Media Literacy (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening in the gap, but I very much wanted to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, and her committee and speak to a report that is both is both timely and very necessary. In doing so, I declare my AI interests as in the register.

We are faced with a landscape of algorithmic manipulation, proliferating deepfakes, a torrent of disinformation and, of course, online fraud. The committee is right: a failure to prioritise media literacy is a threat not just to individuals but to social cohesion and democracy itself. In the era of generative AI, media literacy is, as the committee makes clear, a requirement for modern citizenship. Our current approach is indeed fragmented and underresourced and lacks strategic vision. Ofcom’s own evidence, highlighted by the committee, shows little improvement in core skills over six years. In that context, the Government’s claim in their response that they and Ofcom have met the mounting scale of the challenge is simply not credible.

Like my noble friend Lord Storey, I welcome the completed curriculum and assessment review, which commits the Government to publishing revised national curriculum content by spring 2027. However, as the committee recommends, media literacy should be embedded across the curriculum and teachers should receive sustained support. This should arrive earlier.

As the committee urges, we need media literacy to be prioritised across government, not bolted on at the margins. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that one of the key tests of the effectiveness of the new media literacy action plan will be whether that takes place.

The Government cannot simply continue to outsource their responsibility in this area to the regulator. Although I welcome Ofcom’s new three-year media literacy strategy and its tougher use of behavioural audits under the Online Safety Act, which the Government rightly highlight, it is, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, deeply disappointing that, more than 20 years on, Ofcom still has not brought its definition of media literacy up to date by explicitly recognising critical thinking—although I detect slightly different language in the media literacy action plan. Ofcom should, as the committee says, set minimum standards for platforms’ media literacy activity and be empowered to hold them to account.

You cannot build media literacy on foundations that do not exist. As the committee and many stakeholders argue, we must treat connectivity as an essential utility and invest accordingly. The vision from our Benches is empowered citizenship: not a nanny state that tells people what to think but a literate state that gives people the tools to think for themselves. That is, in essence, the spirit of the committee’s report.

I urge the Minister to treat this report not as suggestions but as an urgent road map. We need, as the committee sets out, a unified strategy, a robust and critical definition of media literacy and the digital infrastructure to underpin it all.

Finally, I say in closing that I believe the BBC is not the problem; it is part of the answer. I look forward to the Minister’s response.