my guest is damian collins, a conservative mp and driving force behind efforts to cleanse the internet of fake news and harmful content in politics and online. can trust be rebuilt? damian collins, welcome to hardtalk. trust matters in politics, doesn't it? it matters a lot. of course, because people want to know that they can believe politicians when they say they're going to do things and that they will be consistent and true to their word, so it is one of the most important aspects of political life. would you accept that right now in the united kingdom, many, many voters have a real problem trusting the word of prime minister boris johnson? well, i think they've seen a lot of reporting over recent weeks about, as you said in your introduction, stories about parties at number 10 downing street when the country was locked down. they heard reassurances that anything that happened at number 10 would have been within covid guidelines. it now looks like it wasn't. so they want to know, they want to know what sue gray will report on, an independent civil servant whosejob is to explain exactly what happened, who knew about it, who was invited, what the prime minister knew — when — and i think they want to see that report and then they will reserve their judgment until that time. don't we already, as a public, don't we already know enough to have a severe trust problem with the prime minister himself? because for weeks and weeks and weeks, he has denied that events took place in downing street, which it then turns out — because of leaks in the press — did take place. any sort, any semblance of an apology from him has only been wrung out of him when press leaks made it impossible for him to deny any longer. well, i think that's why sue gray's report is important, because i think what people want to know is, well, how much did the prime minister know about these events? you know, some of them took place when he was away, out of london at his country house at chequers. his recollection of what happened on the 20th of may in 2020, when he himself had only not long come out of hospital, his wife, he and his wife had just had a baby and he had a huge amount going on, his recollection of that may not have been perfect, but, actually, what did he... sorry, i'm a bit confused by that. i mean, we know what happened on may 20th, cos we've seen the leaked email. one of his most senior staff invited, we believe, around 100 people, not 100 turned up, but we believe around 100 were invited "to make the most of the lovely weather, have some socially distanced drinks "weather, have some socially distanced drinks "in the number 10 garden, join us and bring your own booze." that was the invitation. to any sentient human being, that sounds like a party and it also sounds like it was a violation of lockdown rules at the time. and borisjohnson turned up. he was there. well, yes, he was, and he's given his explanation to parliament about that. the question is, with an event like that — and this is what i think sue gray really needs to get to the bottom of — is who knew about it in advance? you know, people supposedly raised objections about it. who were they? who signed it off? what did the prime minister know in advance? i don't think people would expect the prime minister is there, managing his own invitations in his 0utlook... no, but again... people are probably doing that for him, so... yeah, no, fair point, but it does come down to credibility and trust. boris johnson told parliament just the other day that he turned up, looked around and he still thought it was a, quote—unquote, "work event". now, i'm just asking you as, frankly, as a human being, not as a conservative mp, butjust somebody like the rest of us who knows the difference between a work situation and a social situation, whether it's credible to you that he could look around and think, "oh, this is a work event." well, i think this is — again, going back to the report — i think what's important to understand is, what was the working environment like in downing street at that time? you know, i think probably, almost certainly... bring your own booze? ..coming out of this will be something, there were problems, i think, with that environment, and i think part of restoring trust, as you spoke about at the beginning, is notjust going to be understanding, well, how many events were there like this and who knew about them, but actually to recognise that it's not how many events were there like this and who knew about them, but actually to recognise that it's not a question of apologising — what people want to see is that things are going to be put right so that the people making these decisions will probably be changed and that this won't be allowed to happen again. ah... that is part of rebuilding trust. "people will be changed," you say. i mean, would it be credible to change the staff at number 10 and not replace the guy who, ultimately, is responsible for the culture in that office, which is, of course, the man who owns that office, the prime minister himself? could he just get rid of all his staff and carry on as normal? well, no, that's why his report, the report is important, because we've seen press reports about particular events, we're speculating about what may have been going on within downing street at the time because none of us really know, but what sue gray will get to the bottom of is, well, how many events were there? who went to them? who signed them off? with respect, she won't get to the bottom of it, because she's not a police officer. sue gray can't look into their heart and soul and get an oath under testimony to know that they are not lying. people might lie. but she will have access to emails and documents from within the building, she'll be able to talk to the police about... i mean, this is one of the most monitored buildings in the world. this is, you know, the centre of the british government, so it's probably difficult to keep a secret in that building and therefore she will have