19:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 69 / Noes: 279 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate, not least to further my education in my personal passion area of parliamentary procedure.
Let me begin by responding to the motion, and then I will turn to the substance of the debate. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) will accept that no Government could accept a motion such as that proposed by the Liberal Democrats. The motion goes against the Standing Orders of the House, which state that the Government as elected by the people control the Order Paper, apart from specific exemptions such as Opposition days. The motion would give the Liberal Democrats free rein to schedule the business on 9 March. Today they introduced a Bill. It is still not available to Members across the House, yet they are asking the House to hand them control of business to complete all stages of the Bill within a day. That is no way to make complex changes to the law in this area.
This is not just a procedural outrage; more than that I am sorry to see the Liberal Democrats join the Conservative party yet again in their usual coalition of putting political desperation on this question ahead of the interests of British children and families. I urge the Liberal Democrats to forget this approach, and to take part in the Government’s consultation, which is a true attempt at engaging across parties and across the country, so that we find the right solution for children and parents. This Government have already set out a way forward that considers those vital issues in a responsible way, and allows for swift action in response. That is how we will give children the childhood that they deserve and prepare them for the future.
Wera Hobhouse
I do not know where the Minister has been, but my inbox has been inundated by families and parents who are calling for action. We are responding to the request of our constituents to take action. Do the Government not see the urgency with which we need to take action?
Kanishka Narayan
The Government are seeing both urgency and responsibility in the correspondence that we are receiving and the consultation we are engaging with, not the desperate lurch to a specific answer that the Liberal Democrats are exemplifying in this instance. I want to take this opportunity to set out our approach.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
I say gently to the Minister that if he were to look at the Liberal Democrat’s track record over the past few years, he will see that we have worked really hard to put forward concrete proposals about putting online safety first.
Victoria Collins
No, but we have tried to push that agenda. It is not as if social media came into existence yesterday—Facebook was launched 22 years ago—and the Government brought forward the consultation after pressure from across the House. So I say gently to the Minister that we are trying to work together and that we want to continue to work together in that vein.
Kanishka Narayan
I take the hon. Member’s point about wanting to work together. The Government are committed to doing exactly that. It is not a question of whether we act, but how we implement specific changes to secure our children’s future. I encourage her and the entire Liberal Democrat party to engage with the consultation.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
On that point, will the Minister give way?
Kanishka Narayan
I will make a little progress having already given way twice to Liberal Democrat Members in short succession.
To be clear, it is crucial that we allow for a short, sharp consultation to allow the different parts of the debate to be heard, including crucially the voices of children themselves, who are too often under-represented in the debate. This is a complex area and it is vital that we get it right.
We have already announced that we will act both with speed and appropriate scrutiny to legislate based on the outcome of the consultation. Last month, the Secretary of State set out to the House that technology has huge potential for good: to create goods, to drive growth, to transform our public services and so much more. However, we have also been clear that in order to harness the potential benefits, parents need to have confidence that their children can benefit from the opportunities that the online world offers, ensuring that technology enriches, not harms, children’s lives.
Most children report benefits from being online, such as interacting with their peers, finding useful information or learning a new skill. But we also know that there are concerns about children’s online experience. This Government have always been clear that the protection of children online is our top priority. The Online Safety Act 2023 introduced one of the most robust systems globally for protecting children from harm online.
Anna Dixon
I thank the Minister for his remarks, and I hope that part of the consultation will involve looking at research. The Born in Bradford study is a huge cohort study that has recently looked at social media use by 12 to 15-year-olds in the Bradford district. It found that they are using social media for 3.36 hours per day and that there are associated increases in anxiety and depression. Will the Minister ensure that the harms from social media that we already know about, including that research, will be factored in as he makes decisions, following the consultation, to act swiftly to protect our children from harm?
Kanishka Narayan
I commend my hon. Friend on her consistent commitment to evidence-based policy making in this place, and beyond it too. I commit to her that both the Born in Bradford study, which she mentioned, and wider research will be in the front of the Government’s mind.
