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Abusive Images (Internet)

Again, my hon. Friend knows that CEOP has been campaigning for the provision of a "report abuse" button on social networking and other sites. We have encouraged it, and a number of companies, including social networking sites, are now providing such buttons. We wish to see their number increase, and we are actively pursuing that with CEOP. As well as law enforcement, CEOP has been successful in its educational initiatives. Its educational programmes have now been delivered to more than 3 million children in schools around the UK. That is another way in which we can protect young people from harm on the internet. In April 2008, Dr. Tanya Byron published her report "Safer Children in a Digital World", and the Government accepted all her recommendations in full. In September last year, we launched UKCCIS, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, a key Byron recommendation that brings together industry, charities, law enforcement and Government to help protect children online. I would like to put on record my personal thanks to Dr. Tanya Byron for her excellent work. The council will consider issues such as social networking sites and how to ensure that harmful and inappropriate content can be kept away from children, and it will work with content hosts to establish an independently monitored, voluntary code of practice for the moderation of user-generated content. Sites will be encouraged to sign up to specific, public commitments on how long they will take to remove content violating their acceptable use policies after it has been reported to them. Through UKCCIS, the Government will raise awareness of e-safety issues through a public awareness campaign targeting parents and children as part of a £9 million investment. We will also implement sustainable education and children's service initiatives to improve e-safety skills in children and parents. The initiatives will promote the use of filtering software, particularly the British Standards Institution kitemark launched in April last year. The Government strongly support the kitemark and encourage companies to apply for it. My hon. Friend is right that we have led the way on the issue. There is a lot more to do. We want the 100 per cent. target to be met. We want more action to be taken across borders in Europe, the United States and other countries so that we can work together globally to tackle the movement of such appalling imagery across networks. The fact that it is not hosted in the UK is a cause for great celebration for us, but we know that it is still accessible on sites hosted overseas. That is of concern to us, and we need to continue to work together to address it. My hon. Friend is right. It is a priority for us all. Sitting suspended.