health issues, sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation, (2) the length of time missing, and (3) how those people are found or return.
Baroness Benjamin: To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to collect and publish data and analysis on the ethnicity of looked-after children who go missing, including their recorded risk factors, such as mental health issues, sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation.
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. In doing so, I declare my interest as a vice-president of Barnardo’s.
Baroness Benjamin: My Lords, it is sickening, shocking and truly disturbing to read the Children’s Commissioner’s report on the thousands of children who have been strip-searched by the police unsupervised. Most of us thought that being strip-searched was a rare occurrence during the Child Q scandal. This has proven not to be so. Worryingly, those from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds appear to be...