Caroline Voaden
Will the Minister tell the House when the consultation will be launched?
Kanishka Narayan
We will be very glad to come to the House as soon as the consultation is launched. It will be very soon indeed. As we have said, Members will expect not just a consultation—[Interruption.] I have not committed to debate the consultation today, prior to having published it. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats will take a lesson from that and follow appropriate procedure in this place.
The illegal content and child safety duties came into effect last year. Those duties represent a major milestone in protecting children from illegal and harmful content online, as well as helping them to have age-appropriate online experiences.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Consultation and timeframe is key, because while we procrastinate, online harm is continuing and our children are being put at risk. The statistics around online pornography show that up to 50% of boys aged 11 to 13 have already viewed pornography, and it is influencing their minds on a daily basis with regard to relationships and how they conduct their business. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that the consultation will come to this place very soon? Can he give timeframes thereafter, following the consultation, as to when we will see legislation brought before this House?
Kanishka Narayan
I can confirm to the hon. Member that the Government have committed to act robustly by the summer, which is about as short and sharp as a consultation can get. Instead of procrastinating on this question, I encourage her to engage intensively with the process of consultation and the national conversation.
I mentioned illegal content duties, as well as child safety duties. Under those duties, services must now conduct highly effective age assurance, precisely addressing the point raised by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), to prevent children in the UK from encountering pornography, as well as content that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. Platforms are also now legally required to put in place measures to protect children from other types of harmful content. That includes abusive or hateful content, bullying content and violent content.
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the decisive action that he took over the recent Grok incident. Given the scope of the consultation and the fact that we are talking about online harms, I want to flag the issue we have around content on YouTube, which is a video-sharing platform, not necessarily a social media platform. The type of content that our children are consuming on there is a quick succession of images, which is not very good for a child’s development, rather than the slow-paced stuff we get when we watch a broadcaster. Will the consultation look at the quality of content on these platforms? Not all screentime is equal; some screentime can be quite dangerous for a child’s development in general.
Kanishka Narayan
Both of my hon. Friend’s points—on the scope of how we look at particular platforms and at their functionalities—are not just considered by the consultation, but deeply important. I engaged with the Australian Minister on this issue just last week, trying to understand their experiences of this and the uncertainty of getting those two things right. That is exactly why the consultation has been an appropriate approach in this context.
Where services fail to comply with their duties in the Act, Ofcom’s enforcement powers include fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue. Ofcom has indicated that it has issued financial penalties to six companies under the Online Safety Act amounting to more than £3 million. I can confirm to the House that just yesterday, Ofcom announced that it has fined a porn company £1.35 million for failing to introduce proper age verification on its websites—the largest fine levied so far under the Act. I welcome this strong action to protect children online.
We have always been clear that while the Online Safety Act provides the foundations, there is more to do to ensure that children live enriching online lives. Like all regulatory regimes, it must remain agile. That is all the more critical given that we are dealing with fast-moving technology. That is why this Government have already taken a number of decisive steps to build on these protections.
The first act of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was to make online content that promotes self-harm and suicide a priority offence under the Online Safety Act. That means that platforms must take proactive steps to stop users seeing this content in the first place. If it does appear, platforms must minimise the time that it is online. As well as that, both intimate image abuse and cyber-flashing are now priority offences under the Online Safety Act.
Last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stood in this Chamber and made it clear that the creation of non-consensual deepfakes on X is shocking, despicable and abhorrent. She confirmed that we would expedite legislation to criminalise the creation of non-consensual intimate images, and I am pleased to confirm to the House that that came into effect earlier this month. That will also be designated as a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, and it complements the existing criminal offence of sharing or threatening to share a deepfake intimate image without consent.
Alongside that, it was announced that we will legislate to criminalise nudification tools to make it illegal for companies to supply tools to be used as generators of non-consensual intimate images. Last week, we went further still and announced that we will introduce a legal duty requiring tech companies to remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours of them being reported. These measures will provide real protection for women and girls online.
