Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions he has had with his Australian counterpart on lessons learned from Australia’s introduction of a law to ban under-16s from social media platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK and Australia signed an Online Safety and Security Memorandum of Understanding in February 2024 to share learnings and approaches to online safety.
The government is looking at what is happening in Australia. The Australian government plans to monitor the impact of their ban and we are engaging closely with them on this. Both the Secretary of State and the Minister for Online Safety hope to visit Australia soon.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether Natural England has enacted byelaws under Section 28R of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 for the (a) protection and (b) management of Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England has not enacted any byelaws under section 28R since the provision’s introduction in 2001. A set of Model SSSI Byelaws for this purpose was agreed with Defra in 2020 and was published by Natural England at https://consult.defra.gov.uk/natural-england/byelaws-for-sssis/.