Children and Young People: Digital Technology

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an extraordinary debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I met on the internet, or at least in a debate on the internet. I had responsibilities thrust upon me that I was quite unprepared for when the Data Protection Bill came to this House. There were three female Members of the House, the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding, Lady Kidron and Lady Lane-Fox. The three graces were truly extraordinary in providing the educational material that I took away, most of which I had been ignorant of before. It is so nice to see sitting beside the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, who once upon a time I interviewed when she arrived in startling fashion on a motorbike and in leather gear. It is good to see her in her place. She has extraordinary expertise and I do not know what kind of neuroscience it takes to produce the results that she has clearly mastered.

Last week, we had a debate about the influence of sport and the arts on the well-being of children, so this issue is clearly in the air. We do ourselves no favours if we simply forget the fragility of the young. I have always felt that poetry can tell us about how children have within them the capacity to flourish but also the readiness to live and die. Dylan Thomas wrote a famous short story about a visit to Swansea beach and he said it all:

“But over all the beautiful beach I remember most the children playing, boys and girls tumbling, moving jewels, who might never be happy again. And ‘happy as a sandboy’ is true as the heat of the sun”.


We must hold on to a picture of the child who is ready to become an adult and inhabit a world that the rest of us would want to warn them about. We must treasure the moment of a child being not quite there yet. I love the spring. I love flowers in bud. I love everything that has potential rather than the actual. It is that potential which I hope we can keep in mind as we talk about these things here today.

Since that meeting on the internet, I have made it my business to become more educated about something I was so ignorant of. My latest incursion into that field is to read this extraordinary book, Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Age by Martin Moore. It truly is an eye-opener about not just the potential but the real danger that faces us. Now I am retired, I never buy a book other than on the basis of two good reviews, one of which said:

“The digital age was supposed to be democratic, but under Google, Facebook and Twitter it has become a quest for profit at any cost”.


Let me read just one paragraph from the bit of the book that looks at young people and education:

“Tech CEOs know nothing in particular about education, for another thing”—


he had been talking about the health service—

“but are canny enough to see that it is a huge potential revenue centre, if only they could persuade schools to use their software and computers. Actually, Google is already doing a very good job of that. By mid-2017, the majority of schoolchildren in America were using Google’s education apps, which of course track the activity of every child, creating a store of data that—who knows?—might come in useful when those children grow up to be attractive targets for advertising”.

These are the algorithms to which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, referred.

We have aired well enough the dangers and our fears for the uncritical use of these various modes of imparting information. Various learned bodies have given it their attention too. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, about the report from the Royal College of Paediatrics. It talks about the impact of children who lose parental control, are compulsive in their use of media, indulge in self-harm and suicide, et cetera—a whole list of stuff—but prefaces that list of potential difficulties by admitting that research into and training on the concept of addiction and gaming is needed. We can pick up the remarks about gambling by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and others. I have made the point in previous debates that the research deficit is worrying. We need to have empirical research and to dedicate real resource to accumulating it in a managed way so that we can all use and learn from it.

I must not go on, because we have run on longer than we should have, and I will try to be responsible. I read in the Library briefing that:

“Children see as many as nine junk food adverts during one 30-minute episode of their favourite TV shows, so it’s not surprising this leads them to pester for, buy and eat more unhealthy foods”.


It seems the world of advertising is geared towards getting profit from whatever strata of society it can, including children and young people, and at the expense of their well-being.

I will respond to hints and body language from across the Floor. We attended a meeting earlier this week where the Secretary of State promised a significant piece of legislation that will be all-encompassing, the first in the world and the greatest ever made. We will, of course, measure success as it unfolds. That meeting has put me in a position to be able to inform the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, of the real meaning of “shortly”. But I believe that is a responsibility for the Minister, and I leave that to him now.