Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly add my thanks and congratulations to my noble friend Lord Nash on what is a substantial achievement, and my thanks to the Minister and the Government for having heard the strong voices in this House. But I will also double-click—if your Lordships will forgive the tech jargon—on what the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said.

I have now spent 15 years working on child internet safety, and I fear that that entire period has been safety theatre. I worry that today is another one of those days. While we congratulate ourselves on having made some progress, the reality will be that we have not achieved anything at all unless we actually get change in the products that our children are using every hour of every day.

I ask the Minister and the Government to consider how they can look at greater enforcement while the consultation is ongoing. I fear that, despite the best intentions of everyone from all sides of this House and the other place, the reality is that the tech lords are smiling.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and to the tireless campaigning of my colleague and noble friend Lady Benjamin, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, who I do not see in her place at the moment.

This issue has been long in the waiting. For many years, we have heard about the impact that social media is having on our young people, and today I am a bit sad that, having taken us so far, the rug has been pulled from under the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, not by colleagues here but by colleagues down the Corridor. We are almost there, but there are still issues to be resolved. As was said earlier when we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, there may well be industry insiders smiling, thinking that they have dodged it for the time being.

Talking of time, I listened very carefully to the Minister when she said that it is not about whether we take action but about what sort and how quickly. I hope she will address that when she gets up to speak, because I have genuine concerns about those timelines and what will happen if, in the consultation, the public say, “We want this Government to act quicker”. Will they be able, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, to go back to the three-six-three timescale and do things more quickly? That is what the public want. If things slip to 21 months, we will almost be in the general election period. I hope the Minister reflects on that.

I would also like the Minister to answer the question that my noble friend Lady Benjamin asked about Ofcom licensing these tech platforms, just as it does for radio and TV. If we are going to involve Ofcom more, we also need to look at giving it more teeth because, at the moment, it is not able to govern as we expect. Clearly, I support my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s attempts to test the opinion of the House. I really hope that noble Lords and noble Baronesses from across the Chamber will support him, because we are almost there but not quite. I do not want us all to get so close to achieving what we desire and then to pull away.