access to information we don't have access to and then she will make her report, but i think, you know, going back to what you said at the beginning about restoring trust is, i think now it's about giving people some resolution, giving people some facts and information, making appropriate decisions and probably recognising that the culture there is not right and needs to change. i'm sure you've seen the opinion polls over the weekend, as i have — roughly three quarters of people think that borisjohnson broke lockdown rules. only 8% not. 13% think that he's telling the truth, 64% convinced he's not. even people inside your own party, it seems, a preponderance of them believing that boris johnson should resign. these are opinion polls, which, for you as a politician, matter, don't they? well, i've been, like most of my colleagues, been in my constituency friday and this weekend and i've spoken to party members, people who've been loyal party members and activists for many years, and i would say, by far, the clear view that i've had from them is, we should give him, the prime minister, the benefit of the doubt until we see what's in sue gray's report. really? hm. amazing that your constituency flies in the face of the polling evidence from across the country. well, i know other colleagues have had similar feedback as well and i don't know the sample to that polling, whether that is actual party members orjust people who claim to be registered, claim to be voters who vote conservative. people are angry and people want to know what's going on, and the prime minister acknowledged that in his statement in the house, that regardless of what may have been thought or said at the time of that party in the garden, you cannot explain it away. you cannot say that it was justifiable. it was clearly wrong, it should never have happened, and so people are rightly angry about that and want to know, i think, what the prime minister's going to do to put this right. 0ne conservative mp said he'd had a deluge of angry emails. he said he'd had over 400. how many have you had? i've had a good number. it would be in the hundreds, certainly. i don't know the actual total. all very angry about this? well, a lot of people are very angry about it. yes, absolutely. william wragg mp said this. he said, "frankly, i am worn out defending "the invariably indefensible. " he thinks boris johnson should go. he's not the only conservative mp. perhaps half a dozen have gone public with that, but there are apparently more behind the scenes. are you one of them? no, i'm not. the prime minister has my support. like many people, i want to see what sue gray has in her report. i said last week he did the right thing to apologise and now we need to see what's in that report. but i think the reason people are prepared to give the prime minister the benefit of the doubt, they want to see what's actually in this report about what was going on, is they recognise that he has done... he's taken very many important decisions during the pandemic with relation to the vaccine, with relation now to the booster programme and hopefully we will be coming soon out of the plan b restrictions because of the 0micron variant and being one of the leading countries in europe, if not the world, in hopefully our exit from the pandemic and therefore i think people also weigh up many of those decisions, which the prime minister has been absolutely central to. but, again, it comes back to trust and it comes back to how people see him as a leader. now, caroline nokes, who used to have ministerial office, doesn't any more in your party, she said, "regretfully," because of these issues, in her view, "he looks like a liability. "he is damaging us. "he is damaging the entire conservative brand with an unwillingness to accept the strictures during covid that others have lived by." that's her conclusion. what would it take for you to reach a similar conclusion, that he is damaging your party? well, ithink, you know, you're reading out from caroline nokes and william wragg, two of about, i think, half a dozen mps that have spoken out against the prime minister. the others, therefore, haven't. i think most mps in the parliamentary party would be in the position i'm in of saying, "well, "we think the prime minister's right to apologise. "it's right that we're having this independent report. "we want to see what that report says, know what the "facts are, as can be established by sue gray, before making any decisions." and until that time, the prime minister has my support and the support of the vast majority of conservative mps. now, you have focused much of your time and energy in parliament in recent years leading an effort to make a safer, more — if i can use the word again — trustworthy environment online. you headed up the culture select committee for some years — you don't any more — but still you're a key player in trying to push through the british parliament legislation on online safety. do you believe, as you once said, still, that online is a "wild west culture"? i do, and it's partly because of the kind of self—governing regime that exists within the internet and the big tech companies. they largely, at the moment, police themselves. they share a minimum amount of information about what they do, the decisions they take, how effective they really are at removing harmful content and hate speech. and we're often reliant on investigative journalists or whistle—blowers like frances haugen, who recently spoke out about facebook based on her experience of working there, to shine a light on it. so the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, when i chaired it, we did a big inquiry four years ago, looking at disinformation and fake news. we concluded then there needed to be an independent regulator with investigatory powers and we're now, in the uk, about to introduce legislation to do just that. and most recently, i've chaired a specialjoint committee of both houses of parliament, which was given the remit of