Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill

Katie White Excerpts

Friday 7th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Katie White (Leeds North West) (Lab)]

May I start, like others, by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for bringing forward this private Member’s Bill? There have been many plaudits for him, and I would like to add that it is my understanding that he is grounded in evidence-based policymaking. He has focused on issues that are perceived as being very tricky, but which will have an outsized impact.

I have been really warmed by this cross-party debate. We have heard from the hon. Members for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), my hon. Friends the Members for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Many of us have travelled to and from our constituencies, some making long journeys—I know that some have been on the sleeper train—to make this incredibly important debate.

I have received twice as much correspondence on this Bill as on any other issue this year. I want to thank the people of Leeds North West, including the schoolchildren, teachers and parents who have shared their experiences with me, and to make special mention of Bramhope primary school, Benton Park school, Ralph Thoresby school and Rawdon St Peter’s primary school, which shared their stories and are showing leadership.

There are a few key issues, and I will try not to repeat them because I know many other Members want to get in. The key issue is the profound mental health crisis among our children, and we can see a clear correlation. NHS England found that 20.3% of eight to 16-year-olds had a probable mental disorder in 2023. Poor mental health among our older teenagers aged 16 and 17 has increased by more than a quarter since 2017. Research by University College London and the Sutton Trust found that almost half—44%—of young people were above the threshold for probable mental illness, so we need to look for solutions and fast.

Teachers and parents alike have shared their concerns, and wellbeing teachers that have been put in place spend much of their time adjudicating battles that are out of their control on WhatsApp. The other thing I found when I spoke to parents, teachers and pupils was the sense of overwhelm—all of them are overwhelmed. Parents and certainly teachers want to play their full role, but they are completely overwhelmed. Parents feel huge pressure from peers and networks to get it right, and many of us who watched the Channel 4 documentary with Emma Willis saw and felt that sense of overwhelm in trying to navigate this situation.

I agreed with much of what the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) said, but the lack of clear guidance is clear from the fact that people are navigating the issue in different ways, so I do think the recommendation in the Bill will be helpful.

Schools in my constituency have said that while they are willing to act, they are responsible for the children for only 20% of the time, so they cannot control everything. It needs to involve all of us; we all need to play our part.

What really hits me is the opportunity cost of what else those children could be doing. Screen time has rocketed. In 2009, five to 15-year-olds averaged nine hours on screens per week. That has jumped to between six and nine hours a day. Screen time has replaced critical childhood activities, as has been said, such as outdoor play, social interactions and hobbies, and learning those essential motor and social skills. Benton Park school in my constituency recently introduced a phone-free policy during the school day. When I asked the teachers what happened, they said that the view of the playground is completely different. Where it used to be all heads down, the pupils were now talking, laughing and playing.

The World Health Organisation recommends that children aged two to five should have no more than one hour of screen time a day. New research on excessive screen time looks at the impacts on the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe. Fundamental shifts are happening in the brain development of our children.

My constituent Stevie talked about children arriving at school with weaker motor and social skills, and struggling with basic physical and communication tasks, such as holding a pencil, using scissors and social negotiation. That is not to mention the exposure to harmful content that colleagues have referred to. Many of us were shocked by last week’s Bertin review and the many dangers it noted, which we have also heard about in our constituencies. On a possibly less damaging level, I have seen the impact of the beauty industry targeting young girls on YouTube. Young girls now want these ridiculous skincare regimes. High-strength retinols and hyaluronic acids are being marketed to them. I have not even started using those—perhaps I should—so why on earth are eight-year-olds using them?

The need for better regulation of online content aimed at children is absolutely clear. To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington, I find the argument that the genie is out of the bottle infuriating. Many of us have noticed that a lot of the tech giants do not allow their children to access online media. When other addictive products were introduced to the market and we subsequently realised their harm, like my hon. Friend said about smoking, did we do nothing? No. We are here to solve problems, not to bury our head in the sand and accept the consequences.

We already have some of the answers. As my hon. Friend said, there is good, reliable age-verification technology—platforms like Yoti—that will make this work, and that is why other countries are introducing restrictions with confidence. In fact, we will implement that soon with the Online Safety Act.

Finally, to the Bill. I strongly welcome the role of the UK chief medical officers—who doesn’t want more Chris Whitty in their life? Schools and parents are crying out for more top-down guidance, so I applaud this effort. We have to make sure that an evidence base is at the heart of what we do, and I applaud the Government for bringing this Bill forward, but I urge them to make it the first step in our actions. Would the Minister consider giving us some sort of interim update by the summer? This is a crucial moment, and while I appreciate that this process will take place over a 12-month period, an update by the summer would be very helpful. Taking any opportunity we can to increase the length of childhood for all our children would be beneficial to all of our constituents and to the country.