Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, education in this country has always been about shaping free minds and raising thoughtful, moral citizens who can think for themselves. The Bill threatens that proud tradition. It does not modernise education; it centralises it. It strips away the freedoms that have helped so many schools succeed, handing power to bureaucrats. It is the children from working families who will lose the most—less choice, lower standards, fewer chances to break through.

I support the Government’s aim to protect children, but I fear that the Bill overreaches. As it stands, the state is grabbing sweeping powers, especially over home-educating families, demanding personal data, club attendance and anything local authorities consider appropriate. My concern behind this is the mindset that the state knows best, and that parents cannot be trusted and need to be managed. Authoritarian regimes always start by inserting themselves between parents and children, and demanding conformity of thought and value. Is this really the path we want to take?

Many parents turn to home education because the system failed them, or because of special needs, safety concerns or different values. They are doing what they think is best for children. I was home educated for two years. It was not ideal, but I survived, and I even went to university. We lived in a part of the world where schooling was not possible. My parents could have sent me to a boarding school but, being French, to be separated from children was not part of their beliefs, and I was only seven years old. Does that mean that, according to the Bill, my parents would have been criminals?

Meanwhile, this Bill also goes after some of our most successful schools—high-performing academic schools that have transformed lives, especially for children from tough backgrounds. What is their crime? They are different. They are independent, but they work. Instead of learning from them, this Bill seeks to drag them down, imposing an unpublished national curriculum, removing freedoms over hiring, flexibility and admissions, and tightening control through local authorities. That is not about raising standards; it is about government control. It does not fix what is broken; it breaks what is working. It does not raise standards; it lowers them. We should be backing good schools, not burdening them with red tape.

As the Bill stands, it creates an education regime that will be less human, less free and ultimately less effective. Can the Minister explain how, exactly, forcing home-educating families to share private details will help their children, and how stripping the autonomy of successful schools will benefit working families?

In closing, I welcome the two new noble Lords and congratulate them on their excellent speeches.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, would like to speak to Amendment 1. I realise that it is a broad amendment, so I shall concentrate on proposed new Clause 1(1)(a), and the

“safety and wellbeing of children”.

Last week, I asked why His Majesty’s Government had not followed France in banning mobile phones in schools, a policy introduced seven years ago and linked to better academic results and reduced bullying. The Minister rightly pointed out that France has a more directive education system, something my party would surely not want to replicate. She is quite right: we oppose excessive central control, especially when it threatens school autonomy or family life. But this is about the well-being, safety and health of children, just as school meals and physical activity are.

As my noble friend Lord Nash pointed out, phones disrupt learning, harm mental health and hinder social development, especially for young children. This brings constant pressure on schools to manage distraction, cyberbullying and the emotional toll of social media. Schools that ban phones see calmer classrooms, better behaviour and stronger results. This advantages particularly children who are disadvantaged pupils.

In primary schools, the case is even stronger. Young children do not need phones during the day, as nearly 80% of parents agree. France, Spain, Italy and Greece have all acted, and the Department for Education now encourages schools to limit phones throughout the day. The guidance is welcome, but it is not enough.

As proposed new Clause 1 calls for, we need more clarity about those specific points. Similarly, healthy food in schools is also vital. A balanced diet supports learning, concentration and behaviour. Italy and France offer a powerful contrast; pupils sit down for a proper meal, with vegetables, protein, cheese, yoghurt and fruit. Meals are unhurried and part of the school day, free from sugary snacks and drinks. The results speak for themselves: childhood obesity in France is significantly lower. In England, more than one in five children is overweight or obese by the time they start primary school; by the time they leave, it is nearly one in three. These are not statistics: they are our children, growing up at risk of preventable diseases and poor mental health.

In France, food education is part of the curriculum. From a young age, children learn about nutrition in science and civil lessons. Some schools offer classes on meal planning and basic cooking. Most importantly, children learn by example—by having structured, healthy meals. In England, food education is fragmented and school meals are often rushed, unbalanced and of poor quality.

With regard to the proposed new clause, I ask, while we are talking about the well-being and safety of children, why the Government want to centralise and concentrate decisions on some areas that affect family life but not on areas that are really about the core well-being of children—nutrition, mobile phones and cyberattacks? This proposed new clause is necessary, because it is needed to clarify quite a few things.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I was not going to speak, but I sat through the Second Reading and it was long. We have had some of the same speeches again—not put in the same way, but the phraseology is going in that direction.

