Policy background Pre-legislative Scrutiny
In May 2021 the Online Safety Bill was published in draft. A Joint Committee of MPs and Peers, chaired by Damian Collins MP, was established on 23 July 2021 to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny. The Joint Committee took evidence from over 50 witnesses and received over 200 pieces of written evidence. The Committee published its report and recommendations on 10 December 2021.
	The Government responded to the report on 17 March 2022 confirming that a number of substantive changes were made to the Act at introduction, including, but not limited to:
Including priority offences in primary, rather than secondary legislation;
Including a new standalone provision for non-user-generated pornography, meaning all providers of online pornography are in scope of the legislation;
Including the Law Commission’s recommendations for new online communications offences;
Amending the senior manager liability offence so that it would be commenced three months after Royal Assent;
Including a new duty on Category 18 providers to offer optional user verification and user empowerment tools on their sites;
Including a new duty on Category 1 and Category 2A providers to protect users from fraudulent advertising online; and
Simplifying the definition of non-designated harmful content, and requiring Category 1 providers only to address categories of content that are legal but harmful to adults, which are designated in secondary legislation.