Online Harm: Child Protection

Ian Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Digital Government and Data (Ian Murray)]

I thank the Liberal Democrats for securing this debate, although I am slightly disappointed by the way in which that was done. I will not concentrate on procedural issues, but it seems to me that the argument is to give the Liberal Democrats the freedom of the House to introduce a piece of legislation that they want to work on while already having all the answers.

The use of a procedural motion for this serious debate is rather unfortunate. I think that has been demonstrated in the strength of feeling in the debate. I am completely and utterly split. The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), asked us to give an opinion, but I do not really know what the best thing to do is. I have a five-year-old girl and a one-year-old girl. The jobs that they will do when they are any of our ages have probably not even been invented yet. I want them to be able to live their lives, and to exploit, experience and enjoy social media and what new tech has to offer, but I want them to do so safely. Denying them that opportunity might not be the answer, but that is why consultation is put in place.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), who opened the debate, mentioned her own children and the daily fight between screentime, online and doing other things. I am sure that I had the same fight with my own parents when they tried to turn the television off at night, so this is not a new battle, but it is a battle that parents will win—whether we negotiate or treat them with sweets or something else. This highlights the importance of the approach that we are taking, which allows proper consideration of a range of views—that is urgent.

I have a whole stack of incredibly sobering but also very contradictory statistics here, which is why consultation and national conversation are important. Some 99% of 12 to 17-year-olds reported that they benefit from being online. One statistic suggests that half of parents think that the benefits of children being on social media outweigh the risks, while another says that just three in 10 parents think that.

Looking at that data—there is a whole host of it in that context—we might think that this is a difficult issue to resolve, but then we come to the child sexual exploitation and abuse issues. There were 41,000 obscene publication offences in December 2024—an 860% increase in a decade. In September 2025, there were 42,000 obscene publication offences—a near 1,000% increase since 2013. Some 91% of child sexual abuse material found online is self-generated, often under pressure from manipulation. Let us be quite clear, because some Members do not get this: it is illegal to create, possess or distribute child sexual abuse images, including those generated by AI, regardless of whether they depict a real child. That is already against the criminal law. The Online Safety Act requires in-scope services to assess the risks to their users of child sexual abuse material. That cannot be clearer.

[Sir John Hayes]

Of course, the Minister is right that there is all kinds of data about online activity, but what is plain and truthful is that academic evidence suggests not only that there are risks of the kind that he has just described—of abuse, exploitation and so on—but that children’s very consciousness is being altered, including their ability to socialise, to learn and to comprehend. That of itself requires the Government to act, for a generation of children are being exploited by heartless tech companies that are careless about the damage they do.

[Ian Murray]

I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention. [Interruption.] I am sorry to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). The Government are acting at pace, but we want to act in the right way. We must act in the right way because this is such a complex and serious issue. It is important for children to be able to seize the opportunities that being online can offer. We have heard about iPad-only schools. Parents must be confident that their children are safe—that is key. If we do not want to exclude children from age-appropriate services that benefit their wellbeing, we must act on the evidence and ensure that we strike the right balance between protecting children’s safety and wellbeing, and enabling them to use technology in positive and empowering ways.

[Dame Chi Onwurah]

Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that, in this debate on protecting children from some of the most obscene abuse, not one Reform Member is present?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

And the Reform party wants to dismantle the Online Safety Act. We are trying to resolve its potential imperfections, get it implemented and take it forward through the consultation, but Reform wants to scrap it. I have already said that anybody who thinks that the illegal possession and creation of child sexual images is acceptable under the banner of free speech does not deserve to be sitting in this House.

I have only a few minutes, and many Members made superb contributions; let me run through some of them. I have no idea whether the shadow Secretary of State supports the Online Safety Act or taking this proposal forward to a consultation, but we have to be evidence led. We share a desire to keep children safe online, but she has politicised the whole issue. It is not contradictory to want our children to have access to social media and benefit from it, and want to protect them; in fact, most Members said that they want to do that.

Lots of Liberal Democrat Members asked about timelines. Let me just say to them that there are not too many sleeps to go before they will see the consultation. Crucially, the Government will table amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that will allow us to implement the outcomes of the consultation through secondary legislation within months—before the summer, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan) said. There is a primary legislative vehicle there already, and we can introduce the secondary legislation later.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about the legislation not having been scrutinised. That is the position of the SNP—it does not scrutinise legislation on matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament—but that is their decision. It is not the decision of this House; its procedures do not require that.

I pay tribute to the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), and the Committee members for all their work on this issue. They are experts, and I have enjoyed listening to their speeches.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) mentioned advertising and drugs policy. As a joint Minister for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I chair the online advertising taskforce, which is trying to deal with issues relating to online advertising. We are working with the Home Office on a fraud strategy and are trying to ensure that online advertising spaces are well regulated and looked after.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North was absolutely right to talk about eating disorders and suicide. I have heard some absolutely horrific stories—unimaginable stories that nobody could write in their wildest dreams—about online grooming, mainly of young girls, and mainly on platforms on which they are already vulnerable due to eating disorders. We have to deal with that. The live streaming of suicides is creeping up, and we have to do something about that. That is what this consultation is about.

The hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) raised huge issues including eating disorders and AI chat. That is why chatbots will be included in the consultation. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) does a lot of work in this area—she is one of the pioneers in bringing these issues to the House. Algorithms will also be part of the consultation.

However, young people do need to see what social media is. To me as a 50-year-old, it is Facebook and WhatsApp, but it is not that to younger people. In fact, they frown when I talk about Facebook because they think it is old technology like slates and chalk.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said that the platforms must do better to police themselves—they do have to do more—and, like many other Members, talked about their addictive features. Addictive features will be part of the consultation as well, so please do get involved in that consultation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph), along with many hon. Members, spoke about the correlations with mental health. The Department of Health and Social Care has a key role to play in that, as was mentioned by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Ninety-eight per cent of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools already have “no phones in school” policies. We are clear that the guidance was not strong enough, which is why the Department for Education has published updated guidance on the use of mobile phones in schools. Because we want to be as clear as possible to schools, parents and young people that phones should not be used in schools, we reserve the right to put that on a statutory footing, should we be required to do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said that he uses Snapchat to communicate with his one and only friend on Snapchat: his daughter. I hope that she will not unfriend him after his contribution or he will have no one. He was right to talk about the procedural motion. This is such a serious issue, so we must ensure that we get that right.

Let me finish by talking about international social media bans and incidents from previous countries, as many hon. Members mentioned.

In closing, protecting children online and ensuring that online life is as fulfilling as that offline is a responsibility that this Government take incredibly seriously. No child should have to navigate unsafe digital spaces or experience negative impacts on their health and wellbeing, and no parent should feel alone in making decisions to protect and support their children. Members should please get involved in the consultation, which is there to give proper consideration to the most effective ways forward to deal with these problems. It will be short and sharp. It will last for three months, and we have a legislative vehicle to take forward the proposals from that.

Question put.