Mobile Phones in Schools

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.