Mobile Phones in Schools

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s announcement and, in particular, their recognition that schools must be places where children can concentrate, learn and develop relationships without the constant distraction of mobile phones.

However, I hope the Minister will forgive me for pointing out that the Government have taken rather a long time to arrive at this position. It was rightly pointed out that it was the Opposition Benches in your Lordships’ House who consistently pressed for schools to become phone-free environments. I notice that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is in her place. We spent many a time meeting with parents, head teachers and other campaigners.

During the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, we pushed the Government to put their guidance on a statutory footing, despite their initial reluctance. We argued that the voluntary guidance was insufficient and that head teachers needed clarity and consistency, and I am pleased that the Government have finally recognised the strength of that argument.

The stats presented underline why further action is necessary. Only 16% of secondary school pupils say that mobile phone rules are followed all the time. More strikingly, where schools operate a “not seen, not heard” policy, only 20% of school leaders report consistent compliance, compared with 74% where phones are collected. That is compelling evidence that the existing approach is not working.

However, announcing stronger guidance is one thing; giving schools the resources to implement it is quite another. The Government have suggested that schools can choose between collecting phones, secure lockers or lockable pouches—but these approaches all have financial and practical implications. The Education Committee has highlighted that purchasing pouches alone can cost a secondary school around £20,000. We all know that school budgets are under enormous pressure, and we cannot expect head teachers to absorb yet another unfunded responsibility. Can the Minister therefore explain why the Government are not providing dedicated funding to support schools with implementation? Will they commit to ensuring that no school is disadvantaged because it cannot afford the necessary equipment?

Secondly, I welcome the Government’s recognition that exemptions and reasonable adjustments will be necessary for children with medical and special educational needs and disabilities. For some children, a mobile phone is not simply a distraction; it is an essential tool for managing a medical condition, communicating or accessing support. I am also particularly concerned about young carers, who may need to check on a sick, disabled or vulnerable family member during the school day. Will the Minister give an explicit assurance that young carers will be included in the exemptions alongside children with SEND and medical needs, and that these arrangements will be straightforward rather than creating additional barriers for vulnerable pupils?

Finally, I strongly support the principle that head teachers should have the flexibility to decide how best to implement a phone-free environment in their schools. Schools have different circumstances, communities and practical challenges. A one-size-fits-all approach to enforcement will not necessarily work. Flexibility must be matched with resources, clear guidance and proper support. Will the Minister commit to working directly with school leaders and representative organisations to ensure that the revised guidance is practical and properly funded, and does not simply transfer additional costs on to already stretched schools and parents?

Our children deserve classrooms where they can concentrate, learn and enjoy their childhood without the pressures of smartphones and social media. We on these Benches have been campaigning for this change for a long time and we welcome the Government finally moving in the right direction. But we must now ensure that this policy works in practice for every school and every child. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, in January 2026 the Government strengthened their guidance on mobile phones in schools, making it clear that all schools should have mobile phones policy that prevents pupils having access to their phone throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, break times and lunchtimes. This guidance was put on a statutory footing during the passage of what became the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, and schools have been required to implement it since September 2026. However, evidence and feedback from the sector—and from noble Lords in this House—suggest that challenges persist.

That is why the Government are announcing that we will update statutory guidance to be clear that schools should have policies that ensure children cannot have unsecured mobile phones in their bag or blazer throughout the school day. This backs teachers and leaders with the clarity that they are asking for. This may mean phones are collected at the start of the day, kept in secure lockers, stored in a lockable pouch, or any other strategies that ensure phones are not accessed at any point during the school day.

Noble Lords opposite raised points about the timetable. While the new statutory guidance will be introduced from September 2027, it is of course the Government’s wish—I believe evidence suggests that this will happen—that schools move more quickly towards the implementation of this policy. Of course, we have seen evidence in the last year with a near doubling in the numbers of schools that are ensuring that pupils cannot have any access to their phones during the course of the day. This answers the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, about resources.