scrutinising the government's draft bill before it's introduced to parliament in the next couple of months. and, again, the role of this independent regulator is key to that. you appear to have, frankly, very little trust at all in the governance of the big tech companies, and we're talking about the company now known as meta, of course. but we're talking about, i guess, google as well and twitter and these vastly influential companies. you seem to have no faith in their governance, but you want them, in the future, to have much greater responsibility to take very important decisions about what represents online harm. why would you think they'd be capable of doing that? well, i wouldn't leave it to them. and that's why what we recommended with our joint committee report was that the online safety regime should be based on existing offences in uk law, where the job of the regulator is explained, it's explaining to the big tech companies through established codes of practice what their requirements are, that they are liable for harmful content on their platforms and if they don't act...set out in the codes of practice, the minimum standards set out in the codes of practice, then they themselves could be fined. the companies exist at the moment in a world where they would say, "well, we don't write "the extremist content," that you've got to go after the person who's doing it. "we're just merely hosting it." but they play a central role in recommending and promoting that content. so what we want to do is... do you want hold them to account as publishers? yes, because they... but then it gets extraordinarily complicated very quickly, doesn't it? i mean, on the face of it, it sounds fairly straightforward and simple, and you point at the way in which in the past, social media has been used to propagate terrorist thought, child abuse, many illegal acts. but the grey area is this stuff which isn't exactly illegal, but you deem to be harmful. and ijust wonder how you expect even 0fcom or any other government regulator to be able to draw clear lines which say, "this is acceptable, "but this just isn't." this is a really important point about the draft bill as it currently stands and why, in the joint committee report we published in december, we recommended making quite a big change here, because i think one of the problems with the bill as currently drafted is you have these grey areas of legal but harmful content, and what you need to do is give people much more clarity. so the tech companies know what they're supposed to do in terms of acting on it. a user knows when they're there, they are engaging with content that could be in breach of the law. and so what we want to do is say, we've got existing offences in law, so we have equalities legislation that protects people's defined characteristics, over their sexual orientation and religious beliefs, for example. and therefore, how do we apply that legislation online? what are the thresholds where we say, the abuse someone is suffering is below the acceptable standards and we believe would put the user, the person posting that content, in breach of the equalities legislation? that's an impossible task, isn't it? you mentioned sexual identity, gender identity. that's an extraordinarily difficult area to navigate, where one person's transphobia is just another person's recognition of biological fact. one could talk about covid and the enormously controversial debate about vaccinations. i mean, nobody, frankly, who listens to the science, doubts that vaccinations are effective and work. but there's a difference between saying, "i don't want to get vaccinated and i won't get vaccinated" and saying, "i believe that you should inject yourself "with bleach because that's an effective means "of preventing covid." you know, one is harmful. one must mightjust be an opinion that you personally think is extremely irresponsible. but how do you define what breaks this new law? well, firstly, so the codes of practice are there to guide the companies and understanding when the regulator thinks they should intervene, when we think that threshold has been established. when we're basing this on existing laws, we know what the thresholds are. there are case law that establishes where we think the thresholds lie. we have existing legislation already — it's called the malicious communications act — which apply sanctions if communications could lead to likely physical harm of an individual or severe psychological harm. now, the 0nline safety bill and actually a recent report by the law commission looks at this in some details, and believes you can have legislation where someone who's a likely audience, maybe a group of people who've been deliberately targeted with information that's likely to cause serious psychological harm or physical harm to that audience. that is where the threshold will come in. now, what you've got to do, though, is you can't pass this legislation and just let the companies interpret it and get on with it. the job of a regulator in a system like this is to set out in codes of practice, "these are minimum standards we expect you to hit," but crucially, we think the minimum standards should be set in law in the uk. it shouldn'tjust be based on the terms of service written in silicon valley. you want fines, swingeing fines of up to £18 million, as i understand it, and it could go further. it could go to a percentage of their annual turnover. 