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Online Child and Adult Protection

Yes. I will come to that point. That is very much a pillar of the work that we want to do. As has been said, ensuring that we have the legislation in place is not a panacea, but it does help to build confidence among adults and children. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West, is interested in blocking illegal images, so let me briefly say something about that. We want to make sure that people are protected online from images that might be sent to them. My hon. Friend will know of the excellent Internet Watch Foundation list and of our efforts to ensure that internet service providers take it up, but we want to go further. We have already discussed with the Office of Government Commerce the idea that one of the criteria in the selection process for Government contracts for IT services should be the need for suppliers to block access to sites containing illegal images, as held on the Internet Watch Foundation list, and I am pleased to say that the OGC will be issuing guidance. That is important in itself, but it also sends a message to the industry that we are putting our house in order and that it should therefore do everything that it can to put its own in order. On law enforcement, we recognised that the growth of the internet and children's use of social networking and other services that allow online contacts to be made raised significant safety issues. Many children were going online regularly, and there was a need to consider how law enforcement could be provided to help protect children. In 2006, the Government set up the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to tackle threats to children online. I am pleased to say that, under the superb leadership of Jim Gamble, CEOP has been tremendously successful in safeguarding more than 500 children and in helping to track down those who use the internet to contact and harm children. Using intelligence gathered through the "Click CEOP" button and other sources, it has made more than 800 arrests of suspected offenders, both itself and working with the wider UK law enforcement community. It has also worked closely with non-UK law enforcement agencies to tackle what is clearly an international problem. The hon. Member for Stone mentioned education in his intervention, and a major element in protecting children online is educating them about the threats and giving them information on how to protect themselves. CEOP has developed an education programme for children and their parents and carers called thinkuknow. It is based on CEOP's research and on the experience that it has gathered during its work. The thinkuknow website contains advice for children in clear and relevant language, as well as information for parents, carers and teachers on the dangers and how they can help children to avoid them. In addition, the Home Office, working with the Department for Children, Schools and Families, created the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. UKCCIS launched the "Click Clever Click Safe" campaign on safer internet day, which was on 9 February. A core element of the campaign is the "Click Clever Click Safe" code, which has been designed to give parents the confidence to help their children to enjoy the internet safely, and to give children and young people a better understanding of how their online experiences can expose them to risks. We want that code to be as familiar as the green cross code is to children, who are in danger of having accidents when crossing the road.