Social Media and Screen Use: Young People’s Health

Mims Davies Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Mims Davies)]

This is the second time this week that I find myself in the same room as the right hon. Gentleman, agreeing on many issues and focusing on our children’s mental health. That feels very appropriate in Children’s Mental Health Week. As we have heard today, social media is one of many factors that may contribute, in both a positive and negative way, to our children’s mental health. We recognise that social media and technology can bring huge benefits for our young people, but we need to recognise and manage potential harms.

I welcome the Science and Technology Committee’s report and the opportunity to better understand the relationship between young people’s mental health, excessive screen time and the use of social media. We will consider the Committee’s findings ahead of the publication of the online harms White Paper. The report calls for media companies to have a duty of care. We are seriously considering all regulatory options as part of the White Paper. In the meantime, the Government are very clear that we need to hold companies to account. They have a responsibility to their users. We will be setting out plans for both legislative and non-legislative measures in our online harms White Paper.

We continue to work with our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on all possible policy options to take forward on young people’s mental health in relation to all areas of health and social media. All relevant Ministers across Government will see and react to this very good report.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the Minister very much. Just to be clear, the other occasion when the Minister and I were in a room together was when we talked about the national lottery’s work on children’s mental health. It is making a very significant investment, in six places around the country, in looking at how we can give children the best possible start to life. That is worth applauding.

I welcome the Minister’s response. All I would say is that I encourage her to get on with it. We have been waiting for quite a long time now, and we need the White Paper to be published as soon as possible. Harms continue to happen while we wait for the legislation to be introduced.