The mover of proposed new Clause 1 was actually very good at making sure that she was using active verbs. I do not like passive ones—I go for the active ones. What are they? “Improve”, “improve”, “improve” and “make provision”. If you are dealing with children, the legislation needs to tell us that there are some things that we want to do—and of course, with them, not alone. For that reason, I want to support the Bill.

I say to my dear friend, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that I love his way of speaking and he is very persuasive, but I do not understand why he thinks that paragraph (c) applies simply to Wales. The improvement will be in England and Wales, because the legislation will apply to England and Wales. Of course, there will be questions in the Parliament there and they will be talking about it, but the Bill as it stands is for schools in England and Wales.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 458 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and my noble friend Lady Kidron. I have spoken on this issue several times in your Lordships’ House, and I will not repeat those speeches here. I am a teacher and have taught for 10 years, but never in a school that allows students outside the sixth form to carry phones to or in school. My noble friend Lady Cass says about mobile phones that the stakeholder view and desire for action in this area is overwhelming. I will talk not about the separate issue of whether smartphones themselves are harmful but rather about whether they should be in school at all for the under-16s.

Students who do not carry phones do not get mugged for phones. In schools that do not allow mobile phones, students talk to each other at break and lunchtime, or play games or go to clubs, rather than staring at their phones. So I am about to be rather brave here: for the first time I am going to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley—at the same time. I do not think that an exception for educational purposes would be workable. You cannot teach these students how to use phones; they know far better than we do. What you can teach them are the dangers. Again, I am going to do a first here and say that it might be rather better on a PowerPoint slide than doing it practically. I really worry about 30 students in a room with their mobile phones—what carnage could happen there? But this is back of a fag packet stuff.

The excuse quite often is that carers need to communicate with people. Actually, carers do not need phones; they need time away to be children. Quite often, the people they are caring for can be very demanding, and sometimes too demanding. Schools are very good at getting messages to students in emergencies. If it is not an emergency, perhaps the child does not need to know right away. Parents do not need to know exactly where their children are at every given moment. If there are emergencies with transport, they can go to a responsible adult and ask for a message to be sent or to borrow a phone. We managed over 100 years in education without mobile phones in schools—why start now?

The Minister said recently that it is up to school heads to make the decision. At a time when, with this Bill, decisions about uniform, pay, admissions and the curriculum are being taken away from school leaders, I think a lot of them would be secretly delighted to have the Government take this decision away from them and take the lead on it, allowing them just to police the phone ban without getting the blame.

Children need time to be children: to learn, to play, to interact and to build and rebuild friendships, face to face. Leaving aside the view of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, which I can see—but schools can provide the technology themselves—none of these is improved with a mobile phone.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 177, 183CA, 183CB and 458. As my noble friends Lord Nash, Lord Bethell, Lady Penn and many others have so eloquently laid out, the devastating impact of social media on children is not speculative anymore. It is an irrefutable fact. Social media, as many have said, is addictive; it impedes brain development and exposes children to sexual predators and harmful content, including body imaging. It is fuelling a crisis in adolescent mental health. Last year, more than 800,000 children under 18 needed NHS mental health support. This is a national crisis.

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[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.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I ask the noble Baroness how on earth she thinks that parents will be able to stand up against their children so they will not have phones? What we are discussing here is phones in school. The idea that we should prevent children under 16 from having smartphones seems to me utterly unrealistic.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

I did not mean under-16s in general, I meant under-16s at school, as in those amendments. However, I agree with some noble Lords that parents also need to be educated. When we see parents pushing a pushchair and children looking at video games and such things, it is probably not very helpful, but this is part of education and we all need to get together to educate parents also. So, I support these amendments and I think that, to help our children’s well-being and future, this is something we should look at.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I too support Amendments 458 and 177, and I am delighted to support the amendments from my noble friend Lady Penn, Amendments 183CA and 183CB, which recognise the importance of helping children in their earliest years. Every day, the mounting evidence underscores a distressing reality. The issue of excessive screen time and social media usage is not a future concern but a pressing crisis that is contributing significantly to a growing mental health crisis among our children. Health professionals, educators, parents and concerned community members all echo similar warnings. Our children’s well-being is at stake and we cannot afford to delay action.

