Science and Technology Committee (Commons)

Tuesday 3rd November 2026

(began 4 days, 6 hours ago)

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None Portrait Speaker 4
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Well, my name is Diana Johnson. I'm the Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety in the Department of Health and Social Care. And just following up from what Tabitha said to the committee, I think it's quite clear that the evidence is still limited and we need to develop that. And certainly from the DHS, we want to work across government and we are doing that already. For example, there was some work done with DCMs and the University of Cambridge to look at vulnerable groups and the effect that screen time and digital devices could have on those groups.

 I think, again, the evidence from that is quite limited. And I'd also say just more generally, I think in science and evidence, the committee will understand longitudinal longitudinal studies are what what are very helpful. And clearly in this particular area, you know, things are developing very quickly. And certainly when I was growing up and probably many members of the committee, we weren't dealing with digital devices in the same way. So I think over time the evidence will build and develop. But I think that cross-government working is really important. And we've also got studies, for example, the I r in Bradford where they're actually looking at children in Bradford.

It's linked to the Born in Bradford study. But looking at how if you restrict time on devices and access to social media, doing some controlled studies there. So I think this is a developing area. And I think we recognize we haven't got all the evidence we need, but from a health perspective, we certainly want to where there's a credible risk, we want to act on that now. And that's why, as Tabitha said, with the expert group, we brought forward the guidance on the 0 to 5 guidance for parents and carers about what they should do with very young children.

 Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Daniel.
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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I'm Daniel Okubo, I'm the deputy director for user safety policy at DCMs. So I think there are a few different strands here. I mean, what we know about this area is technology moves very, very fast. And so it's how do you get the kind of early warning signals of where harm is emerging? I think a few strands I'd highlight is one, we now have obviously an independent regulator for online safety, which is materially resourced up over the kind of years. That is a really big, positive development, that is an organisation dedicated to assessing emerging harms.

It does user surveys, both in terms of children's experiences online and the harmful content. So that's kind of strand one. We have done some academic research we commissioned. So the Amy Aubin Report, which Cambridge, Cambridge University, which you're familiar with, looking at smartphones and digital technologies and the impact on mental health, which I think we published in January this year, which kind of showed that lots of the current studies are not kind of high enough quality, but there's already some association of harm. And then there's a question of monitoring evaluation. We're doing some really, really big interventions now for child safety.

It's important that we have both baselining the data as it sits now, and then we can measure that data after the reforms have been into effect for a while. So we can see what is making a difference and not. So there's just a few areas I'd highlight at the start. Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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Thank you Emma. Ian Murray I'm the minister for Creative Industries, Media and Online safety in the Department of Culture, digital, culture, Media and Sport. And I will not repeat what others have already said because DHS, DfE and ourselves are obviously doing a whole host of different types of research into this area, whether it be from the educational perspective or the health perspective. But I think from a DCMs perspective, to widen this out, as a father of a six and one year old, two daughters, six and one year old, the guidance that's been produced by DHS, particularly on screen time, is really helpful because it's parents have just been crying out for tools to help them try and navigate an area that we know little about, although the evidence base is developing.

But from a DCMs perspective, it's really important to widen out what the harms look like. So from the screen time harms and neurological harms, yes. But we look at it from a much wider harms spectrum, if you like. There's the content harms, there's the contact harms, there's the physical harms like mental health, lack of sleep, those kinds of issues. So we need to look at this as around the yes, individual evidence on potentially the neuroscience of this is much is limited. That's building and the evidence base is continuing to build. And some of it's anecdotal, but when you talk to parents, you talk to young people and you talk to the whole spectrum of harms, you then have to make a decision as a government to act on those kinds of harms, which is why we end up in the place we are with social media ban features and functions, bans and restrictions, and all the other stuff we're doing in terms of device level components.

 So from our perspective, we see it as a much wider harms spectrum and not just the sort of narrow part of screen time, if you like.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Minister for. Minister for Early Education Emily, you asked the right question, which is the different impacts on brain development and on physical development, on brain development. It's worth saying, as others have already said, and as you've heard in your own evidence, that the evidence base is quite thin in terms of a causal link between screen use and cognitive development and brain development, or generally, that doesn't mean we accept that. It means that's precisely why we're doing so much research, certainly within the DfE and other departments. To get that evidence, we've ordered a systematic review of all the causal evidence that is out there.

