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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I will be brief. I shall say a few words on smartphones and Motion N1 in my name. I acknowledge that the Government have made efforts in their new guidance on mobile phones, but their approach does not go far enough to meet the needs of pupils, parents or teachers—hence the need for my amendment. I thank Generation Focus and Health Professionals for Safer Screens, who have helped many of us have the privilege of listening to a range of head teachers and educational psychologists who have been able to share their experience.

Their views are absolutely clear. First, they are calling for a statutory ban so that they can be clear with the minority of parents that smartphones have no place in school. Evidence from the University of Birmingham shows that head teachers are spending literally hundreds of hours that they do not have dealing with the implementation of individual school policies. Clearly, that is not a good use of their time.

Secondly, they want a clear focus on smartphones. I noted that the Minister referred to my amendment as the “mobile phone amendment”. Of course, that was

the slip of the tongue, but it is important because it is the connection to the internet in general and to social media in particular that is causing such a huge problem in relation to safeguarding incidents and suspensions in our schools.

As I said on Report, smartphones are the gateway drug to social media. One head teacher reported in a round table that we held recently that prior to having a ban in their school for children in year 7—that is, children aged about 11—almost a quarter of all suspensions in the school were for children in year 7, and they were linked predominantly to smartphone use. That is unrecognisable from a few years ago, when it was an exception to suspend a pupil in year 7.

Thirdly, those schools which ban smartphones are seeing a delay in the age at which a child receives one. Brick phones and Balance Phones do not pose the same threats to attention, concentration and safety. This has implications not just at school but on the journey to and fro, and at home. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly raised concerns about children with special educational needs. The evidence from the medical profession is that it is precisely these children who are made most vulnerable by having a smartphone, and teachers are quite clear that it is not appropriate for a child’s special educational needs to be met with a personal device. I shared that with the noble Lord before this debate.

I am absolutely baffled by the Government’s resistance to my amendment. I am grateful to all noble Lords across the House who have supported it so far, and I hope that the Government will change their mind.

I turn to the amendments relating to social media and children. Some of your Lordships will have read the extraordinarily brave letter this morning from Ellen Roome, mother of Jools Sweeney, and other bereaved parents, many of whom are behind me in the Chamber tonight. Given the weakness of my tear ducts, which some of your Lordships have already witnessed, I will not attempt to read any of it out, but whatever noble Lords’ views, I commend it to them to read it. It is one of the most dignified and brave letters noble Lords will read.

On these Benches, we stand firmly behind my noble friend Lord Nash and his Motion G1. His Motion establishes unequivocally that there should be restrictions on harmful social media for children under 16. It leaves the details of implementation to secondary legislation and, of course, the results of the Government’s consultation could be put to good effect in informing these regulations. It places the onus on the social media companies to change their products to being safe for children to use rather than leaving everything to an already overwhelmed regulator to resolve.

I recognise and welcome the spirit in which Motion G2 is framed, building on the great expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the other now affectionately known “tech Lords”—not to be confused with the tech bros—and other noble Lords. This expertise has been forged over many years of working on these issues, showing the Government how they can improve on their current approach.

During the passage of the Bill, the House has shown great collaboration across all Benches and yet the Government appear unwilling to engage with any of us. The Minister has access to extraordinary legislative and sector expertise and to all the most expert stakeholders, who are coalescing around a proactive and effective approach. I urge her to use us.

My noble friend Lord Nash mentioned Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest. In closing, I would like to pick out some other remarks that he made. In May last year, he said:

“Now is the time to apply the same creativity and innovation that built the social media ecosystem to the vital task of protecting kids online. And if we can’t do this effectively, we lose any credibility to oppose a ban. As both a tech CEO and a parent, I know that legal compliance is not the same as safety … Our industry has had years to mitigate these harms, but has time and again failed. The time for self-regulation has passed, and if tech companies don’t change, then the path should be obvious to lawmakers. We need a clear standard: no social media for teens under 16, backed by real enforcement, and accountability for mobile phone operating systems and the apps that run on them”.

This evening, that path is obvious. It points directly to supporting my noble friend’s amendment.