Young Children’s Screen Time

Lola McEvoy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Charters]

Parents do need a bit of support when it comes to guidance and advice around what is excessive, particularly when it comes to unsupervised screen time.

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend—my actual friend—is giving a brilliant speech. I pay tribute to him: he is a brilliant advocate for our generation of parents and also a wonderful dad. Does he agree that parents today are in desperate need of such guidance? I recently met Jonathan Haidt, the author of “The Anxious Generation”, and I asked him straight out, “What do we do about screens?”. He told me that watching long-form narrative content with our children is fine, but that letting them watch short-form content by themselves is a problem. We need a kind of five-a-day public health campaign from the Government. I hope that the Minister will address that.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Gentleman replies, the hon. Lady is perfectly right that long-form content is better in some contexts, but not here.

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[Mr Charters]

I wish my hon. Friend’s daughter a happy birthday and thank her for the work she is doing as a paediatric nurse. “Cocomelon” has been described as “visual fentanyl” for young children. What is much more appropriate, particularly at a younger age, is more hand-drawn types of content, like “Peppa Pig”. Perhaps we all ought to go for a bit more Peppa and a bit less JJ.

You need not take my word for it, Sir Jeremy: research published by the Department for Education showed that nearly 98% of children under the age of two engage with screens every day. A University College London study in 2026 has found that toddlers now average about two hours of screen time daily—far more than my little lad is allowed. Analysis from the Centre for Social Justice estimates that, very sadly, nearly 800,000 under-fives are now using social media. Ofcom data from 2024 reveals that one third of five to seven-year-olds are using social media without any supervision. That scares the living daylights out of me as a parent.

Such data is stark, but it is just part of the story. Somewhat ironically, I turned to social media to ask my constituents about their own experiences with their young children, and they expressed concern about more than the quantity of screen time that children have. Parents responded that they were even more worried about the type of content to which children are exposed. One teacher shared with me feedback from NASUWT’s “Better Deal on Behaviour” report, with a year 1 teacher describing how children were beginning to mimic inappropriate behaviour that they had seen online, despite being far too young to understand it. Another raised the idea of digital diets. They made the point that screen time can range from something as harmless as using Google Maps to find the local library, to accessing inappropriate material. To go back to the words of Mr P, not all screen time is created equal.

On this point, it feels timely to mention that I am pleased the Government have this week launched a new campaign, “You Won’t Know until You Ask”, to address harmful content. That follows the finding from YouGov that half of British parents admit to never speaking to their children about toxic content. Encouraging parents to sit down with their children and talk about online harms helps to break down barriers. It is a healthy step in the right direction.

[Lola McEvoy]

As I said, my hon. Friend is giving a brilliant speech. Does he share my concern that relying solely on parental intervention in relation to this huge swathe of technological advances is not enough? We do not want children to start hiding things from their parents; we want to ensure that they are not exposed to it in the first place.

[Mr Charters]

I think, particularly when it comes to things like YouTube shorts, that Members of this House would never want to see a ban on YouTube, but when it comes to the user experience on those platforms, there should be things like firebreaks or rest breaks—akin to when we drive—to try to give children a pause so that they do not end up in an infinite scroll loop.

Actually, I think we should view screen time as a public health issue, not just a parenting dilemma. Health visitors meet parents at a very early stage in a child’s life. I think they should be able to talk explicitly about screen time to parents from the very start. Early guidance at that point is critical, as habits form early. As children grow older, they absorb the behaviours they see all around them, and if adults are constantly on their phones, children will almost absorb that by osmosis. The more parents are aware of that from the start, the better the outcomes can be.

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[Georgia Gould]

Absolutely. We are really committed to supporting assistive technology. We have introduced new lending libraries, as the hon. Member is aware, and we recently announced a £200 million investment into teacher training. As part of that training, we want to look at how we can best use assistive technology in the classroom, as well as what we are doing around edtech and how we are growing its use in the classroom. That shows that technology can be helpful when it is supporting learning, and it is important to take a nuanced approach.

From recent Government research, we know that the children with the highest screen use—of around five hours daily—at age two can say significantly fewer words than those with lower use. My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer referred to research that said that 98% of two-year-olds watch a screen daily. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) set out, it is critical that parents have the right information to be able to support their children.

That is why we announced in January the first ever Government guidance for parents on screen use for under-fives, which aims to provide practical, non-judgmental advice to help parents balance screen use with activities that support children’s development such as playing, speaking and reading. Parents want that guidance. Parents in this Chamber want it, and polling from Kindred shows that 40% of parents say that reducing screen time would help ensure their child is ready for reception, underlining the demand for practical, trusted guidance in the early years.

I, therefore, recognise the significance of the issue and the responsibility to get it right. For that reason, we have set up the early years screen time advisory group, a new expert panel chaired by Professor Russell Viner—former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Education, leading paediatrician and expert in children’s health—and Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England.

The early years screen time advisory group will review the current evidence and existing advice on early years screen use to help inform the new guidance for parents. That group is holding its second meeting as we speak, which shows the urgency and seriousness with which the work is being taken forward. We want to hear directly from those with relevant knowledge and experience. We launched a two-week call for evidence on 2 February to ensure that the guidance is firmly grounded in evidence and expertise. I encourage hon. Members to share their evidence. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) mentioned work being done in Bradford, which I encourage her to share.

[Lola McEvoy]

The Minister is giving a brilliant speech to sum up this important debate. Will the work she mentions consider the link between the need for more speech and language therapy for early years and screen time pre-school?

[Georgia Gould]

We want to look at the evidence, including any impact on speech and language. We are seeing a far greater need for speech and language support, which is why we are investing in new early years support around speech and language. That is surely one of the areas that the evidence will address.

Engagement sessions with parents, children, early years practitioners and stakeholders are taking place across England, allowing them to share what works in real family life, and what support they need from guidance. The guidance will be published in April and made available to parents through the Best Start in Life website, giving the clarity and support they are asking for to navigate screen time with their youngest children.

More broadly, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) raised the issue of protecting children from harmful content. The Online Safety Act 2023 requires providers specifically to consider, as part of their risk assessment, how algorithms could impact children’s exposure to illegal content and content that is harmful to children on their service. Services that are assessed as easily accessed by children must put in place measures to prevent algorithms from pushing harmful content to children.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, there is a wider consultation—a national conversation—that will look at some of the broader issues. The Department for Education is committed to strengthening the evidence base on the impact of screen use and screen time on child development. Our set of longitudinal studies already gathers data on children’s screen and social media use, and will interrogate their relationship with mental health and cognitive development. We are funding a programme of research to better understand the impact of digital technologies on children.

We are in strong agreement with the overwhelming message from today: we cannot wait to act in this space. We have to look to protect and enhance our children’s lives online. It is right to continue to look at further action that could be taken, so I welcome today’s important debate. We will set out guidance, but it is important to have the national conversation, without blaming parents, to make sure that they have the information they need. When they want to get out and enjoy time with their children, we should provide the right activities and support to enable them to do so.

Question put and agreed to.