 There's not much of it, but we're doing a systematic review of what exists at the moment. As has already been mentioned on the 0 to 5, we take the precautionary principle anyway that was informed by some of the evidence that we have so far about the impact on attention span, about sociability, about emotional development, and particularly that vulnerable age. 0 to 5. We thought it's best to be precautionary that that advice was worked up with parents and with teachers, crucially, people in early years settings. And it's proved very, very popular, as Ian says, because parents now finally have some clear guidance on nought to fives, for example, don't use a screen at all for for under two.

 If you do, it's got to be alongside a parent looking at like a video album or something like that, or an e book from 2 to 5, one hour a day maximum, and again alongside an adult. But one's your lot if you're a tot is the is the actual phrase to remember if you're a parent for 2 to 5 year old. And that's quite helpful advice for parents. Again, the evidence base is thin for that, but we were being extra precautionary about it. So that's in terms of the brain and cognitive development in terms of physical development.

 We can go on about this further later, but the key point is about displacement. In other words, time is not infinite. Time spent on a screen means time not spent doing these other things and time not spent, for example, outdoors or doing physical exercise that we don't need a huge amount of causal detailed evidence to prove that that's a fact. So in terms of displacement, we know all the advantages for children's development from physical education, but also from sociability, social interaction, face to face with parents, carers and their peers. And we we really want to, as a department, stress those developmental benefits and promote them as much as we can.

We can talk about that in greater detail. But those two bits of the brain development and physical development we're completely across.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Michael Thomas, Chief scientific adviser at Department for education I would just stress what my colleagues have said, that the evidence base at the moment is weak in terms of causal evidence, in terms of actual effects. So we have lots of observational association evidence. So we are very keen keen to collect new causal evidence a D if we have a suite of research and development studies to collect that evidence. That includes randomized control trials. For example, we have a new trial starting up, which is delaying when smartphones are given to primary aged children to see the effect of what happens when a child receives a smartphone.

 We have systematic reviews in terms of the effect of looking at specifically causal evidence on social media and screen use in children, and on the effects of AI use on cognition and learning. We have longitudinal studies where we are following up cohorts of different age children, tracking their technology use and seeing what the associations are downstream. We have developmental research looking at mechanisms, brain mechanisms. When children use AI, how does it change their engagement? And we have real world evaluation of educational technology. So a suite of research and development. But I would stress we have a challenge that sometimes the technology is changing faster than we are able to do the research.

 So we are very active in keeping up to date on the latest emerging findings. While we're still carrying out this longer run research on the causal evidence.
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None Portrait Speaker 5
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Yes. Well.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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You're absolutely right. The 0 to 5 guidance was based upon the the associative strong associative evidence we had. It's not causative, but there's a very strong correlation between high screen use and developmental delays, language difficulties. There's also attention span evidence. So there's quite a list of correlations. There were pretty strong which we using that precautionary principle felt was strong enough to make sure that we should really be acting on the side of caution. And we feel that I think parents have really welcomed that. So there was an evidence base, but it was correlational. It's worth saying you're the science committee, that it wasn't causative, but it was strong.

 But that was the principle. And there's a wider principle here, which is obviously it depends on not just screen time, but what the screen content is, as you'll be aware. So we're really keen on exploring through the research. What are the links, particularly about what is on a device? What's the context in which it is being presented? What's the feedback loop between the user and the and the and the product, and also the age appropriate is age itself isn't a singular marker of development. As we all know, some children develop faster than others, so using a crude age limit sometimes wouldn't work.

There are individual vulnerabilities for adolescents, as we know as well as there are vulnerabilities for very young children. So we've got to take all of that richness into account and nuance when we are looking at the evidence. But it you can rest assured that that 0 to 5 guidance was based on very strong correlation in terms of the 5 to 18 guidance. We are definitely going to do guidance for that, too. It's much more complicated for all the reasons I've just mentioned. But that doesn't mean that we can't produce robust guidance and well-informed guidance for parents of between 5 and 18 and for teachers, too.

