IN her first few days as the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss addressed Parliament about the importance of online safety for under-18s.

At her first Prime Minister’s Questions, she told the country she wanted to make sure people’s safety was protected online.

The NSPCC knows that a robust Online Safety Bill will protect children from harm and, four years after we first began campaigning for it, it is needed more than ever. The Bill can give children real protection from online harm that causes real world damage. An effective bill will ensure companies act on dangerous content peddled to them by algorithms, protect children from material promoting suicide and self harm, and from intimate but not illegal images of children that serve as an organising tool for child sex offenders.

The Bill essentially ensures websites, apps and games are designed with child safety in mind, meaning the onus will be on tech firms to protect children from abuse, grooming and exploitation on their sites. This means they must take steps to help stop abusers from contacting children, make it easier for people to report abuse, and deal with it faster.

With every passing month we’re likely to see an average of 3,500 sexual abuse crimes take place against children online across the country. We’re ready to support the Government to ensure the Bill systemically protects children while ensuring the fundamental rights of all internet users are guaranteed, and we hope Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan and the new Prime Minister prioritise this once-in-a-generation chance to protect the nation’s children.

We know how devastating online abuse and grooming can be for young people, and how the Bill could improve the situation. Our Childline counsellors speak to children every day about their experiences online. The fact that a child or young person has felt worried enough to take that first step and seek support shows just how serious these experiences are. But while tech firms continue to ‘mark their own homework’ and legislation remains in limbo, it feels inevitable that these awful incidents will continue, affecting hundreds if not thousands of young people.

In Yorkshire and the Humber alone, the number of grooming crimes rose by 63per cent over the last four years, and police forces have seen record levels of online child sexual abuse during the pandemic. This awful trend may mean a long-term increase in risk for children, unless action is taken at a state level. The Online Safety Bill is the best chance this country has to stop children being abused online.