The detrimental effects of this overexposure are multifaceted. Children today are grappling with severe challenges, including disrupted sleep patterns, deteriorating eyesight, hindered speech and language development, stunted emotional and social growth, poor eating habits, as discussed in the amendments on food on Thursday, distorted body image, confusing ideologies taught as fact, diminished educational outcomes and impaired cognitive performance. Recent research highlights the alarming prevalence of addictive behaviours associated with technology use among early adolescents. Only last week, a study revealed that half of these young individuals exhibit a high trajectory of video game addiction, while one in three struggle with compulsive social media use, and one in four face similar issues with mobile phones.

The implications are dire. High and escalating patterns of screen addiction correlate strongly with increased suicidal behaviours and ideation and overall mental health decline. Furthermore, research indicates that one in four children and young people are using smartphones in a manner consistent with behavioural addiction. Smart devices, as well as giving access to harmful online content, carry a whole-body impact on the child, including physical and psychological harms, eyesight and musculoskeletal issues, speech and language issues and implications for sleep. Health professionals are now seeing those issues in their clinics daily, and we need to act now to prevent continued generational harm.

The evolution of smart devices is part of the problem. The product has developed so quickly and in such a way that, if it were introduced into the market now, it is doubtful that it would pass regulation as a safe product for children. Yet one-quarter of three to four year-olds in the UK now own a smartphone, while half of children under 13 are on social media. Shockingly, campaigners are in the position of having to prove irrefutable causation of harm rather than manufacturers proving that their products are safe by design.

Each developmental stage of childhood has unique vulnerabilities that are negatively impacted by the use of smart devices and social media. Children’s brains demonstrate tremendous neuroplasticity and rapid growth, which is shaped by their interactions and stimuli in the world around them. The quality, source and content of those stimuli are essential for children to reach developmental milestones. Unfortunately, there are many harms to normal development when smart devices and social media supplant real-world human interaction. We often hear that social media, smartphones and screens are a parenting issue—we heard it today. However, the lack of coherent public health advice to help parents navigate screens and smartphones is a glaring gap. Unlike on smoking, nutrition or car seats, there is no clear guidance on screen time, content or device use. Parents are left without the necessary tools to protect their children.

The UK is an outlier in its lack of screen time guidance for parents. France and Spain are clear on the harms of screens for young children and advise against screens before the age of five—although five seems ludicrously early to me. The US follows guidance similar to the WHO guidance, with no screens before two. However, in the UK, we remain silent, and it is time we changed that.

Amendment 183CB starts to address this startling omission. From birth to three years of age, human brain development is extraordinarily sensitive. During this period, babies and toddlers require responsive, face-to-face social interactions, as well as the freedom to move and engage all their sense to grow and thrive. Although digital devices have become essential in adult lives, extensive global research has reinforced earlier findings that frequent and prolonged screen exposure in children aged nought to three can disrupt their cognitive, physical, social and emotional development. A study from New Zealand found that two year-olds who had 90 minutes of daily screen time were associated with below-average language and educational skills, as well as above-average levels of difficulties in peer relationships. By the time they were four and a half years old, screen use was identified as an independent predictor of developmental outcomes in this study, even when accounting for various individual child and family factors. This suggests that the effects of screen usage are widespread.

These developmental delays can have significant consequences for school readiness. Research indicates that children who spend more time on screens are less prepared for school, particularly in language and cognitive development. This can hinder their ability to access the early years curriculum and achieve educational success. According to a 2025 survey by Kindred², 54% of teachers reported that children exceeding the recommended screen time were less ready for school.

Parents and caregivers need to be equipped with the information that would help them to understand the very real harms of screen usage. It is unlikely that anyone would deem it acceptable for a child to bring a TV to school, or to chat with a friend throughout their classes, and yet we are still debating whether smartphones have a place in schools. Smartphones are highly distracting, and many children report struggling to put them down. Consequently, they find it nearly impossible to resist the temptation of having smartphones in their schoolbags or on their person throughout the school day. Restricting these attention-seeking devices meaningfully can significantly benefit children’s focus and ultimately their educational attainment. Research from UNESCO indicates that it takes young people 20 minutes to refocus on learning after being distracted by their phone.

Digital distractions in the classroom negatively affect the educational performance of many students. A comprehensive study involving nearly 150,000 students across 16 countries has shown that increased use of smart devices during study sessions considerably undermines learning and academic achievement. The mere presence of a smart device can drain limited cognitive resources, leaving fewer available for critical tasks and harming cognitive performance. Experimental results reveal that individuals score lower on tests when their phones are in the room, compared to when they are left elsewhere.