 So we're planning to do that. We're planning to announce that in coming months. I wish it could be more specific. Having said where you're at, I would always say, well, exactly when's that going to come? And I can tell you hopefully in in coming months and not very long at the latest in the new year.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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That's coming later.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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It can definitely.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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So you're.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Doing.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Absolutely.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Yeah, very.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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We understand.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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Okay.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Exactly.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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Yeah, it's a really important question, but it's all, again, part of the matrix of the harms that are being caused to young people in particular. I mean, I would just encourage all members to think about your own online and social media use in the evenings. And in terms of the way the social media companies are designed, the designed to try and grab your attention for as long as you possibly can. So short form content. You mentioned TikTok. They're about doomscrolling about the algorithms serving up the content that the algorithm thinks you want to see, so it drags you in to a time factor where time just disappears.

 So that then affects your sleep. Now, if you think about the the best we know from studies going back decades and decades that the best thing for brain development in adolescence is sleep and proper sleep. Being rested for school, having the attention span at school, having those interactions, the social interactions is all all dependent on sleep. And we know that sleep patterns change as you go through your your adolescent life. So being able to deal with 16 and 17 year olds in particular is a really key part of this. So for under 16 seconds, the banning of social media would be the key part.

 For 16 and 17 year olds. It's about a slower glide back into social media through curfews, through time controls, through some of those features and functionalities that you get, particularly through social media, in order to restrict that time. So we know, as you've said, that a high percentage of young people are on beyond midnight. And additionally, that could also be gaming as well. And most of the harms that are non sleep harms or mental health harms that some of the more extreme harms, like child sexual exploitation, like grooming, is done in, in the later part of the evenings and into the early parts of the morning.

 So it's the whole harm spectrum can be dealt with by trying to find a way of limiting both time and the and depriving of sleep, because you then take out those particular times where people are most.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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At night.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Up.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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To them.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Your expectation.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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I can give you an example. So in the kind of meta settlement would be attorney generals, we talked about giving teenagers access to non-personalized feeds, for example. Whereas, well, I think what what we announced was that those Non-personalized feeds should be on by default, 17 year olds. So actually, if you look across some of the things in the meta settlement, that may be not going as far as what we've already announced, because we know, for example, there's evidence that people don't tend to change what our default settings. And so I think it's worth looking at as I was looking at the very specific detail on the settlement, because it may be that there are design choices we would want to take in the UK path with what we've already announced, which will go as minister to go further than what the meta settlement has done, and maybe a better way to get to the same outcomes.

 So a lot of what is in settlement, we are already doing what we're doing it differently, and what we would think is perhaps a better ability for Parliament to debate and decide. So, I mean, I think this is something about a lot of the substance is actually quite similar. It's non-personalized feeds, it's the overnight curfews, the dressing, the kind of endless scrolls, things of that nature. Those are the things we've already announced and things we can do now under the Children's Wellbeing Act, which is the power which Parliament granted and said once , that's in effect, that can be enforced by Ofcom as the regulator.

 So I'm not sure there is that much of a difference in substance. We've made a different path, but outcome wise we're going to have very similar set of protections.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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No.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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No, no we didn't.
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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You say.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Will always be.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Is be.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Well, when it comes to the ages, as I said earlier, age can just be sometimes too crude a measure because children do develop at different rates. And so our guiding principle is what is the developmental advantage that we want for everybody. The developmental gain for everybody, taking into account individual vulnerabilities and vulnerability is at the heart of it. So, for example, the most vulnerable, obviously the under fives because they literally can't express themselves properly to say whether or not they think there's a harm or an advantage in using a bit of tech. That's obvious. But in the older age groups, as you rightly say, adolescence, it gets trickier because, for example, we do know there's a strong body of evidence that early adolescents are a vulnerable group for a whole bunch of reasons.

 They're forming their their identity, they're forming their relationships. It's a very difficult time for many of them. And so we've got to take that into account. But again, some children develop earlier and later on some of that vulnerability. Similarly, and we haven't mentioned it yet so far, neurodivergent children, there's different rates at which that happens. And also some of the advantages for children who are neurodivergent and young people and children more broadly with special education needs. The advantages sometimes of tech in developing a community of of similarly minded children doing that in a very safe way, that's not in an exploitative way is exactly what we're looking at in terms of the research.

