Speeches by Irons.

“The channel or the user?”

“That leads to my final question. In your professional opinion, and given the amount of work that you put into keeping young people safe on your platform, do you think your competitors are doing enough on their platforms?”

“Does it though, because as a user of YouTube, you do not feel to me like a distribution channel? For users, people are interacting with them on a big screen. It feels just like a space that has filled in traditional media, so why would the organisation really want to hold on to the word distribution?”

“So who should be the regulator then? Who should regulate you?”

“Can I just clarify, to go back to supporting the children’s content ecosystem? I appreciate that, of course, you will want to, because you are focused on democratising access to markets—essentially, that is what you are trying to say—so you want to ensure that native creators have the same access to audiences as public…”

“Subject to quality, but ultimately I am sure that, if we spoke to a lot of your native creators, the thing they like is consistency and an income revenue that isn’t all over the place. You mentioned earlier about the hypothecated taxes and all the other things that are tied to the digital landscape. Are you saying that…”

“Picking up on what Jeff Smith said, you are right that the ecosystem is the thing that needs to be fixed in general, and that there are opportunities for content creators to build a brand and to take that globally and your platform allows them to do that, but what is your role in supporting the starting of that? I thin…”

“Yes, we have. We heard from—”

“I guess what I am getting at is, if I am a creator, and I have done the high bar, and I am in this thing, is there something that I as a creator can say is a badge of honour, or a kitemark from YouTube to say, “This content has the quality that we expect it to have.” Just expecting parents to assume that this is all ok…”

“I think the point is that it is not a stable income, and you do need to diversify. To put the floor back into the market, do we not need to look at how we do that?”

“How do I stop my kid watching something high quality and suddenly an unboxing video comes up next?”

“Yes.”

“I think what I am getting at is about, as a parent, making informed choices for our chidren. We have to also remember that some of their viewing does not just come from Made for Kids content. It comes from your main platform as well, because children are going on to that in a way that maybe you do not intend, but they …”

“I recently had the pleasure of visiting Coloma Convent girls’ school in my constituency, where students are campaigning on the vital issue of debt relief for developing countries and what this nation can do about it. They highlighted the stark reality that 3.3 billion people live in nations that spend more on servicing…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) for securing the debate. The system that the current Government have inherited, after years of failure on the issue by the previous Government, is complex, ineffective and simply unfair. What was s…”

“On that point about making an economic choice, we are talking about the creative industries, which are worth hundreds of billions of pounds to our economy. Ensuring we have a diverse voice and qualified people in those jobs and having access to those skills is really important. I was a working-class child who ended up …”

“I have enjoyed the perks of being an elder millennial, graduating in 2004 as a plan 1 student. The retrospective changing of the threshold, burdening plan 2 students with debt, is unbelievable, as is linking interest to the retail price index not the consumer prices index, which the Office for Budget Responsibility has…”

“I wanted to intervene on the point about principles, content and responsibility. I worked for Channel 4 before I came to this place, and we were regulated by Ofcom. Channel 4 did not create its own content, but was responsible for the editorialisation of that content. It was beholden to certain standards. Does she agre…”

“I am new to this place and clearly still learning, but I am wondering why, in that case, measures on designing out at source the harms that the hon. Member is talking about were watered down in the Online Safety Bill. She is absolutely right: we are creating online worlds, and they should be designed to be safe. Just a…”