All the evidence about the different ways in which schools have approached this issue suggests that it is culture, leadership and clarity that are the most important elements in ensuring that schools are successful in carrying out this policy. We are confident that schools will be able to move more quickly than the beginning of the revised statutory guidance in September 2027. Of course, we will want to work with leaders and others within our schools to ensure that this policy is both supported by government and put in place in our schools.

The noble Lord made a particular point about young carers. It is quite tricky because, arguably, young carers, as much as any other child, deserve the opportunity to have a mobile phone-free experience in school. I am not sure that specifically exempting them is the most appropriate way forward, but we would expect schools to recognise the need for young carers sometimes to be able to phone home or to be contacted. Using the school office, for example, to facilitate that might be a good way forward.

Noble Lords raised points about edtech safety certification. Technology is now an integral part of education, supporting teaching, learning and the smooth running of schools, colleges and early years settings. It is essential that children and young people learn to use technology confidently and safely, so they are prepared for and can thrive in a rapidly evolving digital world.

However, technology should support learning, rather than get in its way, and it must be safe. The Department for Education has developed and already sets standards for the safe use of technology in education settings, including digital and technology standards and generative AI product safety standards, setting our expectations for the safe use of technology in education settings. However, schools and other education settings often have to make complex technical judgments when selecting technology without clear and consistent evidence about product safety. That is the thinking behind the consultation launched yesterday on proposals for edtech safety certification.

This is about getting ahead of the curve and ensuring that the Government are not passive to technological change but actively ensuring that it is safe for children and supports their development, and also supports schools with difficult decisions about appropriate edtech in a rapidly changing technological environment.

I do not think the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, really means that there should be no use of screens in classrooms. One of the things I regret from my time teaching is that I never got the opportunity to use a whiteboard, for example, in the imaginative way that is pretty well taken for granted in most classrooms now. Nor did I get to use technology to support group work and learning, in some of the ways where I think there is evidence that it supports, rather than replaces, pupils’ learning. Of course, it is important that we are clear about how it is used and that we agree that schools need good evidence about whether technology is effective.

We think that safety and effectiveness require different approaches. Safety can be assessed against clear expectations, while educational effectiveness depends on the pupils, the setting and how a product is used. That is why we are addressing effectiveness through the £24 million national edtech test bed programme, to build evidence about what works, for whom and in what contexts. We think that together these two approaches will help schools to make informed decisions about technology that is both safe and effective and, in doing that, provide the support and evidence that teachers need to ensure access to learning and the space to do that without being sidetracked by the use of mobile phones. That is what our children deserve.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, first I thank noble Lords who were so generous in their remarks about my part in getting us to this point. As was noted, I was definitely not alone; other noble Baronesses who are in the House tonight were there on the journey. I am not sure what the Minister and I will talk about if we cannot talk about “not seen, not heard” any more, but I hope we will find something else.

I have a few specific questions for the Minister; if she would prefer to write on any of them, I would be very happy with that. First, the Statement talks about there being flexibility around children who have medical needs and SEND. Could she give the House an example of where a child with SEND would need their personal mobile device, as opposed to a school-provided device that would meet their needs? Secondly, will the guidance cover school trips as well as the school day? We know that some pretty terrible things have happened with phones on school trips. Also, are the Government planning to future-proof the guidance? Schools are talking about smart watches and smart glasses. How do the Government intend to approach that?

I was very pleased to read in the Statement that the Government plan to talk to head teachers. Many of us in this House know some really pioneering head teachers, including those who have prohibited phones completely, used brick phones or taken other approaches. I am sure they would be delighted either to meet directly with the Minister or to contribute as the guidance is developed.

Finally, in our debates on mobile phones and on social media, we learned that health professionals were often the first to spot a lot of the problems that we are now talking about. Speech and language therapists, opticians and so on were noticing changes in children. Is there a place for some of those health experts as the edtech kitemark is developed?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness; it is certainly the case that she has been tenacious on this issue. We have talked about lots of other things, and I am sure we will again in future. I am slightly fearful about what she will choose to get her teeth into next.

On the examples, in this House we have previously talked about specific assistive technology that might be important for young people and medical technology that is linked to a phone, for example for diabetes monitoring. Those would be the sorts of things that would fall into that category.

