Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Hampton and Lord Bethell

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for a very moving speech there, but I will address his point directly.

This amendment does not object to a child having a basic phone for safety. My plucky 11 year-old son travels to and from school every day with a big rucksack and a violin on the Circle line and the Jubilee line, come rain or snow. It worries the hell out of me every time he leaves the house, and I am not happy until he is back home. That is why he has a Nokia dumb phone in his pocket, so he can call me if he needs to. I confess that he sometimes plays “Pong” on a black and white LED screen when he is bored, but that does not damage his frontal cortex or bring him into touch with predators. He does not have a smartphone with all its nasty algorithms. Until they invent such a box as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, quite reasonably described, that is what a smartphone contains.

I do not, for instance, allow my son to go to the local pub, the Westbourne, where he might be beaten up. For the same reason, I do not let him on Instagram, with all its bullying. I do not allow him to go to the Ministry of Sound—wonderful organisation though that is—because he will be confronting sexual predators. For the same reason, I do not let him on Snapchat. I do not give him methamphetamine—whizz—or Es, because they are addictive and would mess with his brain, as do TikTok and YouTube reels. I do not, for instance, allow him on X, where he might see internet filth. For the same reason, he is not allowed to go to Soho to watch peep shows.

Toxic digital platforms are designed for adults and are engineered for addiction, fraudsters and predators—and, I am afraid, they are screwing with too many of our children’s brains. A simple device that makes calls and sends texts poses none of these challenges. That is what children should have. That is why schools should be in a regulatory position to ban smartphones during school hours.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I have spoken on this issue so many times in this House that I am not going to repeat myself—really—except to say that I have never taught in a school that allows mobile phones either in school or on the way to school. I have taught in some of the highest-performing schools—non-selective state schools that are some of the highest performing for pupil progress in the country—and I do not think the two are unconnected.

We do not need mobile phones in schools. They distract and they disturb. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that I am sure we can take a smartphone, take out all the stuff the student needs and give it to them for the day. We do it with laptops for the pupils all the time. We do not need them on the way to school. It is a huge irony that we pack our children off to school with many hundreds of pounds-worth of equipment in their pocket and then worry about their safety. As part of a strategy to build a safe environment for our children online, the first step is very simple: ban phones from schools entirely.