Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Munira Wilson and Matt Rodda

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I will try my best, Madam Deputy Speaker. Every family has the ambition to send their child to the best school—preferably close by—so we welcome the Government’s moves to strengthen the duty of the schools adjudicator to take account of quality of educational provision and parental preference in an area before changing a school’s pupil admission numbers. We also welcome the duty to consult. We remain concerned about conflicts of interest and how things will work in practice. Ultimately, if a high-performing, popular school has space to expand and there is a demand for places, ideology should not get in the way of it doing so.

I welcome the Government’s decision to finally ban access to mobile phones during the school day by putting existing guidance on a statutory footing. I join the shadow Secretary of State in paying tribute to all the campaign groups and to my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for all her work on this issue. After more than a year of parents, teachers and pupils begging, this simple change will have a big impact. I am just sorry that it did not happen sooner and was described repeatedly as a gimmick.

Classrooms will be a step closer to becoming a place of focus and learning, free from the addictive and demanding world of social media, but they need the right equipment and procedures in place. With school budgets stretched to breaking point and some parents not necessarily able to afford pouches, I urge the Government to ensure that all schools have the necessary support to properly ensure that every classroom can be smartphone-free.

I welcome the reasonable adjustments alluded to in the guidance, but I would also welcome clear assurance from the Minister that for those pupils with medical needs or caring responsibilities, schools will be at liberty to make appropriate exemptions and accommodations that are not onerous or discriminatory towards individual children. Similarly, school leaders should have the freedom to ensure that children with SEND who may need assistive technology have appropriate access to a device. I strongly endorse the comments on exceptions by the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). Providing clear advice to teachers and headteachers on a regular basis would be very helpful to alleviate those concerns.

While we can celebrate a big victory for smartphones in schools, the damaging impact of addictive social media and gaming and of chatbots extends far beyond the school day. Each day, more children are coming to serious harm because of social media, while the big tech companies come to this place, as we have heard, and brazenly deny responsibility for the damage that they are causing to the mental and physical health of our children and young people.

Social media is encouraging insidious, brain-numbing behaviour in all of us—not just children, as the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said—through its infinite scrolling features, frequent dopamine hits and addictive algorithms. Its content endangers the people we are here to protect. Just last week I spoke to a constituent whose child cut themselves after seeing a video on YouTube shorts that said it could help relieve stress. The longer we delay, the more we hear such stories.

I urge the Government to formally recognise in the legislation that both addictive design and harmful content have created this toxic cocktail. If we cannot accurately identify the problem, how can we tackle it? I know that Ministers want to help our children, but we need them to do more. We have been debating this issue for more than a year now. The now Children’s Minister, the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), put forward his own Bill on social media harms more than a year ago. The time is now to gut addictive algorithms, ban social media giants from collecting our children’s data and make big tech responsible for the harmful content it is pushing on our children. I urge the Government in the strongest possible terms to come forward with a concrete commitment to action and a swift timeline for implementation.

I agree with the Minister that we need to go broader than social media, to gaming and chatbots. Some of that wider remit was acknowledged in a very positive amendment from Baroness Kidron in the other place, which the Government rejected. The Liberal Democrats have put forward broader, more nuanced amendments in the other place beyond just a blunt social media ban, but they have been repeatedly rejected. This is not about party politics, as some have suggested. We are all trying to come together towards the same aim, but we need a concrete commitment in any amendments that are brought forward to a date when the Government will take action. We cannot wait for a drawn-out consultation that asks if, not how, we should ban social media. Our children who are affected every single day cannot wait for action to be taken.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak briefly this afternoon. I wanted to speak because we had a tragedy in my constituency, where a young boy of just 13 years old was stabbed and brutally murdered in a local park after a terrible series of incidents of online bullying. This is a very serious matter and I appreciate the Government’s work on it, and the consultation, which has enormous potential. I pay tribute to Olly’s mum and dad, who have been campaigning extremely hard on this matter, to tackle both the scourge of knife crime and social media and online harms. They have argued very powerfully for a ban at 16, but I am aware that there are contrary arguments, as the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), mentioned earlier. The Molly Rose Foundation and other campaigners take a different view. I hope that these matters can be addressed fully in the consultation, and that we can look in great detail at some of the challenges, because these are extremely difficult issues for our society and for parents.

In my own life as a parent, I have found it difficult to fully comprehend the level of risk that is out there. We all face the challenge that social media, gaming and other technologies move very quickly, so it is important that we look at gaming and a range of other matters. I look forward to the consultation exploring this issue fully, looking in depth and, hopefully, answering the pleas from all the parents involved in the campaigns, because this is such a serious and important issue. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Minister, and with the Government as a whole, on this matter.

On the matter of phones, I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s action. It is important to see this issue from the point of view of parents, children and schools. Schools have to implement the ban, and the Minister has rightly set out how today’s amendment will give clarity to schools so that teachers will understand precisely what is meant. It will give greater signposting to taking action on phones in schools and, as a result, protect children. That is hugely important, and I very much welcome the Government’s work on this matter. I appreciate that other Members want to get in and that time is limited.