Children’s Social Media Accounts

Caroline Voaden Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

I am very grateful to be able to speak in this debate, which was prompted by Ellen Roome’s petition, although I am extremely sorry that any of us needs to be here at all. I pay tribute to Ellen and all the other families in the Bereaved Families for Online Safety network for their tireless campaigning.

A week before Christmas, I sat in a Committee Room with Ellen and senior representatives from all the major tech firms, including Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snap. One conversation that morning will stay with me for a very long time—a conversation that I can describe only as harrowing, shocking and deeply depressing. Sitting alongside two other heartbroken parents who have also lost their children because of online harms, Ellen confronted the representatives of TikTok and Instagram, pleading with them to release information that could give her some peace of mind following the death of her beloved son, Jools. There can be nothing worse for a parent than losing a child, but to lose a child and not understand how or why must compound that agony.

Ellen does not know why Jools died. Unlike many other children and young people, he was not being bullied online and did not seem to have any mental health issues. All Ellen wants is to find out what her son was looking at online before he died; it might shed some light on this tragedy that has clearly caused immeasurable grief. It was infuriating to listen to the tech firms’ pathetic excuses that morning about why they could not or would not release the data that Ellen is asking for.

There was—there is—no good reason not to release that data. Jools is no longer with us, so claiming data protection seems frankly pointless. TikTok said that it would be fined for releasing the data, but my question is: by whom? Who is going to press charges against a global tech company for supporting the request of a bereaved mother? Who in their right mind would think that a court case on that point would help anyone?

As we have heard from the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson), some social companies have behaved differently in such cases. It is quite clear, however, why some will not agree to release that data: it is a pathetic attempt to avoid the potential bad publicity that will follow if it becomes clear that Jools’ short life ended after taking part in a social media challenge, which is one possibility. It is about protecting the reputation of those social media companies. It is about the accountants who fear the lawsuits. In short, I suggest it is about money. The absence of humanity, care and compassion in that room before Christmas was palpable and I applaud Ellen for having the courage to come back here today.

I can see no reason why tech companies cannot immediately release the data that these devastated parents are asking for. I fully support Ellen and all the other parents in their attempts to get Jools’ law on the statute books. In the meantime, I plead with Instagram and TikTok to not wait for a legal challenge, but just release the data: find your inner human and do something decent; imagine if it were your child.

Under UK law we have clear, legal processes for handling physical estates after death. It is high time that we establish clear protocols for the digital estates that are left behind, particularly the digital estates left by young people. The law must catch up with the world we are living in. Current provisions, such as Facebook’s legacy contact feature, are not sufficient, because they rely on a child making a decision while they are still alive, often without fully understanding the implications, as has been mentioned. It is also quite possible that, if children were asked whether their parents could have full access to all of their digital online life in the event of their death, they would say no. Without formal, legal access arrangements, parents are left with no way of viewing their children’s account.

[Lola McEvoy]

I was reading up on that issue in preparation for this debate and I came across some amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill that would require those huge providers and tech companies to have a complaints procedure, where parents could appeal to their better nature for the release of the data, but if they were refused it, there would be a proper complaints procedure. Does the hon. Lady think that goes far enough?

[Caroline Voaden]

No, I do not believe that goes far enough. There should be a legal right to access that data without having to go through any complaints process, particularly at a time when one is struggling with the worst bereavement imaginable.

The petition seeks to address that gap in law and ensure that, in the tragic event of a child’s death, parents have the right to access their child’s account to gain closure, to preserve memories and to ensure that harmful content is removed. I support the addition of Jools’ law into the Online Safety Act, and I urge the Government to do whatever they can to apply it retrospectively for those who have campaigned on this issue.

What Ellen’s family have been through is the absolute worst imaginable, but tens of thousands of families up and down the country are struggling with the impact of social media on their children and teenagers. Those children are addicted to their screens because of the wicked algorithms that lure them in; cowed by bullies who can intimidate them in their own bedrooms late at night; struggling with their body image because they do not look like the influencers they watch; depressed because their lives do not resemble the doctored, airbrushed Instagram image of perfection; and brainwashed by influencers who spew toxic messages through their pages.