10% of global annual turnover. which is an astronomical amount of money for some of these giant multinational corporations. no other country at the moment is anywhere close to following britain's lead. do you think britain can plough this furrow on its own? well, yes, i think we can legislate to set the laws that the companies have to have to follow for content that is accessed by users in the uk. this has already been done elsewhere in the world in different ways by different countries. so germany, for example, enforces its hate speech laws online, and the tech companies can face liability and sanctions against them for failing to act there. but those sorts of massive fines that you're talking about, they would kick in if a company was in serious and repeat breach of its obligations as defined under the act, with no intention of cooperating. there's potentially very big fines to come with that. also within the bill, if a company is not cooperating with the authorities and the regulator, then a named director could face criminal sanctions as well. but those are the most extreme punishments that exist. what we would expect is the companies want to work with the regulator and comply. but people would know if they don't, then there are meaningful penalties in place. again, it seems to me it's a grey area. i mean, you mentioned frances haugen and her testimony in washington, dc and her revelations, as she put it, about the negative impacts that facebook knew that some of its sites were having particularly on young minds. now, she says, and i'm quoting her direct, "i believe "facebook�*s products harm children, stoke division "and weaken our democracy. " her point wasn't necessarily about individual posts. it was about the algorithm. it was about the whole approach that facebook takes to attracting eyeballs and monetizing its product. are you saying that as part of your taking on of big tech, you want them to be much more transparent about their "secret sauce," their algorithms, the way that they use their product to draw in and keep eyeballs? yes, absolutely. this has got to be a lot more than just content moderation, looking at individual bits of content and saying, "should that be taken down or not?" it's saying the systems are driving that content through the internet. that is why this legislation is necessary. that is why the harm is greater. an individual person, you know, posting content only a few group of people can see can do very little damage. but we saw, we discussed this with facebook and facebook gave evidence to the committee. there was a study done a few years ago looking at facebook in germany that said over 60% of people on facebook that joined groups that were sharing and disseminating extremist content did so at facebook�*s recommendation. see, facebook say this, and it's important to get their position... i mean, mark zuckerberg, notably, has not seen fit to come to the uk and talk to you in your committee. but, nonetheless, other facebook senior people have. antigone davis, she said this, she said, "we have no "business interest — at all — in providing "people with a negative or unsafe user experience." they fundamentally reject your notion of what they are about. that's because they make... they have a mistaken belief that engagement can only ever be a positive metric, because if people didn't enjoy the experience, they wouldn't come back. but you mentioned frances haugen earlier, and one of the pieces of evidence she published was the study facebook did looking at instagram users in the uk and in the us, particularly teenage girls. it said between about, i think it was about 20% in the us, up to about 30% of the uk, girls in the research group, said that they had heightened levels of anxiety and depression having used the site. but the same research also said they felt they couldn't not use it because they couldn't miss out on what their friends were doing. so facebook makes these decisions. it balances engagement versus harm, and too often it favours engagement, keeping engagement high, rather than reducing harm. and there's a very good example of this as well relating to the us presidential election in 2020, where facebook, in the run—up to polling day, decided to try and dampen down fake news and disinformation by favouring trusted news sources in the algorithm over civic society groups, which are considered to be riskier in terms of disinformation. what they discovered was this was very effective at dampening down the disinformation hate speech on the platform, but it dropped engagement as well. after the election, they changed those settings and that helped create the storm that led to january 6th. well... so, facebook is experimenting all the time in the way it uses data and information to drive engagement. and our concern is it favours engagement over safety too often. interesting, you used the phrase there about trusted news sources. let me end by asking you, if i may, about the bbc. maybe it's invidious, because i work for the bbc, but i think it's actually very important for british culture. the government, through culture secretary nadine dorries, has just announced on twitter, not before parliament, but on twitter that this licence fee that funds the bbc — it's a sort of a tv tax, which everybody pays in the country — it will be brought to an end, that by 2028, the bbc will, in essence, be wound up as it currently is constituted. it will no longer be funded in the way that it's been funded for the last 70 years or more. do you support that? the idea of ending the licence fee as the mechanism for raising the money, yes, i do. i think the licence fee is something which was born in another world. for many years, we've been discussing what its replacement would be. for me, the important thing is to say the bbc is a very important institution for the uk and around the world. tell me what you think could keep the bbc�*s vast array of services going that is not, in essence, some form of tv tax or something similar on the public. because the bbc does everything from local radio to education, to public service, to news, to popular entertainment. it does a vast array of things, and not all of those things are going to be paid for by a netflix—style subscription. no, and i don't think that will be necessary. some things could be. i think it's right to say, where could the bbc raise more commercial money? it looks to do that through making programmes for other people at the moment and also exporting its own programmes around the world. what are the things about the bbc we want to keep? i think the