Online Harm: Child Protection

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson]

No, I will not give way; I would not expect the hon. Member to help me out.

At various points, we have tabled all the things I have mentioned as amendments in both Houses, so they have been drafted—although I am happy to admit that they have not been put together in one Bill for me to present today. I apologise on that procedural point, Madam Deputy Speaker, which I can see has upset many Members, but all the proposals that I have outlined have been tabled in both Houses as amendments to various Bills, including the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the Data (Use and Access) Bill.

To reiterate, the only consultation that we should focus on now ought to relate to how the restrictions might work in practice, not whether they are needed at all—the public and campaign groups have made their views on that pretty clear already, whether they support or oppose a blanket ban. Although I have been criticised for coming forward without a Bill, the whole point was to say, “Let’s work together,” because I think there is cross-party consensus on this matter.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

There seems to be great confusion in the Chamber, even though the Liberal Democrats have time and again set out our proposals quite clearly in different places. I find it fascinating that the official Opposition accuse us of politicking when they probably agree with the substance of our proposals. They are contorting themselves to find a way not to support the motion, which is about urgency and acting more swiftly than the Government propose to do—I, for one, think that is a good thing.

[Munira Wilson]

Discussing the substance of the issue is exactly what we are seeking to do. It has been a long time since this Chamber has had a proper debate on these issues. In a few weeks’ time, we will discuss amendments that suggest individual parties’ views on the way forward. We are proposing a discussion on what the proposals should be so that we can return with a piece of legislation that meets the needs and requirements of the public—our children and young people, and their parents and carers.

We Liberal Democrats say to Ministers and the official Opposition that we have a set of solutions, and we will work with them in the best interests of children. We need to act now, so they should vote with us today and make time for this Bill on the legislative agenda. If the Government do not want to make time for our Bill, perhaps they will make time for one of their own, but we need one quickly. We stand ready to work across parties to create the safer future that our children deserve—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is for that exact reason that I support a consultation: this is part of a debate, and we all need to improve our understanding of the impacts of this technology. Parents are in a difficult position. I do not believe parents should have to be technology experts in order to give their children the best start in life, but unfortunately there is so much pressure in the online world that that seems to be the case right now, and that is why it is right that Government take action and consult on the action they take.

Let us think about the evolution of these technologies. I remember that when I joined Facebook in 2005 I had to use my university email address to join—that meant I had to be over 18. Some 20 years later, 13-year-olds and younger are having their lives and brains formed by almost uninhibited access to social media. In the UK, the number of social media users has gone from practically zero to four fifths of the population. I have worked with the Molly Rose Foundation, a charity established by the Russell family after their daughter Molly took her own life at the age of 14 following exposure to self-harm content online; I have spoken to the bereaved parents of children bullied to death online; and I have spoken to the Internet Watch Foundation about the horrendous images its staff see of child exploitation. The fact that the Conservatives did nothing in all those years in government is, in my view, a form of political negligence of the highest order.

As part of my Committee’s inquiry into social media and algorithms, Google, Meta, TikTok and X told us that they accepted their responsibility to be accountable to the British people through Parliament, which I thought was quite a step forward from previous utterances, and ongoing utterances, by some tech billionaires who shall remain nameless. Our inquiry found that our online safety regime should be based on principles that remain sound in the face of technological development. Social media has many important and positive contributions, including helping to democratise access to a public voice and to connect people far and wide, but it also has significant risks—and those risks can evolve with the technology. We spoke about AI as an evolution, and one of the main failings of the Online Safety Act is that it regulates particular services rather than establishing principles that remain true and can be part of a social consensus as technology evolves.

[Bobby Dean]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Should one of those principles be related not only to content but to the addictive nature of these platforms? One of the changes I have witnessed on social media over time is algorithmic addiction. The greatest minds in the world are now working out the circuitry of our brains and driving content towards us so that we look at our screens for longer so that they can sell more ads. Does she agree with that point?

Digital ID

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Another day, another U-turn. Have you ever seen a new Government so lacking in conviction? When they announced their plan for change, I do not think anybody in this place realised that it was a plan to change every single one of their policies. This is becoming a shambles.

The Liberal Democrats lack no conviction on this issue—we have been opposed to ID cards for over 20 years. The Minister said repeatedly that digital ID will save people money, but this is a multibillion-pound project, and taxpayers’ money is being spent on it. Will he confirm how much has been spent on the scheme so far, and how much the Government intend to spend on it?

[Josh Simons]

As I have mentioned before to the hon. Gentleman and in the House, the design and delivery of the scheme will be subject to the consultation that we will launch in a few weeks. Choices will be made about the scheme in that consultation. After those choices are made, we will have much more detailed costings available to the House. The crucial thing is this: nations all over the world that have already developed digital ID programmes have realised massive, significant and quantified savings. Let me give an example: India’s digital ID programme has saved an estimated $10 billion per year by ensuring that public resources are accurately targeted at those who are eligible to receive them. That is what this Government will be doing, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this crucial issue. I know that Members across House will have their own personal and tragic experiences of suicide. We have launched a call for evidence on our men’s health strategy, which will improve men’s health in all parts of the country, including tackling devastatingly high suicide rates. We are also investing £26 million in new mental health crisis centres, funding talking therapies for 380,000 more people and recruiting 8,500 more mental health workers.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Q15. The plans to upgrade St Helier hospital, including the delivery of a new specialist emergency care building, have been put back by 10 years. I am talking to the trust about a way to bring all or part of those plans forward, but in the meantime there is a very real fear that some of the buildings on the existing estate are at risk of catastrophic failure before the decade is out. Will the Government reassure me that they will work with the local trust on a plan to maintain and adapt the existing estate to ensure that St Helier hospital can survive all the way through to the completion of the major works?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Member’s constituents have been badly let down by the previous Government’s empty promises, which were never going to be delivered. We have put the new hospitals programme on a sustainable financial footing and increased the NHS capital budget to record levels, so that we can address the backlog of critical maintenance, repairs and upgrades. I will make sure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss that particular case.