The damaging impact of social media on our children is vast. Medical professionals from all disciplines tell us regularly of the harms children are experiencing from hour after hour spent glued to a screen. Their physical health is damaged, their mental health even more so, and even their ability to communicate and socialise with other humans is changing.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is about not only mental health harm, but inattention? I speak to many headteachers in my constituency who tell me that children are unable to concentrate any more because of hours spent on their screen. Would she agree that the Government study announced in November that seeks to explore that issue further should be published soon, because every day and every year we leave it, more children are at risk of harm?

[Caroline Voaden]

I could not agree more. What is becoming obvious is the impact of children being on their phones late at night, which affects their sleep—even that has a knock-on effect on how well they can operate.

Parents across my South Devon constituency are desperate to protect their children, but they are overwhelmed by the digital world and the power it has over young people. They need legislation to empower and support them. The NSPCC reports that over 60% of young people have encountered online bullying. That is a staggering number, highlighting the need for more robust protections from us for children in the digital space.

It is clear that we need more robust protection, and it is incumbent on us as lawmakers to protect children as we do from other harms such as tobacco and alcohol. It may be right that parents should not have access to their teenager’s social media because of privacy reasons and to protect children’s ability to seek support online, but that makes it even more important and urgent that social media companies should be required and obliged to take responsibility for watertight age verification, and that we should look seriously at raising the age of access to some social media platforms to 16.

I urge the Government to work with social media companies and other stakeholders to create a clear and respectful framework that allows parents access to their child’s social media accounts after a death with no questions asked. This is not about data protection; this is about ensuring that families can concentrate on grieving and healing rather than going into battle against the world’s tech giants.

It is abominable that any bereaved parent should have to do what Ellen and other campaigners are doing. I urge the Minister to legislate so that that does not happen again. I commend the Petitions Committee for bringing this debate to the House and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central for introducing it.

Online Safety: Children and Young People

Caroline Voaden Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) on bringing forward this important debate. The internet has undeniably introduced a valuable resource for learning that has transformed society, but technology has also brought with it significant risks that I believe we in this House have an urgent duty to address. Nobody knows that more acutely than all those parents who have tragically lost their children after online abuse, who are bravely represented today here in the Public Gallery by Ellen.

The statistics are sobering. Recent figures from Ofcom reveal that one in five children in the UK has experienced some form of online harm, including cyber-bullying, exposure to inappropriate content and exploitation. The NSPCC reports that more than 60% of young people have encountered online bullying, but I think the risk goes much further than that. We know that the average age at which a child first views pornography is estimated to be 12, with some evidence now suggesting it is as young as eight years old. Free and widely available pornography is often violent, degrading and extreme, and it has become the de facto sex education for young people.

The pornography crisis is radically undermining the healthy development of children and young people, and contributing to increasing levels of sexual inequality, dysfunction and violence. That reality represents how children’s lives are affected by those dangers, and as parliamentarians we have a duty to keep our children safe and free from harm—online as well as offline. Nine in 10 children are now on a mobile phone by the age of 11, and around a quarter of three-year-olds now have their own smartphone. I do not know about you, Mr Dowd, but I find that statistic particularly troubling.

I believe it is crucial to differentiate smartphone use from the broader digital environment. Smartphones, as we know, are engineered to be addictive, with notifications that stimulate the release of dopamine, the same chemical that is linked to pleasure. It is too easy for children to become trapped in a cycle of dependency and peer pressure, addicted to feeds and competing for likes on social media. Addiction is exactly what the tech companies want. Research from the Royal Society for Public Health shows that social media harms mental health—we all know that—particularly among young users. Around 70% of young people now report that social media increases their feelings of anxiety and depression.

The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza, believes that Ofcom’s children’s codes, which the hon. Member for Darlington talked about, are not strong enough and are written for the tech companies rather than for the children. She says that we need a code that protects our children from the “wild west” of social media. In South Devon I often hear from parents overwhelmed by the digital environment their children are navigating. They want to protect their children, but they feel ill equipped to manage those complexities. Hundreds of them have signed up to the smartphone-free pledge, and are pressuring schools to take part as well. We need to give them support, by backing what they want to do with legislation.