 In other words, not having this monetized model, which exploits that desire, that desire to connect with others of a, of a similar tribe, so to speak. And doing it in a very safe way. So what we want to be doing is being careful about making sure that we're protecting those who are most at risk, but equally, in some cases, having a look at what are the safer ways of using some of this tech that actually can be beneficial for them?
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None Portrait Speaker 7
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Well, we did the growing up in an online world consultation, which was pretty clear when we're talking to parents, teachers and younger people themselves that this was causing most harm to under 16 seconds. We also took the view with some of the research, that the cliff edge at 16 was something that was a big concern, and therefore putting in protections for 16 and 17 year olds, and the run up to 18 was the right place to be. So there was no cliff edge at 16. And as as Minister Walker said, the real issue here is that you have to find some kind of age type of cut off, and therefore, everyone's brains and adolescent brains in particular, are developing at different stages.

 But if you think about some of the evidence that's come particularly from the United States, the addictive nature of the way in which platforms are being designed are particularly focused on the neurological development of adolescent brains. In terms of seeking that attention. The algorithms are then subsequently are having that attention being amplified, and there's things like streaks and things like Snapchat that are allowing people to constantly be competing in a sort of competitive way. So the platforms are designed to play with that neurological advancement of the adolescent brain. And therefore, that's why the under 16 ban became the tool of which we would use to try and prevent some of those harms with the 16 and 17 year old restrictions being a sort of easier float in to being in social media rather than a big cliff edge at 16.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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Yeah, I think, I mean, ultimately it is a judgement. We started off this session talking about there is not hard causal evidence here. And it's particularly difficult when you get into very specific ages, like 16 versus 17 or 17 versus 18. I think from a policy perspective, the baseline is the Online Safety Act. So that already puts in lots of protections for under 18 seconds because it defines a child as under 18. So protected from pornography you're protected from self-harm suicide content. You're protected from third categories. Now momentarily escaping. We'll come back to me, Ethan sort of content.

 So there's already some protections for under 18 as a baseline for online safety act. The policy question here was where you've got this particular combination of features functionalities which we define as social media. What age range do we think is being said. We don't think under 16 should have access to that, those functionalities. And we did the consultation. I haven't got the data in front of me, but I think we did ask a specific question about what age do you think social media restrictions should be set? And I think there was a view that I think 16 was the right if you take the broadest approach, because the other big piece of this is going to be a question on how effective is guidance.

 A lot of this does require changes in social norms and behaviours. People have to. We want people to abide by this, to see this as a good thing. And I think there's also, I think, a general acceptance that for people under . 16 just in terms of where your life autonomy is and all the rest of it, it may be easier to get that cohort to abide by restrictions. When you're 17 or 18, you're living by yourself, you're kind of working potentially like it's a separate question about your own life autonomy. And so that's ultimately is a judgement.

It's not a kind of hard evidence fact that it's definitely 16. And my final point is, if you look at international comparisons, again, I haven't got the exact number for me. I think it's around 30 to 40 countries looking at age restrictions in some different measure. I mean, it does range. Some have gone 13, some have gone 15, some have gone 16. I'm sure there's a couple who have gone 17. 18.

I think every kind of parliament, government, society is trying to work out where it thinks it's it's right limits.
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None Portrait Speaker 6
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So the way the, the legislation we designed is going to be criteria based. So it will say that if you've got these types of functionalities and you've got these types of kind of purpose around interacting with content, then you'll be in scope. So social media is a, is a label. We put on a type of services. If you look at the Australian came into a place, it had a lot of services on there, which some people wouldn't have maybe identified colloquially as social media. So we're not you know, I think that is a kind of a label in one sense.

 But what we are looking at ultimately is the harmful functionalities. And what is the primary purpose or main function of this service. And that's where the restrictions would apply. But also that is just that's just one part of an online safety package here. You still have the Online Safety Act, and you still also have the further restrictions on risky functionalities we've announced, which would apply to an even wider range of services because the minister referenced gaming earlier, you know, this question was about gaming earlier. Like there is we know there's also concerns about gaming services.