Community Theatre

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Smart]

I strongly agree. I remember growing up, with this accent, and really welcoming it when somebody sounded like me on the BBC or in a theatre production. It matters to all of us to see and hear ourselves and to hear our stories being told. Community and local theatre plays a hugely important role in that.

Community theatre also plays an important role in saving money from the public purse. We have so many young people on a waiting list for assessment and treatment by child and adolescent mental health services. They might be out of mainstream school and struggling as they live with a mental health condition. Participating in the life of a theatre, whether in a production or at the front or back of house, can make people feel they belong. It can help them to find their voice and support them, thereby reducing the cost to the state in other areas. It also offers invaluable educational opportunities.

At the Forum, local schools benefit from theatre experience days, when students can learn about career opportunities in the creative industries, which can be life changing. I am thinking about David, who discovered his passion for lighting and sound design during a school visit. When he left school, he became the theatre’s first apprentice, allowing him to master his passion over a two-year programme.

The charity that operates the theatre, NK Theatre Arts, also ensures that financial hardship does not prevent participation. The theatre vowed never to turn down a potential member due to financial difficulties. Recently, a long-time member of a much-loved drama class stopped attending, because her family was experiencing a tough time financially, and they decided they could no longer afford it. The theatre team pushed through and insisted that the member continue and only pay what she could.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

My hon. Friend’s passion for her local theatre is clear to see. She mentioned the form of ownership, a charity in that case. In Carshalton, we have the CryerArts centre, a local theatre owned and operated by the local community, by a company specifically set up for that purpose. Does she agree that that kind of ownership structure should be encouraged by the Government and supported as much as possible?

[Lisa Smart]

I strongly agree that assets that are owned and run by the community are a powerful way of empowering that community to deliver what it needs. The Forum theatre is owned by the council but run by NK Theatre Arts, and I will come to some of the challenges that that funding model presents, but I think that communities being involved in improving themselves brings about the best for them.

Online Safety Act: Implementation

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Social media has the power to provide spaces for connection, free speech and content creation that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. I remember what it was like to be a part of the first generation of teenagers to use social media. I hear the likes of MSN, Myspace and Bebo are no longer a thing among the youth, but I understand the joy of platforms like them and why we would not want our parents involved and snooping around on them. None the less, exactly how much space and freedom we should afford teenagers as parents and as society is the subject of intense debate.

When I speak to parents or teachers about social media, they tell me that they are concerned about how much time children spend on their devices, who they are speaking to and the fear that comes from not knowing what they are watching and reading. That is no surprise, because we as adults are struggling on the same platforms in the same way, and there is very little reassurance that the experience that young people get is much different from our own. The violence, the pornography, the hate—we all see it, and they see it too.

Just a few weeks ago, there was a horrific stabbing in my constituency involving a teenage boy. The video was posted all over social media within minutes. It kept popping up in my feed on Facebook, as it was shared across local groups, and I was tagged in the video on X. The video depicted the whole scene, unfiltered, without a warning. My thoughts went to the victim’s family and to the young teenagers at the college around the corner, who I am sure will have been watching it, too. I do not think I am imagining it when I say that, not long ago, a video like that simply would not have got around as quickly or been seen as frequently as that one. It would have been taken down, at least eventually, but with the purposeful rolling back of moderation by giants like Meta and X, violent content is not just becoming more frequent, it is becoming normalised.

How have we got here? Ultimately, it is because we have allowed the tech giants to become too powerful, with regulation arriving too slowly and without enough teeth. Once upon a time, the greatest minds took up careers in law and medicine, but now the big money and prestige is in big tech, an industry that, on the face of it, sells us nothing, but while we do not pay for their services with money, we pay for it with our attention. The longer they can keep us looking at their platforms; the more ads we see, and the more money they make, so we have the world’s most talented people working out the circuitry of our brains and creating products that are, by design, addictive. What we look at does not matter, only that we are looking, so there is no inherent commercial incentive to fix the problem of dangerous and harmful content.

Just imagine if all that energy and talent was directed into fail-proof age verification, taking fake accounts down, and other safety-by-design measures. Tough law and regulation is our only answer. The concern expressed in this debate is that the Online Safety Act was watered down on its way through Parliament, and further weakened by Ofcom’s guidance; my fear now is that it is under further threat, as in trade negotiations with the US this tech bro-fuelled Trump presidency may demand a further weakening.

As it stands, small companies are already off the hook. It does not matter how harmful the content is as long as its user space is small. The large companies have the legal representation and increasing soft power in practice to avoid compliance, and we are already seeing the consequences of that. Will the Government give us assurances in this debate that, as the mood music in America is to backslide on protections, the UK will stand strong? Will the Government commit to do the opposite of backsliding, to engage with children’s charities and other campaigners who have deep concerns about the gaps in the existing legislation and regulation by Ofcom, and to work to strengthen those protections further in the coming year?

It sounds very obvious, but the kids of today will soon become adults. The world that surrounds them as children will shape their views as adults. One of the most depressing things I have read recently is that teenage girls are the group most likely to be victims of domestic abuse. That is attributed in part to the rise of misogynistic content. If we fail to get the most profitable companies in the world to act, we fail everybody.