I believe we need a legislative framework that will restrict the addictive nature of smartphones, tighten age restrictions and restrict access to social media platforms for all children under 16. We have to protect them. Those measures are crucial for online child safety, and I believe there is a broad consensus in the House that big tech must be held accountable for the harm it perpetuates. We must abide—

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Jess Asato.

Technology in Public Services

Caroline Voaden Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech. I congratulate all the other Members who have made their maiden speeches this evening, from the whiskey and sausages of Glasgow West to the pottery of Stoke-on-Trent South, the young people of Croydon East, and the beautiful tour of North East Hampshire, which I have driven through many times. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) for delivering an incredibly powerful and moving maiden speech with no notes—very impressive.

It is very relevant to join in this debate on the role of technology in public services following several conversations that I had during recess about the challenges of connecting Devon and, in particular, the South Hams and Dartmoor to high speed internet. It is something that I will be coming back to with the Minister. If we are going to support rural communities, small businesses, the self-employed and those studying online, we have to get them connected. We must also be aware of the danger of digital exclusion. For all those who cannot use computers, particularly older people, we must ensure that there is always a decent working offline alternative to apps and QR codes.

I am very proud to say that I am the first non-Conservative MP to be elected in my large rural constituency for over 100 years. It had a very short flirtation with Liberalism in 1923 when Henry Vivian was elected. Sadly, he lasted only 10 months before being replaced by another Conservative. Vivian was the founder of the co-operative housing movement, and it is a real shame that he did not last a bit longer, because we could really do with his legacy in South Devon.

It is a spectacular part of the UK, from the art deco hotel sitting atop Burgh Island to the eastern slopes of Dartmoor, the Rivers Dart and Avon that meander south to the sea, the headland at Berry Head where you can spot dolphins playing in the water, and the rolling hills and hedges of the South Hams. It is the place I made home 17 years ago, after leaving London. I took my two small daughters to Devon to be nearer family after the death of my husband from cancer in 2003, and it is great that they are both with us today.

Being widowed at 34 with very young children is a brutal experience, but it taught me many things—the power of community, the value of friendship and family, the strength of support from kindred spirits. Here I pay tribute to the Widowed and Young organisation, which I chaired for a couple of years. Hanging out with a bunch of widows may not sound like much fun, but being with people who understand what you are going through at a difficult time, and who can truly empathise, is transformational. I will always champion community and support groups who bring people together.

Leaving London for a rural community was a bit of a gamble. Busy London play parks were replaced by empty fields, and I was almost the only single parent in the school. I did feel like an outsider. We had no internet connection, and had to dial in through a satellite dish on the roof, which drove me completely insane; but we got some battery hens and watched in awe as their feathers grew back and they began laying eggs again. I learned to manage a septic tank and oil-fired central heating. I navigated the complete lack of buses and the absence of breakfast and after-school clubs, which was not easy for a single working mother.

Rural life poses many extra challenges, so three years later we moved to Totnes, I met my lovely second husband, and this special town became home. It is often described as alternative, but I prefer to say that it is a place that knows the meaning of the word “community”. It is a place where it is quite normal to question the idea that a planet with finite resources can support infinite growth, a place where the seriously wealthy question why they are not being taxed more to support those who have less, and a place where radical thinking is seen as a really important thing to do.

My constituency is where Agatha Christie lived by the River Dart, and further downstream, naval recruits are trained at Britannia royal naval college. We have wild camping on Dartmoor—long may it continue—paddleboarding in the bay, surfing on the south coast and the world’s biggest pirate festival in Brixham, as well as ancient family farms, stunning beaches and thousands of miles of hedgerows.