 Now, you may not decide that no one under the age of 16 can, you know, play an online game. There's lots of very low risk, age appropriate games, but there may be certain functionalities on gaming services like stranger communication, which you do think should be age restricted. So that's why, you know, this is a kind of evidence led interventions. But I think it is worth looking at the package as a whole. It's not just one intervention, that one type of service.
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None Portrait Speaker 12
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Okay. Thank you. Yeah.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Well Ofcom assess the.
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None Portrait Speaker 4
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Well.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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I mean.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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I.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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So the answer.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Should be zero.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Have they done that.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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Oh sorry.
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None Portrait Speaker 9
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Yes.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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Right.
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None Portrait Speaker 8
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Well, you've identified correctly that the displacement activity that's sitting in a sedentary position, looking at a screen or a digital device means that children particularly are not moving. And we know that for those age 1 to 5, the the guidance is that there should be three hours of activity a day. And for those who are. Between 5 and 16, it should be at least one hour's activity a day. So there's clear displacement. If a child, young person is sitting in front of a screen, and we know that that will have an effect then on their time, just the time they have during the day to get involved in sports.

 And we know that sports are a good activity for young people, not only for the the physical contribution that makes to a healthy lifestyle, but also some of the other skills that we're conscious about in terms of team building interpersonal skills. So that that is a real problem. There is money going in through the PE and School Sport Partnership Network. There's £1 billion that's going in by 2029 across DfE, DCMs and the health department to make sure that within schools we're encouraging physical activity and we're getting children as active as possible. That's one thing. We're also very conscious that screen time can mean that children are, whilst there's a ban on advertising of high fat and high sugar foods, children will see and young people will see when they're looking at screens, perhaps influencers talking about the latest food they might be talking about, you know, doing a kind of review of chicken, chicken shops or the latest fast food craze.

So there's all of that as well, which adds to our concerns about the levels of obesity that we're seeing because of reduced physical activity. As I said, the access then to information about foods that are not always as healthy, the ability then to order Uber Eats very quickly online as well. So the whole thing is a package, I think physical and also the obesity fit together very well. And it's quite shocking when you think about in some of our most disadvantaged areas that children are leaving primary school, 25% are obese in our most disadvantaged areas.

 So there is a real issue here about how you make sure that children are supported and encouraged to engage in activity and to obviously eat in a healthier way too.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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Well, perhaps this is an opportunity to hand over to. Can I add on that? I mean, you're absolutely right. Sport is getting a much bigger profile under this government, I've got to say, and Dan is absolutely right , about a lot of the things that we are doing, particularly that PE and school sports partnership. But what I want to stress is we need to get children with off screen, and that means making sure the enrichment at all levels, early years and in school for things like sport and everything else is really central to what we're trying to do.

 So in terms of what we're doing, we're making sure that, for example, breakfast clubs, free breakfast clubs, I've seen this myself. You might have seen it in your own constituencies. What they're about is not just about food. And Diana mentioned food, which is really important. And there's a new school. Food standards, I've got to say, are going to be a big weapon in tackling that childhood obesity. But they're not just about food. They're about, for example, we've got a programme with Lego now where free breakfast clubs get a free box of Lego, and I've seen it in action.

 The kids are playing Lego, they're doing those fine motor skills. They're problem solving. But it's fun. We're also making we've got a partnership with the school youth, the Youth Sport Trust, who are helping us with breakfast clubs and in schools and mainstream schools and older ages as well, to make sure, for example, in a breakfast club, you. I've seen kids playing netball in the moment. At the start of the day, there's dance, there's singing, there's all the things that are not on a screen that were from a very early age at primary school. We're trying to make sure that they're really attractive activities for kids that are not involving a screen and doing it, and it's developing those habits at a really early age and at a really early hour in the day from 8:00 onwards, can develop those, those habits for the rest of the day and the rest of their development.

 So that's really one of the fundamental things we're doing within free breakfast clubs. And that is a big change. The other thing is that within schools themselves, we've got a whole raft of enrichment activities. We've got an enrichment framework for schools. We've got an enrichment and expansion programme for 400 schools, particularly in the most deprived areas, to make sure that they are being targeted with enrichment. That is, that's things like sports, outdoor activity, for example. We have the natural, the national nature parks through schools, which means that if you want to look, we could tell kids a lot more about diversity in their area, the biodiversity in their area.

 They can learn, they can go out and engage with nature. That's really important. We've got a cadets programme, which we're putting a lot more money into. We've got £750,000 going into that and 250 schools again, in the most deprived areas that are going to benefit most. Again, that's a very good example of something that's not on a screen, but is incredibly valuable in terms of their sociability and their ultimately their employability. We've got building equal access to chess in schools. Again, with those deprived areas. We're putting money into that. Again, chess, it's perfect. You know, it's you can do some of it, obviously online, but a lot of it is in person.