Schools that impose bell-to-bell restrictions on smartphone usage, including lockable pouches throughout the school day, report significant improvements in students’ well-being and concentration. Policy Exchange’s 2024 Disconnect report found that schools with effective smartphone bans see GCSE results that are one or two grades higher than those with more lenient policies. School leaders who have implemented such measures report remarkable outcomes; for instance, the John Wallis Academy has experienced a 25% decrease in truancy, a 40% reduction in detentions and an 80% drop in incidents of online bullying. These are outcomes we should strive to see in all schools.

Teachers have noted alarming behavioural issues largely influenced by smartphone use, including refusals to hand over devices when requested, unauthorised and inappropriate usage in classrooms, misogynistic behaviour and online bullying. Problems that arise online often spill over into the classroom, impacting students’ well-being and potential for success.

In 2022, exam boards reported a 50% increase in students failing to submit their devices before public examinations compared to 2019. Additionally, 76% of teachers at schools that permit mobile phones would prefer a complete ban on mobile phone use during the school day. A poll from Parentkind shows that 83% of parents believe that smartphones are harmful to children. SafeScreens has been campaigning since 2022 for a tobacco-style regulatory framework to support the introduction of safe and restricted smartphones for children, along with a statutory ban on smartphones in schools.

Children must be supported by allowing them at least a six-hour window during the school day when they can truly concentrate on their learning, without the distraction of a smartphone at hand. We in Parliament must champion a collective response to this crisis. These amendments would work together to protect our children from before birth, in their early years, into the classroom and to the online world.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

If the Government were to properly examine what is happening in Wales—and that would require more information than the Welsh Government have hitherto released—it would show that banning smacking is both unjust and counterproductive. I therefore invite your Lordships’ House to reject this sincere but nevertheless wrong-headed amendment.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I too oppose the removal of the defence of reasonable punishment. I realise that Amendment 97 from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, no longer does that directly, but it is intended as a staging post, and this is why I would like to talk about the issue.

As a child, I was subjected to physical punishment. My parents were overly strict. My father came from a military background and my mother had little patience with children. I was also a boarder at a Catholic school, where the nuns were extremely strict. On one occasion, I was caught talking to my neighbour and was made to kneel on the platform by the teacher’s desk with tape placed over my mouth for the rest of the lesson. This was a clear violation and would rightly be unacceptable today.

However, we must draw a distinction between physical punishment and hitting a child and an occasional light smack that causes no harm. These are not the same morally, psychologically or legally. English law reflects that distinction. Any punishment that causes injury, leaves marks, involves implements or amounts to abuse is illegal and rightly prosecuted. The defence of reasonable punishment applies only to the lightest chastisement where no harm is caused. It does not excuse abuse nor physical punishment. It prevents ordinary parents being treated as criminals when, from time to time, they apply proportionate discipline to an unruly child. To remove it is another step towards a nanny state where the balance between parental responsibility and state intervention is quietly but significantly shifted away from families and towards government control.

All children are not the same. Some respond to a word or a look and never need to be scolded; others test the boundaries. For those children, the calm assertion of parental authority is not cruelty but guidance, helping them learn limits, responsibility and respect for rules. I am also a parent. On one occasion, after repeatedly warning my eldest son, I smacked him lightly on his bottom. It did not hurt him, but he was so shocked that I followed through that he howled in indignation. His pride was hurt. After that, when I warned him, he believed me. It was not fear; it was authority, exercised once and never repeated.

Surely this should not be criminalised. Polling consistently shows that more parents favour retaining the current law than banning smacking. We are told that the law is unclear. It is not. The current test is simple. If harm is caused, the behaviour is illegal. Removing the defence would replace that clarity with subjective judgments, creating confusion for parents, police and social services.

The experience in Wales and Scotland, which my noble friend talked about, is that bans have led to thousands of additional referrals to social services, diverting attention from children who are genuinely at risk. A similar ban in England would cost at least £145 million, at a time when services are already under extreme pressure. What is needed is education, support and awareness, not criminal law. Legal bans invite denunciations, investigation and fear, not better parenting.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, when I saw Amendment 97, I was pleased to see that the focus was on the post-implementation review report on the Children (Abolition of Defence of Reasonable Punishment) (Wales) Act. I am keen that the UK Government dig deeper into the impact of what is known as the Welsh smacking ban. I am keen that the Government review the evidence and data and, I hope, draw a conclusion that this should not be brought into UK law—but that they do that by looking at the evidence.