However, we recognise the strength of feeling up and down the country and right across this House—not least in this debate. We share the concern of many parents about the wider impact of social media and technology on children’s wellbeing. The rapid growth of grassroots campaigns such as Smartphone Free Childhood highlights how concerned parents are about the pull of these technologies and what it means for their children. That includes the potential impacts on mental health, sleep and self-esteem.
We have set out our commitment to supporting parents and children with these issues. We want to find solutions that genuinely support the wellbeing of our children and to give parents the help that they need as they guide children through online spaces safely.
Dr Chowns
I have received contact from hundreds of parents in my constituency and from some young people sharing their huge concern about online harm caused by engagement with social media, so I fully understand the sense of urgency in the Chamber and the desire for quick action. The Government said in January that they would consult. They reiterated that they would consult, and they reiterated that commitment 10 days ago. I understand that the consultation is due to start in March, and the Minister has talked about bringing measures through before the summer. Can he commit to acting with real urgency and bring that consultation forward? What is the delay? Will he commit to bringing legislation—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. Lady has repeatedly made very long interventions. It was always open to her to attend the opening of the debate and to speak in it.
Kanishka Narayan
I totally agree with the hon. Member’s call for urgency. I assure her that first, the Government will act by the summer in robustly responding to the consultation. Secondly, we have been focused on getting the consultation right, and not just for the wider public; we are ensuring that it is designed for young people’s engagement, which requires particular design features. Thirdly, we are not waiting for the launch of the consultation to have the national conversation. I have been in schools and met parents, as have the Secretary of State and Ministers from across Government, so the conversation has very much started, and I am sure that the consultation is also imminent.
While there is consensus that problems remain, there is not yet consensus on the best way to address them. That is why the Government announced last month that we will be launching our short, sharp consultation and national conversation on further measures. We recognise that while some people support age restrictions on social media for children, there are diverse views on both the “what” and the “how”. Prominent voices in this debate, including the Molly Rose Foundation and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, are concerned that blunt age limits might not be the right approach and risk doing more harm than good. Even among those who support age limits, there are differing views on how to apply them, including which services restrictions should apply to. Those views are worthy of consideration, but we need to consider them properly and responsibly—we owe that to our children.
That is why the consultation approach is the responsible path forward for looking at these issues, considering in a swift and evidence-based way the full range of implications and the most effective way of protecting children and enhancing their lives online. We will consult with parents, the organisations representing children and bereaved families, tech companies and—crucially—children and young people themselves. None of that would be allowed under the motion we are considering today. This consultation, backed by the national conversation, will identify the next steps in our plan to boost and protect children’s wellbeing online. The consultation will include exploring the option of banning social media for children below a certain age, as well as a range of other measures. This will include gathering views and evidence on options such as restricting access to addictive functionalities and understanding what we can do better to support parents in navigating their children’s digital lives. We will also explore whether we should raise the digital age of consent, to give parents more control over how their children’s data is used, and how existing laws on age verification could be better enforced.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
The Minister is making lots of observations about the consultation that is going to go ahead—what is going to be in it, and how long it is going to take. What we do not know is when he will commit to bringing legislation before this House to act against social media.
Kanishka Narayan
I am happy to repeat to the hon. Member this Government’s commitment, which is that we will act by the summer. That is about as short and sharp as a consultation period gets. The Online Safety Act took seven years; we are simply asking for one quarter to make sure that young people, parents and families across the country are properly heard from.
John Milne
I understand the consultation, but what about actual legislation?
Kanishka Narayan
I will simply repeat the point I have made, which is that we are going to act by the summer. We have already sought permissive powers to ensure that the Government are able to act on the outcome of the consultation through rapid legislation. I hope the combination of those two commitments gives the hon. Member some assurance.
The engagement and consultation will take place alongside work with counterparts. We will be monitoring developments in Australia on its social media ban for under-16s to share learnings and best practice. We are steadfast in our belief that the right way to deliver the next steps to protect our children online is to be led by the evidence through our short, sharp three-month consultation.