On the point about school trips, it is not the intention of the guidance that this policy will apply when children are travelling to and from school, so I feel it probably would not cover school trips. I will come back to the noble Baroness if I am wrong about that.

The noble Baroness makes an important point about future-proofing all this. The fact that we have updated the guidance and are taking further action around edtech demonstrates the situation we find ourselves in. Both the evidence and technology are developing fast, and of course we will want to keep up with that.

On the methods and gadgets that the noble Baroness discussed, we intend to produce AI in education guidance that will help identify some of the opportunities and issues in other areas. I do not know how long I will be here, particularly given the way I am feeling this evening, but I have no doubt that this will not be the last time I talk about how we are updating our work in government to ensure that the objective that all noble Lords share—that children need to be able to focus on learning rather than scrolling or the distraction that comes from screens—is at the heart of our work.

Her final point about health experts was a very good one. I will certainly take that back and consider how we engage with health experts as part of this work.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Tenacity is a good word; I was thinking of something a little tougher earlier.

I really do welcome this Statement and join with others in regretting that we have had to fight so hard for it. I looked this up in Hansard and noticed that the first time we debated this was five years ago. The battle of last year, or a couple of years ago, was the culmination of us all coming together. I say that not to take anything away from that particular fight but to make a broader point about the things that we did not get in that Bill.

I thank the Secretary of State in particular for the Statement and for getting it over the line now. She has succeeded where others have failed. I really want to recognise that moment.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to independent certification of educational technology—something else that we have fought for over many years—and in particular its references to filtering and monitoring. I was very grateful for the letter from the early years Minister and his officials earlier in the week. However, I am concerned about the focus on safety; it is much narrower than I and other noble Lords have been calling for. I absolutely understand what the Minister here said about safety being a crucial factor, but it is a minimal bar: children flourishing in education is what we all seek and I think that would be a better bar. I am sure that we all recognise, just as with mobile phones, that the question is not simply whether technology is safe but “What is it replacing?”

I was at a conference about AI in education a couple of weeks ago, and the overwhelming evidence was—as the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, mentioned—that many of the AI products currently available produced better results in tests, but then the children failed to retain what they had learned. The response at the conference, which was largely focused on putting AI into schools, was simply that the tech would get better. That is tantamount to asking children to teach AI, rather than AI teaching children.

I am sure that the Minister will remember that I had amendments in the same Bill on edtech and on standards for efficacy, et cetera. I recognise that the Government have chosen to do this in guidance, but I ask that they take a broader view on what we need to look at in edtech. Schools are places where children grow, not just learn, and where relationships, confidence and agency matter just as much as passing tests and measurable outcomes. I will again say that I welcome the Statement, but I ask the Minister to ensure that independent certification and the Government’s wider approach to technology in schools protect the things that most matter for a child’s development and cannot be readily measured.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for the work that she has been engaged in, alongside our officials, in the scope of the certification scheme. That has been welcomed. On the point about whether the focus is only on safety, I think we have a broad conception of safety in the standards against which the certification will be made.

For example, as I said, this will be certification against the standards, including our world-leading generative AI standards, which recognises that cognitive development of children is an important aspect to be considered when thinking in broad terms about safety. I do not think that the certification will have quite the narrow scope that the noble Baroness suggests, but I reiterate the point that we are interested not only in certification of products but in research on what is effective, how and where, and for whom—we are investing money in that—and we are looking forward for other uses of AI in education, where we will produce further guidance.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving us a chance to discuss the Statement. It is an odd thing. It starts off about mobile phones. There are three pages of it, and it stops talking about mobile phones after one-and-a-third pages, or one and a quarter, I think. When we are talking about educational technology, we are probably going to be covering assistive technology as well and SEN, and I remind the House yet again that I am a dyslexic. I am a dyslexic who needs assistive technology to write accurately. The assistive technology that I had at school was a person I had to dictate to. I am a big lad, but even I do not want to carry around another adult with me all the time.