As somebody in Wales, I have obviously been involved in this debate for some time. I have had lots of media discussions and spoken on the issue over the years. Having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talk about the report, I felt as though we probably read different reports and had different interpretations, which just shows that it is worth digging into. I have some serious reservations about the success of the law change, as there have been some rather unintended, though predictable, outcomes. I want to raise a few of those.

I understand that the proposers of this amendment are motivated by concern about the abuse of children, but it is important to note that we are all motivated by a concern about the abuse of children. That is something that we share. But one of my worries is the impact of the law change, given the pressures it is placing on social services in Wales. Thousands of new referrals have been made to Welsh social services that have involved the police, and these are costing millions of pounds and lots of time. To be honest, this can mean that real abuse is being squeezed out or relativised by what is happening.

The influx of referrals is not a surprise when any report of smacking automatically triggers an investigation by social services. The escalation of reports is no doubt because of the Welsh Government’s guidance to a wide range of organisations which work with, care for or volunteer with children that anyone who witnesses a parent smacking a child should immediately contact social services. My concern is that valuable resources are being taken away from protecting children who are at genuine risk of harm and diverted into trivial cases where harm has not been caused. Even if people ideologically do not agree with the chastisement of smacking, it is not the same as abuse. Even the most zealous anti-smacking campaigner—or so I thought, before I heard some people in this debate—should concede that a well-intentioned tap on the back of a tot’s hand or leg by a parent who loves their child does not mean that they are an abuser.

I was a bit shocked when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, say that any child might say, “If I don’t get a good grade, I’ll be beaten”. It is a shocking thing to hear a child say that, when it is actually illegal to beat a child in this country—of course it is. The idea that that is the same as smacking, in the way that the law in England permits, and the conflation of brutality with smacking—a mild physical chastisement as parental discipline—is the kind of sleight of hand that distorts the evidence, makes this a far too emotional discussion and is so insulting to parents. That is what I found shocking.

If we examine the guidance notes issued by various Welsh local authorities, we can see how resources that might be best spent protecting children at serious risk of beating if they do not pass their exams, for example—and that would be worth investigating—can become diverted. One example used in a guidance note was when a teacher reported that a young pupil stated his father smacked him because he was naughty. The advice from the Welsh Government was that the teacher should trigger a Section 47 investigation, which would include two uniformed officers visiting and talking to the four year-old. That sort of escalation, dragging the family into the orbit of social services and police forces, is what I worry about. There are obvious implications for the workload of front-line staff with a statutory duty to investigate all referrals, regardless of severity. That creates a danger of services being unable to prioritise cases where there is a genuine risk of abuse or neglect.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, started her contribution, she said that we should look at the evidence from Wales, and I thought, fair enough. That is what the Government are going to do, are they not? But then, towards the end of her contribution, she said that we should look at the evidence from Wales but not emulate it. That evidence suggests that we take this course of action. We are all getting hung up and concerned about the harmful effects of social media and of mobile phones. What about the harmful effects of smacking? It is hard to believe that 40 years ago, we still had corporal punishment in schools; they probably debated it in this Chamber. Children were caned or slippered. A few noble Lords probably got up and said that this was not a good idea. We can imagine the contributions, at the time, from the likes of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about that suggestion. I am sorry—I must not do that.

We have had a debate, and the work and experiments in Wales have been mentioned several times. But the most important people in all this are the children, are they not? What about them? Children who experience physical punishment are up to 2.6 times more likely to develop mental health problems, and up to 2.3 times more likely to go on to experience harm through more serious forms of physical abuse. This is the most worrying thing to me.

In 2023-24, over 700 children—we are probably talking about young children—contacted Childline to complain about, worry about or cry about physical abuse. What do we do? We go chatting on about all sorts of other things. I am disappointed that we are not having a Division on this: I would like to know how people feel. I am sure that the majority of Labour Members are absolutely on the side of doing away with corporal punishment. Some have been noticeably quiet, and I understand why; that is perhaps a cruel dig. I also accept, however, that we want to look at what has gone on in Wales and use that as the basis for coming to a conclusion. I am sure that those Members are genuine about this and are not using it as an opportunity to delay the matter beyond the general election. If they are still in office—and they could well be—could they please bring this forward immediately after the general election, and let us have a vote on it? This is a corporal punishment issue that is just as important as it was 40 years ago.

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

May I say something?

[Noble Lords]

No.