 And it's about that in-person interactivity. And we're targeting not just children on free school meals, but girls, children with send neurodivergent children in that chess program. And we're putting money into all of those, that richness that it's about enriching the school day that's not on a screen.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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Putting money.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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We have a ten year youth strategy. We're having to build youth services across the country from scratch, essentially, because they've been decimated over the last decade or so. And the principle that we're running with at DCMs is that every child should have somewhere to go, something to do and someone who cares. And that's been driven by a huge amount of investment. A thousand new youth workers have been announced by the Secretary of State, £400 million going into the enrichment programme. All the stuff that Paul has mentioned is being jointly funded by DCMs. And because those enrichment programs, of course, post school and post the school environment are all part of making sure that there is youth provision out there, and that has to run in parallel with the under 16 social media ban.

 We can't ban and then put this in place. It has to run in parallel to be in place. And if you look at some of the other non-governmental stuff that's going on, the Premier League Kicks campaign, for example, I was at Fulham FC Foundation who have the Premier League kicks in a London just a few weeks ago. They are taking kids not only to play football three times a week, but they're also through the through the form of football. Learning about the online world, about being safe online, about getting them off their screens, about understanding screen use, understanding social media use, and doing that through play and teamwork.

 So there's a whole host of things that are going on to try and have that literacy in terms of the use of the screen, in whichever form you want to use it, but also having it as an activity that is physical, social, outside, and the entire strategy, the youth strategy of DCMs, is driven to try and make sure that that can happen. There is a provincial football manager that you might know called Gareth Southgate, who's taking forward some of the someone who cares as an ambassador for us and trying to embed in our community spaces, someone who's trusted a trusted adult, where you can have, particularly some vulnerable children who have been maybe using online spaces to find out about sexuality or about their own views and their own needs, and finding somebody they can trust be able to have those kind of conversations with.

 So it is about the , the school environment, right through from breakfast clubs to afterschool enrichment, after school, outside the school environment, into the youth environment, giving them something to do and somewhere to go.
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None Portrait Speaker 13
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Thank you, chair.
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None Portrait Speaker 10
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Fundamentally? Yes. I think it would be disingenuous to suggest that any government would be able to resolve 100% of harms that are happening online, particularly to children. But what we're trying to do through these regulations, whether it be the social media ban, the features and functionality, bans and restrictions, and we're trying to find the approach to try and remove as much of those risks as possible with the Online Safety Act obviously sitting alongside that. So fundamentally, to your question, if you if you think about the way in which the most extreme harms are happening and spending time with grieving families is a really insightful way of trying to understand what's happening.

 Some functionalities that are happening, particularly in gaming, are there for purely gaming purposes. Stranger communications, talking about the game, building up large teams to play certain games. Those are being used to find and identify young people, children in particular, grooming them and then moving them from that gaming environment into other environments, and then to messaging environment to, to, to more private environments. And that's where the most extreme harms are happening. So if you look at the spectrum of harms from screen time all the way through to live streaming suicides and those kinds of issues, those kinds of extreme issues and everything in between, what we're trying to do with the layering of regulations is to try and reduce the risk to young people in particular, as much as we possibly can.

 So fundamentally, to your question, you're correct. It's the features and
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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Well, the principle, I suppose, is in other areas. So for example, in film and television, you have the British Board of Film Classification and it's very much understood by the public. You PG 12, 15, 18, etc. so it's about it's about when developing the policy, it's about where do you tackle the the greatest harm and what you do about tackling that greatest harm? And then what do you do in order to allow for the positive experiences online to be amplified? That's a content issue. That's a platform design issue. That's a features and functions issue. And all the things that are causing that harm have to be designed out of these systems, otherwise they won't be able to offer their services to under 16 seconds.

 They will have restricted services to 16 and 17 year olds. And then, of course, you get into the debate about adult services and about the the content and the operation of these platforms. So it's a whole it's got to be a whole system approach. The problem that we've got here is Daniel says, we've had a complete market failure. The social media companies have had too long to develop their own products to make them safe, not just for children, but for adults and for everyone. They have fundamentally failed in that duty, and therefore government is having to intervene and regulate the companies.