Can we make sure that we allow people into the system by the use of technology? I am also chairman of Microlink PC. We are also making sure that those who have a disability can address it. The fact remains—I said this before, but I lost a Division on it—that the mobile phone is a wonderful platform for carrying assistive tech. Visual impairment and deafness can be addressed, to an extent, by it. New products are going out the whole time and, if I had longer, I would give your Lordships a commercial on some of the things that I have seen today.

Unless we get an assurance from the Government that they are going to use technology to allow people into the system, we are never going to address all the problems in special educational needs by means that grant independence and a way in. Also, I do not know if a Kindle is regarded as educational technology, but I am sure nobody here would accuse somebody of not reading properly if they read a book on a Kindle or via audio technology. Can the Minister take this opportunity to guarantee that the Government will allow people with special educational needs into the system by using technology whenever that is deemed appropriate and that it will be an ongoing process?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I think that the way that the noble Lord describes the issue as letting people in is very helpful in thinking about our approach more broadly to special educational needs and disability reform, where we want our schools and learning for children to be as inclusive as possible. One way, as the noble Lord frequently identifies, is through the use of assistive technology. I can assure him that that will be an important part of the SEND reforms and will be maintained through the guidance on the use of phones, as I think I have already set out.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I very much welcome this Statement, particularly the edtech safety certification that is in it, because it will support the very difficult decisions that schools are having to take about what to purchase next, how to purchase it and what they and their pupils should be doing with it. Before I ask my question, I want to say that I was slightly surprised by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash. Her championing of paper sounded a bit Luddite to me. If the weight of my granddaughter’s backpack is anything to go by, given the books and papers that she has in there, I think paper at her school plays a very large part in her education. However, her maths homework is set on the tablet that she does it on, and the fact that the homework is set online means that my daughter can watch, supervise and make sure that it gets done. I think that those are excellent uses.

The question I wanted to ask my noble friend was about young pupils whose parents cannot purchase the devices that they might need to help them with their education and whether there is some recognition that there is an inequality here that could be perpetuated by the use of technology. I know—I hope—that my Government are recognising that, as usual.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. She ably makes a point about the range of uses to which technology may well be put and the ways in which it may well, depending on the evidence—which of course we are developing—support children’s learning. She also makes an important point about the use of devices. Our view as a Government is that any expectations on students should not require them to purchase screens or digital devices, for precisely the reason that my noble friend outlined. To return to the noble Lord’s point, the use of technology has to include people, and not exclude them by virtue of their family background or their income at home.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome that the consultation on certification for technology covers early years settings. We made good progress on the Bill earlier this year on guidance for parents and carers of early years children and early years settings in terms of screen time and the use of technology. Can the Minister update us on two areas with regard to that? The first is what the DfE is doing to understand whether that guidance is reaching parents and carers, whether it is understood by them and whether they are changing their behaviour in any way on the back of it. The second is what progress the DfE is making on consulting on more substantive changes to the early years foundation stage statutory framework, following the welcome update in September, to link to updated guidance. The DfE committed to further changes looking not just at pedagogy but at safeguarding. It committed to implementing that by April 2027, so time is a bit tight if there needs to be consultation and other action along the way.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes two important points. On the first, early evidence on the impact of the screen time guidance is encouraging. Independent research from Internet Matters found that three in five parents of children of five and under had heard of the Government’s screen time guidance, and 88% found it helpful, while 94% said, after reviewing it, that they were already taking or planned to take action.

On the point about the early years framework, in July 2026, the department published screen use guidance for early years settings. That builds on the guidance for parents published in March 2026 and was produced with contributions from sector experts, including the Digital Standards for Early Years Children Action Group and the Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group. As the noble Baroness argued for, that guidance is designed to help early years settings support children’s healthy development, which evidence shows requires sufficient sleep, play, real-world interaction and responsive adult engagement, while ensuring any use of screens is purposeful, safe and appropriate. That statutory early years foundation stage framework came into force on 1 September 2026, and it requires early years practitioners to have regard to the screen use guidance in their setting. However, I suspect that the noble Baroness is right, as I suggested earlier, that in all these areas, as technology and evidence develops, we will want to return to this to make sure that, whatever age our children are and whatever setting they are in, their use of technology is informed by the very best evidence and is safe for all of them.