Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, it is a huge privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. I am sure many noble Lords will have the same sentiment as I do in thanking him for his extraordinary service to his country.

I would like to associate myself with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has said, and particularly add my support to Motion A2 from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I will not repeat those arguments, but I want to make two particular points. It is of great sadness to me that, on this topic, we appear no longer to be working as a collaborative group. Those of us who worked on the Online Safety Act, across all sides of this House and the other place, spent quite a lot of time together discussing how to find common ground. That seems to have been absent in the last couple of weeks. Although I really recognise the effort that both Ministers on the Front Bench today have put into this personally, we have really missed out on trying to find that common ground that I think all of us here want to find to protect children.

As a result, I find myself again supporting my noble friend Lord Nash on an amendment that I really do not like in order to try to get to the amendment that I really do like in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I think that is because we have lost the ability to collaborate on this topic, which is a great shame and something that none of us should feel very proud of. I think there is a path; it is about time, as everyone has been saying. I am afraid I do not believe that “a ceiling, not a target” works. That is not what has happened with the Online Safety Act at any stage. Every ceiling has definitely been a target and some of them have been missed. I am afraid the same is true for the DMCC Act; in this digital world, ceilings definitely become targets.

The Minister says that there is the power to review the enforcement of Ofcom. When are the Government going to use that power? A commitment to use it, to shorten the time and to work collaboratively throughout the consultation would move quite a few of us.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, the Government are arguing that they need much more time to consider the evidence because of the given challenges of enforcement. But the bereaved parents who have lost their children through online harms do not agree. They want action now, not some time in the future.

Last week, I met again the bereaved parents who have written a letter to the Prime Minister. They desperately wanted to meet the Prime Minister personally to show their strength of feeling for having a social media ban for under-16s. To hear their harrowing, heartbreaking stories would make any morally minded person weep. The Prime Minister has met the tech companies: why not also with those who have suffered the tragic losses of their children? The bereaved parents felt so hurt by that. They are seeking change so that other families do not have to go through what they had to endure and still do every day since their loss.

Right now, as we debate at this moment, a child is being affected negatively by social media harms. How many more children will be harmed every day by the dangerous, addictive effects of social media before something is done to stop it as soon as possible? I urge the Prime Minister to meet the bereaved parents to give them hope and security; for the Government to accept the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for the sake of our children’s future happiness and mental well-being; and to give the nation’s thanks to all the bereaved parents who are fighting and campaigning for change. Let us not let them down. Let us act now. Remember, as I keep saying, childhood lasts a lifetime.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that it will be source of huge disappointment to all noble Lords that I do not intend to give a valedictory speech.