Kirsty Blackman
The Minister has just said that the Government have already sought permissive powers. I understand that they are going to move an amendment in lieu to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but I am not aware that that amendment has been published yet, much less agreement sought from the House. When will that be published, so that we can see what those permissive powers are supposed to be?
Kanishka Narayan
I thank the hon. Member for that point, and commit to her that we are going to try to do that as soon as possible. She will be aware that the legislative process is already very tight, so I will come back to her and the House with the wording of the motion as soon as possible.
Last week, as I have mentioned, the Secretary of State confirmed that we will take new legal powers to allow us to act quickly on the outcomes of the consultation, delivering on our promises to parents. We will make sure that the wording is presented to the House at the earliest opportunity. We also recognise the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and the expertise that parliamentarians in both Houses provide, and have already committed that when regulations are brought forward, they will be debated on the Floor of the House and there will be a vote in both Houses, ensuring proper scrutiny. We are clear that the question is not whether we will act, but what type of action we will take. We will ensure that we do so effectively, in lockstep with our children and in the interests of British families.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
The Minister for Digital Government and Data (Ian Murray)
I thank the Liberal Democrats for securing this debate, although I am slightly disappointed by the way in which that was done. I will not concentrate on procedural issues, but it seems to me that the argument is to give the Liberal Democrats the freedom of the House to introduce a piece of legislation that they want to work on while already having all the answers.
The use of a procedural motion for this serious debate is rather unfortunate. I think that has been demonstrated in the strength of feeling in the debate. I am completely and utterly split. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), asked us to give an opinion, but I do not really know what the best thing to do is. I have a five-year-old girl and a one-year-old girl. The jobs that they will do when they are any of our ages have probably not even been invented yet. I want them to be able to live their lives, and to exploit, experience and enjoy social media and what new tech has to offer, but I want them to do so safely. Denying them that opportunity might not be the answer, but that is why consultation is put in place.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who opened the debate, mentioned her own children and the daily fight between screentime, online and doing other things. I am sure that I had the same fight with my own parents when they tried to turn the television off at night, so this is not a new battle, but it is a battle that parents will win—whether we negotiate or treat them with sweets or something else. This highlights the importance of the approach that we are taking, which allows proper consideration of a range of views—that is urgent.
I have a whole stack of incredibly sobering but also very contradictory statistics here, which is why consultation and national conversation are important. Some 99% of 12 to 17-year-olds reported that they benefit from being online. One statistic suggests that half of parents think that the benefits of children being on social media outweigh the risks, while another says that just three in 10 parents think that.
Looking at that data—there is a whole host of it in that context—we might think that this is a difficult issue to resolve, but then we come to the child sexual exploitation and abuse issues. There were 41,000 obscene publication offences in December 2024—an 860% increase in a decade. In September 2025, there were 42,000 obscene publication offences—a near 1,000% increase since 2013. Some 91% of child sexual abuse material found online is self-generated, often under pressure from manipulation. Let us be quite clear, because some Members do not get this: it is illegal to create, possess or distribute child sexual abuse images, including those generated by AI, regardless of whether they depict a real child. That is already against the criminal law. The Online Safety Act requires in-scope services to assess the risks to their users of child sexual abuse material. That cannot be clearer.
Sir John Hayes
Of course, the Minister is right that there is all kinds of data about online activity, but what is plain and truthful is that academic evidence suggests not only that there are risks of the kind that he has just described—of abuse, exploitation and so on—but that children’s very consciousness is being altered, including their ability to socialise, to learn and to comprehend. That of itself requires the Government to act, for a generation of children are being exploited by heartless tech companies that are careless about the damage they do.
Ian Murray
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. [Interruption.] I am sorry to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). The Government are acting at pace, but we want to act in the right way. We must act in the right way because this is such a complex and serious issue. It is important for children to be able to seize the opportunities that being online can offer. We have heard about iPad-only schools. Parents must be confident that their children are safe—that is key. If we do not want to exclude children from age-appropriate services that benefit their wellbeing, we must act on the evidence and ensure that we strike the right balance between protecting children’s safety and wellbeing, and enabling them to use technology in positive and empowering ways.
