Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill

Debate between Josh MacAlister and Chris Bryant

2nd reading
Friday 7th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Updated advice from the nations’ CMOs is so important because it can cascade through health systems to guide professionals and parents.

Finally, the Bill calls on Government to conduct more research and further develop the evidence and guidance that is so important for future action. Given how rapidly these devices and services are developing, it is vital that parents and carers are given up-to-date advice on the harm their children might be exposed to.

Why has this not been done before? The technology companies that are profiteering off this rewiring of childhood are incredibly effective at casting doubt over any evidence of a link between screen time and negative impacts on children. This is not the first time an industry has fought against a tide of evidence in order to keep peddling their product. In the 1960s, the tobacco industry was lobbying hard against the link between smoking and cancer. In the absence of evidence of a causal link, they cast doubt on the overwhelming correlational evidence available.

In the end, our Government acted on the basis of correlational studies using criteria set by the epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill. The criteria attempt to help policymakers to make decisions when causal studies do not exist. His criteria included that

“Consistent findings observed by different persons in different places with different samples strengthens the likelihood of an effect.”

For example, the fact that students across the western world began reporting feeling increasingly lonely in school from 2012 is important. Another criterion is that

“Greater exposure should generally lead to greater incidence of the effect”—

essentially, the dose-response effect.

Studies of multiple large datasets, including the UK’s own millennium cohort study, show that teenagers who are heavy users of social media are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, body dysmorphia and other mental health harms. It could take years for evidence of a causal link, through scientific studies, to be established. In the meantime, our children’s mental and physical health degrades, their education continues to be affected, and evidence of a correlation gets stronger and stronger. As lawmakers, we must use tools such as the Bradford Hill tests to make the best possible decisions with what we know now. We must act on excessive screen time today, in the same way that we acted on smoking back then. Like debates that were had on smoking and car seatbelts, it took a process of legislation, rather than one big-bang event. That is why starting with these initial steps today, then following them through with major action soon, will be so important.

Let me address head-on the arguments made against taking action to curb social media and smartphone use by children. As I see it there are five common arguments against action. First is that there is not enough evidence to act. Over the past few months, I and others have had a number of evidence sessions and engagements with experts that have shown that that is plainly untrue. Even so, where should the burden of evidence sit? Should it sit with parents and campaigners who have noticed the damage being done to their children, with children themselves who are calling for more support, or with the companies who are selling them products and services that are designed to be addictive and have completely transformed the nature of their childhood?

When it comes to protecting children from harm, a precautionary approach is surely advised. For almost any other product, companies would have to prove that it was safe before selling it to children, rather than being free to sell that product as they wish, until the evidence of harm becomes so overwhelming that something needs to be done. It is instructive that the US Surgeon General advice states that social media has not yet “been proved safe.”

Second is the argument that this is simply the latest in a line of moral panics. People used to fear that watching too much television would turn their eyes square; in the Victorian era, that reading novels would degrade intellect; or in the 20th century, that playing violent videogames would turn all our children into thugs. But for every example of overblown moral panic, we have many more examples of genuine public health crises that we took too long to address, but eventually were forced to tackle. Research that has come out this morning from More in Common demonstrates that this is not an issue of luddite older generations bemoaning shifting social trends. Concerns about social media and smartphone use are dominant in every generation, and half of generation Z regret the amount of time that they are spending on social media.

The third argument I hear is that the genie is out of the bottle, and it is too late to do anything now. Phones and social media are undoubtedly here to stay, but their harms do not need to be. Regulation can find a way of allowing children to experience the benefits of this technology, without being exposed, relentlessly, to its harms. As introducing seatbelt laws saved thousands of lives from road traffic accidents without killing off the car industry, introducing a virtual seatbelt can protect children from excessive screentime. Action in other countries, and our experience with the Online Safety Act 2023, early though it is, has shown that tech companies are not beyond the power of Governments.

The fourth argument, which tends to come from big tech, is that proper age verification is too difficult, and age restriction unproven—that the technology does not exist or is imperfect. As companies such as Yoti and many other age verification platforms show, that is no longer the case. I am also a technology optimist. The reason why this technology is not yet pervasive is insufficient demand. Introduce the regulation, and technology will have to catch up—we will see that in Australia later this year.