But if they wish to come forward with platforms that are safe, that are enjoyable and take away these harms, then we wouldn't stand in the way of those platforms being used. If you look at Lego play, for example, you know, those kinds of platforms you wouldn't suggest are causing any harm. And they're providing a service that's online based to children. And that's something that we should be encouraging other social media companies to produce that is safe by design.
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None Portrait Speaker 13
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Well, I think I think you're absolutely right. We can all recognise that some children are going to be more at risk of harm from using digital devices and social media. So absolutely accept that. And I think, you know, we've had the Fonagy review recently, which has highlighted children perhaps. I mean, it was around prevalence around ADHD and autism, but it made some general comments about. Perhaps young people who are perhaps have mental health conditions or have got issues around confidence or self-esteem. We know that social media and digital devices can have an effect on those children more particularly.

 So I think it's right to recognise that, and that's why , more generally, there is support going in to young people through schools. And Paul can talk about this as well around the mental health support teams that are going into all schools by 2029. I think we're about 60% at the moment. So there is that support within the educational setting. There's also, I think I recognise absolutely that within support for young people, Fonagy says that we shouldn't just be waiting for children to have a diagnosis. We should be meeting them where their needs are. And that then means that the health provision has to step up.

 And we've already said that we want to make sure that we are not having children waiting so long for support that they might need, you know, in terms of mental health conditions, diagnosis. So there's NHS England have said that we're going to put some effort into making sure those weights are much shorter. And I think all constituency MPs will recognise that access to Camhs support for our younger constituents isn't where it needs to be. So I think there's all of that that's going to be alongside recognising particular children that need extra support. I don't know if there's anything else we should say about Fonagy.
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None Portrait Speaker 2
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I mean, it's very difficult, but it does go back to that safety by design principle, doesn't it? Because the algorithms are designed in order to be able to serve up to you what the algorithm thinks is in your interest to do so. And that's where a lot of the discussions lead from. When you're speaking to the Molly Rose Foundation or grieving parents in terms of what, what the what the catalyst was, and then what the, the serving up of the content was. And in that particular example, and therefore finding the ability to be able to look at this from a content perspective, but also a content perspective and those wider harms is really important.

 So designing that kind of stuff out requires transparency. It goes to the chair's data issues from from previously , there is discussions about being able to reset algorithms , switch algorithms off, particularly for younger users, and being able to not have those personalized feeds as features and functions ability. So there's a whole raft, a whole list of features and functions that cause the access to those harms. And of course, there is a little bit of a contradiction here because as we've heard from our DHS colleagues, the more vulnerable you are, the more likely you are to find a positive way through social media in terms of trying to find a group that may be of, of, you know, whether it be an LGBTQ plus group or being able to express yourself that you may not be able to do in the physical world, either through family or friends or, or teachers.

 But that automatically leads to being the, the more vulnerable they are, the more susceptible they are to both to the algorithm and to the predatory nature of some of the real harms that we see online. So there is a little bit of a contradiction there, but we've taken the view as a department, when designing these regulations, that we have to deal with the harm and provide additional support through other means for those vulnerabilities.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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In the regulation?
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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Can I take that one? Yeah. It's a really fundamental question to everything we're doing in the department. When it comes to tech. I, I want to stress at this point that unlike the social media debate where governments around the world are having to react all the time, we are ahead of this. When it comes to edtech, education, tech, tech, that's in schools because we're one of the few countries that not just through our AI safety institute, is ahead of the game globally on safety of AI and more broadly of edtech. But we've got a whole raft of research that we're ongoing.

 We've got ongoing at the moment when it comes to reassuring schools about what will be safe in terms of that and what will be practical in terms of their tech use. So Ian rightly talked about building in this principle of safety. By design. We want educational benefit by design . And in in the approach we've got is making sure that we're supporting teachers, not replacing teachers, for example, with AI, and we're supporting students not replacing that cognitive offloading. So for example, we've got a whole bunch of studies that we're doing, again, making sure that these are causal, not just correlative.

 We're doing lots. And Michael can fill you in on some of the detail there. But we've got Digital Lives R&D program that runs 2030. It's going to look it's going to have randomized controlled trials precisely on how effective in educational terms a lot of this tech is. We for sure know that schools want to be be certain that what they're buying from the tech companies is safe, but also whether it's going to make a real impact and it's not going to replace that, that brilliant relationship, a personal relationship between a teacher and a child is not going to be supplanted.