Dame Chi Onwurah
Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that, in this debate on protecting children from some of the most obscene abuse, not one Reform Member is present?
Ian Murray
And the Reform party wants to dismantle the Online Safety Act. We are trying to resolve its potential imperfections, get it implemented and take it forward through the consultation, but Reform wants to scrap it. I have already said that anybody who thinks that the illegal possession and creation of child sexual images is acceptable under the banner of free speech does not deserve to be sitting in this House.
I have only a few minutes, and many Members made superb contributions; let me run through some of them. I have no idea whether the shadow Secretary of State supports the Online Safety Act or taking this proposal forward to a consultation, but we have to be evidence led. We share a desire to keep children safe online, but she has politicised the whole issue. It is not contradictory to want our children to have access to social media and benefit from it, and want to protect them; in fact, most Members said that they want to do that.
Lots of Liberal Democrat Members asked about timelines. Let me just say to them that there are not too many sleeps to go before they will see the consultation. Crucially, the Government will table amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that will allow us to implement the outcomes of the consultation through secondary legislation within months—before the summer, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan) said. There is a primary legislative vehicle there already, and we can introduce the secondary legislation later.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about the legislation not having been scrutinised. That is the position of the SNP—it does not scrutinise legislation on matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament—but that is their decision. It is not the decision of this House; its procedures do not require that.
I pay tribute to the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), and the Committee members for all their work on this issue. They are experts, and I have enjoyed listening to their speeches.
The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) mentioned advertising and drugs policy. As a joint Minister for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I chair the online advertising taskforce, which is trying to deal with issues relating to online advertising. We are working with the Home Office on a fraud strategy and are trying to ensure that online advertising spaces are well regulated and looked after.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North was absolutely right to talk about eating disorders and suicide. I have heard some absolutely horrific stories—unimaginable stories that nobody could write in their wildest dreams—about online grooming, mainly of young girls, and mainly on platforms on which they are already vulnerable due to eating disorders. We have to deal with that. The live streaming of suicides is creeping up, and we have to do something about that. That is what this consultation is about.
The hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) raised huge issues including eating disorders and AI chat. That is why chatbots will be included in the consultation. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) does a lot of work in this area—she is one of the pioneers in bringing these issues to the House. Algorithms will also be part of the consultation.
However, young people do need to see what social media is. To me as a 50-year-old, it is Facebook and WhatsApp, but it is not that to younger people. In fact, they frown when I talk about Facebook because they think it is old technology like slates and chalk.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said that the platforms must do better to police themselves—they do have to do more—and, like many other Members, talked about their addictive features. Addictive features will be part of the consultation as well, so please do get involved in that consultation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph), along with many hon. Members, spoke about the correlations with mental health. The Department of Health and Social Care has a key role to play in that, as was mentioned by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Ninety-eight per cent of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools already have “no phones in school” policies. We are clear that the guidance was not strong enough, which is why the Department for Education has published updated guidance on the use of mobile phones in schools. Because we want to be as clear as possible to schools, parents and young people that phones should not be used in schools, we reserve the right to put that on a statutory footing, should we be required to do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said that he uses Snapchat to communicate with his one and only friend on Snapchat: his daughter. I hope that she will not unfriend him after his contribution or he will have no one. He was right to talk about the procedural motion. This is such a serious issue, so we must ensure that we get that right.
Let me finish by talking about international social media bans and incidents from previous countries, as many hon. Members mentioned.
In closing, protecting children online and ensuring that online life is as fulfilling as that offline is a responsibility that this Government take incredibly seriously. No child should have to navigate unsafe digital spaces or experience negative impacts on their health and wellbeing, and no parent should feel alone in making decisions to protect and support their children. Members should please get involved in the consultation, which is there to give proper consideration to the most effective ways forward to deal with these problems. It will be short and sharp. It will last for three months, and we have a legislative vehicle to take forward the proposals from that.
Question put.