There are some suggestions that it is not the Government’s job to get involved and that this is an issue of parental responsibility. That misses the point that this is a collective action problem. Parents and children alone are not able to establish new, shared rules for something that is addictive at a societal level. The reason why smartphones and social media are causing so much stress and conflict in families is that we are giving parents the unenviable choice of either removing devices and ostracising their children or giving into demands for access and living with the health, sleep and learning consequences.

Additionally, not only are parental controls at device, operating system and app level confusing and opaque, but our own existing data laws give children as young as 13 the power over their data that means that they can opt out of those parental controls in year 8 of secondary school. We disempower parents on a problem that is common across society, then when they ask for help, we say that it is a matter of personal responsibility. I hope that today’s debate can bury the argument that responsibility for this problem lies with parents struggling with that impossible challenge.

[The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)]

I just thought my hon. Friend might like know that I will not be making any of the arguments that he is arguing I should not argue.

[Josh MacAlister]

I welcome the Minister’s intervention, and I am glad to have boxed off those five.

There are moments when politics falls behind the public mood. The process and traditions of our democratic system make it difficult to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of tech and social media, but this Parliament works best when it is a reflection of the problems and concerns of the people and a Chamber for earnest problem solving and action. Over the last few months, I have been encouraged by the sheer volume of support for this Bill and this debate, which comes from across the country, across the ages and across the House. My firm belief is that unless we as politicians are able to be the disruptors on this issue and solve it, we will be left being disrupted by it. Acting assertively together and sooner will bring benefits for our tech industry and public services, the quality of family life in the UK and, most importantly, the opportunities for our children. For those reasons, I commend this Bill to the House.

Social Media Use: Minimum Age

Debate between Josh MacAlister and Chris Bryant

Monday 24th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

I do not want to be a hypocrite; this 63-year-old engages in all those things as well. In fact, it is a shocking shame for me every time I get that notification that says, “You spent on average x number of hours a day on your mobile phone.” I can make justifications—I have to find out what an hon. Member’s seat is, I have to send things back to my private office on WhatsApp and all of those kind of things—but the truth is that if somebody had said to us 40 years ago that they were going to invent something that would make us all, in an addictive way, spend hours and hours and hours looking at a phone rather than engaging with other human beings, we would have said, “Maybe not, eh?”

I was really struck by that when I went to a primary school in Blaengarw in my patch. The headteacher was saying that one of the difficulties is that all the parents waiting to pick up their kids were on their mobile phones outside, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) mentioned earlier. Whatever they did inside the school, the message that every single child got was that life was about being on a mobile phone. As has been said, one of the most important things that a parent can do is engage eye to eye with their children. If they are engaging eye to eye only with their phone, I would argue that that is as much of a problem. I will come on to some of the issues, but I do not want to be hypocritical about it.

I think we all accept that we have to do more. One thing that was not included in the list of things that someone might do if they did not have a mobile phone to spend all their time on was reading a book. I would love more young people to read a book. That longer attention span is one of the things that is an admirable part of being an adult human being.

Several hon. Members referred to the fact that legislation needs to keep up. I will put this very gently to Conservative Members: we argued for an online safety Act for a long time before one ended up becoming legislation. It went through a draft process, and there were lots of rows about what should and should not be in it, and whether we were impinging on freedom of speech and all those kinds of things, but the legislation did not end up on the statute books until the end of 2023. Even then, the Act provided for a fairly slow process of implementation thereafter, partly because Ofcom was taking on powers that, on that day, it simply would not have had enough staff to engage with. The process has been difficult, and I am absolutely certain that the Online Safety Act will not be the end of this story. That is why the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has said clearly that everything is “on the table”, and that is why today’s debate is so important.

Of course, legislation has to be proportionate, balanced, based on evidence—I will come to that in more detail in a moment—and effective. That is why the Online Safety Act will require all platforms that are in scope, including social media platforms, to set up robust systems and processes to tackle the most egregious illegal content or activity proactively, preventing users from encountering it in the first place. Platforms will be required to remove all other illegal content as soon as it is flagged to them.