It's going to be supported by the tech. And that's the fundamental principle about everything we're doing. Similarly, when it comes to to that support, I mean, there's there's lots of things that we're doing. We're doing an edtech testbed program. I don't know if you're aware of this. We're spending quite a lot of money making sure that we're testing in real time with teachers, co-producing with teachers. What what's the best tech going to look like for you to support your, your, your pupils? So we're, we're doing that at the moment. We're partnering with the Education Endowment Foundation, and we can send you a paper on exactly what we're doing on that because there's lots of really great stuff we're doing.

We've already started. There's 100 like more rapid evaluations of some of the tech going on in this current year started in September, and that's going to be it's going to kick on to a second stage next year. And again, it's about looking at the long term, making sure that we know there are so many products coming on the market, the schools are going to be tempted by, but there is a danger of there being a wild west of these products and schools thinking, well, what what would work? What is safe? And that's exactly why we're doing safety certification at the at the heart of what we're doing, so we can certify some of these products for schools so that they know what they're using is both safe and effective.
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None Portrait Speaker 15
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It's that's really interesting, because I was going to lead on to the commitment to having a safety certification. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that, because over the summer recess, I met with a constituent of mine, actually, Laura James, who's created a reading app. She's a teacher herself. She recognized that some children go home. They do. They have a reading record, and some parents maybe don't have the time to sit with their kid. They just sign something off. They pretend they've gone home and read. They've not. They've come back to school and it's really hard to track.

 Also, teachers are then having to sort of like manually upload the progress on the on the children. And when she first came to me to talk to me about the app, I thought, oh, because I was a bit nervous. Oh God, it's more technology replacing reading. I think that's the one area where I'm kind of. But actually, on the flip side, what it was doing is encouraging kids to read because it's gamifying. So they'll read out loud, it will record their voice and tell them how well they've done. And so but she is just a lonely teacher working in a primary school in in South Derbyshire.

 I know you know, when there is competition out there, big tech companies will go and basically try to fill the field. So one, how would people like Laura get involved? And secondly, this this safety certification, whilst low code no code means that she's been able to create this fantastic platform, that's actually a massive risk in many other areas because there's no tracking of how safe it is. It's sort of like, I think this is a nice design and it's nice and easy to use, but without doing some safety checks, we don't really know that for sure.

 So could you expand a little bit more on the new safety certification and how that works, please?
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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Well, it's based on what we've already published, which is the AI safety product standards, which we already published. So a lot of companies, including your constituent can can look at that. What we're expecting as, as clear guidance when it comes to the safety demands that we we insist on. And as I say, we're ahead of the game on this. We're not reacting. We're being proactive. So we've set those standards out publicly. What we're now consulting on is a means of certification for the broader edtech piece. We've also got, for example, we're working with Oxford University on AI tutoring tools.

We've got a fantastic program there, some world leading world class academics who are helping us co-design with some tech companies. What what would be the best tools to effectively improve a child's learning in the classroom? Not replacing teachers, but supplementing that personalized, tailored relationship. And that's got to be at the centre of everything we're doing. And it's quite a a really interesting field where we, again, leading the world in this, we're working with academics to make sure it is tailored on the child because, as you say, some of these products can really help children in educational terms.

 It can also help the teachers. But what we're talking about in terms of helping the teachers in, in we're not talking about reducing the workload necessarily. We're talking about refocusing the teacher's workload. So that means is there any of the drudgery, the tasks that a teacher does, like, you know, in terms of lesson planning or marking, is there any of the drudgery we can take out of that? And then they can refocus and actually make their teaching more personalized, more tailored, and more child centered so that they can then meet that child's needs about what are the gaps.

 And crucially for us, it's about knowing that disadvantage gap and using tech to do that. And that's driving what we're doing, because what we don't want to do is what we saw in the pandemic, where those disadvantaged gaps can increase through tech because of a lack of personal contact, which is another reason why we obviously, as a default, want schools to be as open as possible.
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None Portrait Speaker 15
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Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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Thank you. Thank you.
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None Portrait Speaker 11
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Yes.
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None Portrait Speaker 3
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Should be.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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So I'm.
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None Portrait Speaker 1
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Will happen to.
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None Portrait Speaker 16
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Thank you.
This debate has concluded
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