Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

We certainly intend to learn from Australia’s experience and evidence of the ban there—I hope that I and the Minister for online safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan), will be visiting soon. I do listen to the concerns raised by organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Internet Watch Foundation and the Molly Rose Foundation about the unintended consequences of a ban, and I intend to look at all those points of view seriously. However, as I have said to the House earlier, the question is not whether we act, but how. On age verification, I am extremely interested in what more we can do to enforce the existing law, and we will be gathering evidence on those points.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for this statement, acknowledging the real harm that social media is causing for children. As a former Schools Minister, I know how welcome these announcements will be for teachers and parents, who are contacting us in droves. However, as she knows, time is of the essence. All the time we spend contemplating is time that children still remain vulnerable to those algorithms and this addiction. Will she give the reassurance today that not only will this consultation be swift, but the delivery of its outcomes will be swift, and—she has just said this—that there will be real action to enforce the regulations already in place that should be protecting children today?

[Liz Kendall]

I have no desire to hang about, because this is happening to children and young people now—and because my hon. Friend would have my guts for garters if I did not act swiftly.