The Act will also require platforms easily accessed by children—this goes to a point made by several people—to deploy measures to protect children from seeing content that is harmful to them. That includes the use of highly effective age assurance to prevent them from seeing the most harmful types of content, such as that which promotes, encourages or provides instructions for self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. Platforms will also be required to provide age-appropriate access for other types of harmful content, such as bullying, abusive content or content that encourages dangerous stunts or serious violence.

Additionally, under the Act, providers that specify a minimum age limit to access their site must specify how they enforce that in their terms of service and must do so consistently. As many Members have said, this spring will be a key moment in the implementation of the Act, and that is an important point for us to recognise: later this year, things will change, because of the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Ofcom has already set out its draft child safety codes of practice, which are the measures that companies must take to fulfil their duties under the Act.

Ofcom’s draft codes outline that all in-scope services, including social media sites, will be required to tackle algorithms that amplify harm and feed harmful material to children. I would argue that that includes the process of trying to make something addictive for a child. Services will have to configure their algorithms to filter out the most harmful types of content from children’s feeds, and to reduce the visibility and prominence of other harmful content. In January, Ofcom published its guidance for services to implement highly effective age assurance to meet their duties, including the types of technology capable of being highly effective at correctly determining whether a user is a child.

[Josh MacAlister]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, of course. I am about to come to my hon. Friend’s speech, in fact.

[Josh MacAlister]

I and a number of colleagues have had fairly extensive dialogue with Ofcom over the past few months about some of the detailed points, and there are two important gaps in the existing legislation. First, social media companies might put in a minimum age requirement, but there is no power to provide that social media platforms need to have a minimum age requirement to start with, so there is a big gap in the legislation in that respect. Secondly, despite the fairly extensive drafting in the Act, there is no requirement on Ofcom to look at functionality beyond where it relates to harmful content. Ofcom has stated clearly in writing to myself and other Members that it cannot regulate functionality unless it is specifically about harmful content, so much of what has been discussed today would not be covered by Ofcom’s current powers.

[Chris Bryant]

There are four or five different areas where the legislation is not sufficient for the task. Both codes require parliamentary approval, but that process will happen in the next few weeks, with the powers coming into effect this spring. As a Government, we have to decide whether it is better to make that happen now and bed it in, or say that we will have another piece of legislation. I am not allowed to make commitments on behalf of the Government, but I would be absolutely amazed if they did not bring forward further legislation in this field in the next few years. All these issues—and the others that will come along—will definitely need to be addressed, not least because, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said at the beginning of the debate, we need to make sure that the legislation is up to date.

My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) talked about the burden of proof, and he is quite right. Of course there should not be a one-way burden of proof. We have to bear in mind two things about proof—perhaps evidence is a better word, because it is not about criminality; it is about evidence-based policy. The first is that, as everybody has said, causation is not correlation. I apologise for the slightly flippant way of putting this, but Marathon became Snickers at the same time as Mrs Thatcher gave way to John Major. I am not aware of any causal relationship between those two events. Many people understand that, but it is often very difficult to weed out what is causation and what is correlation in a specific set of events. For instance, we have all laid out the problems in relation to mental health for children, but only one Member mentioned covid. I would argue that covid is quite a significant player. It was shocking that we strove hard as a Parliament to open pubs again before we opened schools, and that children, who were at the least risk, bore the heaviest burden and that sacrifice on behalf of others. I think we need to factor that in.

The second point is something that I have campaigned on for quite a long time: acquired brain injury. Children from poorer backgrounds are four times more likely to suffer a brain injury under the age of five than kids from wealthier backgrounds, and again in their teenage years. Acquired brain injury in schools is barely recognised. Some schools respond to it remarkably well, but it is likely that there are somewhere between one and three children with a brain injury in every single primary class in this land. Nobody has yet done sufficient work on how much that has contributed to the mental health problems that children have today. We certainly know that the use of phones and screens after brain injury is a significant added factor, but we need to look at all the factors that affect the mental health of children to ensure that we target the specific things that really will work in a combination of policy changes.