things you've just listed are things that people want to keep. what's that going to cost? where's the money going to come from? we actually probably wouldn't want to see a fully commercial bbc, because that would have a very bad impact on, certainly, other uk commercial broadcasters. so we have to think about the market impact there as well. but we also have to think, in a digital age, when people are increasingly moving away from traditional sources of television, to make people pay for a service they don't use, you know, through the licence fee, it's probably not the right way to do it. so i think the public service elements of broadcasting we want to keep and protect... people will be watching and listening around the world and listening to this around the world, and they will worry and perhaps wonder whether the bbc as they know it... and people have talked about it as an amazing example of soft power that britain gives to the world that won't survive power that britain gives to the world. that won't survive this commercialisation that you're talking about. well, i see no reason why it can't. i mean, but what i'm saying is, i think we'll see a hybrid model where there will be some public support, public funding for public service broadcasting. we will probably want the bbc to try and build up its commercial revenues. the director general wants to do that himself and has talked about that in the past, through notjust only making programmes and exporting them and selling them, but whether services like iplayer could have international subscriptions. you know, could there be... my view is, could there be additional bolt—on subscription services you could build into the bbc? those won't. .. those won't fill the gap left by the licence fee. so i don't think it's a question of saying, "we're going to take all that public money away and let the "bbc stand on its own two feet." i think it's a question of saying the mechanism of raising the money the bbc needs is going to change. how do we do that but still keep the bbc that we love? and that's, i think, what the debate is going to be. what nadine dorries is saying now is, "we're going to start that debate now, start that debate now," saying, "over the next five years, we're going to have a debate "about how the bbc should be funded." part of that, in my view, has to be, what do we want the bbc to do, and will the bbc have enough funds to do the things we want it to do? damian collins, we do have to end there. i thank you very much indeed for being on hardtalk. thank you. thanks. hello. clear skies across most parts of the uk at the moment. may mean we're getting to see a full glimpse of the first full moon of the season, the wolf moon, but it also has led to temperatures dropping quite widely. a widely frosty start to tuesday morning, maybe as low as —3 to —5 in some parts of central, southern england, and it's here where we've got some dense patches of fog to start the tuesday morning commute. some of that could start to build for a while during the morning rush—hour but then slowly start to shift during the morning. lots of sunshine elsewhere. a bit more breeze to the north and west, so not as cold here, but it's here in northern ireland and western scotland we'll see some outbreaks of rain develop from lunchtime into the afternoon. most parts, though, will stay dry. cloud amounts increase. predominantly sunny, though, for northern england. and with winds lightest towards the south and east of the country, here, we'll see temperatures actually the lowest after that foggy start — only 3 to 5 celsius for one or two. the milder breeze out in the west lifts temperatures between 9 and 11 celsius. into this evening, some showers for a time in scotland and then another batch will push in on strengthening winds, all tied into this cold front. this is a bit more active than the one that precedes it, just bringing a few showers across england and wales during the night, meaning not as cold a start to wednesday morning. but cold air will be pushing southwards through the day behind this zone of cloud and showers which starts around the borders of scotland, northern england, north wales and then drifts its way southwards. in its wake, though, most will see good long sunny spells through the afternoon. one or two showers dotted around to the north and northwest, those showers turning wintry in northern scotland — just 2 degrees in lerwick, holding onto around 10 celsius in the south. but as we go through into wednesday night and thursday morning, a widespread frost will develop once again. perhaps for some of you, a colder night than we will start tuesday. and that frost will be greeted with some sunshine overhead too. but a cold breeze down eastern coasts could feed in one or two wintry showers for a time. a noticeable wind—chill here. maybe feeling subzero through the day across some eastern coastal counties of england. come further west, with the winds lighter, temperatures up to where we should be for this stage in january. another chilly night to come, then, through thursday night into friday, and as the high—pressure starts to drift its way southwards once again, we are back to the problems with mist and fog in the south, but allowing more of an atlantic breeze to push in through the north, bringing varying amounts of cloud and lifting the temperature a little bit. and, crucially, for much of the uk, end of the week and the weekend will be staying dry. see you soon. welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines: tonga's volcanic eruption, an anxious wait for news from the pacific islands where communication is cut—off. borisjohnson�*s former top adviser says the prime minister was warned about staff drinks parties during lockdown, downing street deny the allegations. after novak djokovic is deported from australia, now the world tennis number one could also be barred from playing in the french open. and — one of the great wartime mysteries — who betrayed the family of anne frank to the nazis?