We also have the revival of the cirl bunting, a success story championed by my predecessor but one, Sarah Wollaston, who sat on several Benches in this House. Once near extinction, there are now over 1,000 cirl bunting pairs singing from the farmland of South Devon and Cornwall because of the environmental work done by farmers in my constituency. It is proof that farming for food and restoring nature can go hand in hand.

We have one of the country’s largest fish markets at Brixham, as well as shell fishermen, oyster farms and scallop divers. An energetic conversation about sustainability and the long-term future of the fishing industry is being had, and I will work with fishers and scientists, so that we can create policy here that ensures that we can continue to fish while protecting stocks for the future.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Anthony Mangnall, who worked hard to establish the National Independent Lifeboat Association. Together with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, it provides an incredible emergency service for all those who work or play on the water. On land, we have hundreds of hospitality businesses that offer a brilliant experience—I recommend hon. Members all come and try them out—but they have taken a massive hit over the past few years, and they really need our support now to survive.

However, there is so much more to South Devon that does not make it on to the postcards or the chocolate boxes. We have Britain’s most expensive seaside town in Salcombe, where an average house costs £970,000, but not far away we have left-behind neighbourhoods where people struggle to make ends meet on low-paid seasonal work and live in poor-quality housing. This disparity of wealth can be hard to get your head around. I would like us to think really hard and creatively in this place about how we can help even out our society, so that no one is raising a disabled child in a mould-filled home within sight of a millionaire’s yacht in the harbour below.

The lack of public transport leads to loneliness and isolation, and adds to the lack of opportunities for our young people for work and socialising. We must invest in it as a public good. Our schools in Devon are hugely underfunded compared with schools across the UK, which impacts the life chances of our children. We have communities that have been hollowed out by second homes to the extent that schools are closing, village shops have long gone and the last pubs are closing. Families are being evicted so that landlords can turn their homes into short-term holiday lets, and second homes registered as businesses are causing our council to lose out on millions of pounds a year of desperately needed resources. We must close this loophole.

We have businesses struggling to get staff because no one can afford to live nearby and there is no social housing, yet developers build and build to support the immigration of wealthy retired people from other areas of the country. We have more than met our housing targets, but we are still in a desperate housing crisis. The solution is not just build, build, build; it is about land prices, what we build and where, and who buys those homes. What we need is social housing, more community land trust schemes, innovation and ideas for breaking out of the developer-led disaster we are in.

We are the home of innovation and good ideas, and I would like to quickly highlight one organisation, LandWorks. I declare an interest, as I worked there for six months in 2018. LandWorks is an inspirational prisoner rehabilitation charity that I hope the new prisons Minister will soon visit, given the crisis we are in nationally. Its amazing work has been shown to cut reoffending rates and reintegrate prisoners into society.

We also have a growing cluster of high-tech photonics companies attracting talent from home and abroad and providing highly skilled jobs. That is exactly the kind of modern manufacturing that this country desperately needs, so it was disappointing to hear last week that these companies are missing out on partnerships, funding and investment because of Brexit. One company is weighing up whether it will move its headquarters out of the UK into the EU. Members will not be surprised to hear that as a former Member of the European Parliament for the south-west who got involved in politics in June 2016, I will continue to try to find ways to mitigate and lessen the damage Brexit has caused, particularly to my shellfish exporters, my food and wine importers, our musicians, and all those sectors that are struggling to find staff.

South Devon is a constituency of many parts, and it is right at the top of the list of the most challenging constituencies in which to deliver Lib Dem leaflets—[Interruption.] Well, maybe my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) beats me on that. I want to finish by expressing my heartfelt thanks to an incredible group of volunteers who supported my campaign, many of whom were not Liberal Democrats, and who were lending their vote and their time and their shoe leather because they wanted to be represented by a different kind of voice. I would also like to thank my dad, with us today, who never tired of campaigning to help me get here—and I would just like to say that I am really sorry I didn’t campaign harder for you in 1983, when you came quite close to sitting on these Benches. I could not have done it without them all, and it is the honour of my life to represent them and all the residents of South Devon. I will work hard every day for them, for our environment, for our planet, and for a different kind of politics.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Alice Macdonald to make her maiden speech.