Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Debate between Lord Knight of Weymouth and Baroness Meyer
Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025
Read Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-VII(a) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Seventh Marshalled List) - (20 Jun 2025)
Monday 23rd June 2025
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 84-VII(a) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Seventh Marshalled List) - (20 Jun 2025)
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
At what age does the noble Baroness think that children should be taught how to use phones safely?
Baroness Meyer (Con)
Children could use phones that do not connect to the internet—phones that do not access social media—like the old phones, if they need to phone their parents in an emergency. With the mobile phones that we are talking about now, for children under the age of 16, their brains are not developed enough to understand the harms and dangers—and, as we have said, it is all very addictive. Big tech companies know how to get children to look at certain sites. In our generation, we did not have phones and we did not have that exposure to predators, and we did not have so many mental health issues among the youth.