UK Economy

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami]

It is definitely above my pay grade to call elections. In relation to GDP per capita statistics, which are important—the point of them is to try to get a sense of what is happening to individuals or to individual households and families—I would say—[Interruption.] Let me—[Interruption.] I wish the shadow Chancellor would allow me to respond. Real household incomes, which are as good a measure as any to see what is happening to individuals and families in our economy, are up 12% since 2010. If we are looking at people at the bottom of the income scale, the rise in the national living wage that comes in in April will mean a rise since 2010 of about 30% in real terms for people on full-time minimum wages. Those two statistics are examples of what has happened to real people on the ground.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for updating the House. Does he agree that people in Redditch and elsewhere are concerned about negative economic news—although it almost always turns out to be wrong? Most of all, does he agree that the greatest risk to my constituents in Redditch and those across the country is a Labour Government? Labour has said it can somehow magically get £28 billion of green growth benefits without paying for them. We all know that my constituents will be paying for that through extra borrowing and higher taxes.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Minister has no responsibility for the Labour party. Let us move on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I feel a little slighted, because the hon. Gentleman and I agree on an awful lot behind the scenes—I wish him a very merry Christmas. On non-doms, we know that they paid £7.9 billion in UK taxes last year, which is a significant sum of money. The Chancellor has been clear that when we look at those rules, we have to bear in mind that they pay a significant sum of money in their UK taxes that obviously contributes towards the public services that we all care so much about.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The success of our fantastic town deal in Redditch, which is thanks to record-breaking investment from the Government, relies on our amazing SMEs, who tell me that they need to compete against the online giants. What more can the Minister do to ensure that our businesses play a full part in our vision for the future, so that we can continue to unlock Redditch?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend has done so much for her constituency through her campaigns, including by securing the investment that her local hospital needs. In relation to her high streets and small businesses, she is right that we are the Government of small business. That is why, although we had to make some difficult decisions in the autumn statement, we were determined to protect our precious high streets and small businesses, particularly in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, through the business rates support package, which totalled £13.6 billion.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I would like to start by talking about wealth. Being a Conservative means that we have a strong and principled belief in equality of opportunity, which does not exclude the need for public money to be spent levelling up the playing field to help those who work just as hard as their peers, but are held back by factors not under their own control. To achieve that important and just mission, we need wealth. That means money, funding, investment, support, education, healthcare, lifelong learning grants to small businesses and scientists, and much more. We Conservatives must relentlessly back the wealth creators. That is why I welcome the Budget while still being ambitious and restless for a greater push for growth, low taxation and wealth creation once the immediate issues of stability and inflation have been rightly addressed.

We must keep the focus on incentives, rewards for additional effort, self-reliance and hard work. We are the only political party that understands that wealth is created by individuals, not the state—by entrepreneurs and hard workers taking risks and enduring huge sacrifices and setbacks. Before I came into politics, I worked for 30 years in my own business—one that I helped to start—so I know what I am talking about.

Our opponents will cynically criticise this. The media and the commentariat will twist these words beyond all recognition into a hostile characterisation of what the vast majority of the British people know and believe in their bones, which is that we do not help the weak by pulling down the strong. We help the disadvantaged more by enabling the talented, privileged and successful to thrive, start more businesses, pay more salaries to their employees, put more tax into the Exchequer and earn more profit. The Government ask for a share of that, which we willingly give to help the vulnerable and level up our great country. I believe that this Budget was, on balance, one for business and wealth creators, providing a degree of stability and a strategy to face the global economic headwinds.

I will focus my remarks on a couple of key priorities for my constituents. The engine room of our economy is the industrial midlands, one part of which—Redditch in north Worcestershire—I am privileged to represent. The war in Ukraine, through sky-high energy costs for energy-intensive industries, threatens the success of our cluster. I hear concerning reports from some manufacturers that, even after the welcome support of the energy bill relief scheme, energy companies are cynically profiteering from their UK customers while providing much lower, subsidised costs to their German customers. There is a real risk, therefore, that businesses are left with no alternative but to consider offshoring manufacturing to Germany or China, with hugely detrimental impacts. I ask the Chancellor, through those on the Treasury Bench, whether he has looked at the impact of that across our manufacturing base. Will he consider further legal or regulatory steps to prevent those suppliers from charging excessively in this country?

I turn now to the NHS. Naturally, I welcome the increased spending of £3.3 billion committed by the Chancellor, but it must be well spent. I have a number of questions to ask Health and Social Care Ministers, as well as the Minister on the Front Bench. Alex Hospital in Redditch is my top priority, and I have never stopped fighting for it since I became the local MP. The Conservative Government are devoting record amounts of funding to the broader NHS and to the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. I am afraid, however, that the trust is still not responding to the healthcare needs of our population, despite stating numerous times that services for children and maternity have not been removed because of funding cuts. The Garden Suite chemotherapy unit was moved to Kidderminster, 40 minutes away, at the start of the pandemic. I was assured that that was a temporary decision, but the trust is yet to bring it back, even though the pandemic is over. I pay tribute to Kirsty Southwell, Adele Jackson and the other members of the group campaigning to bring back services, who have worked tirelessly and persistently, and there have been some welcome commitments to improving local health services.

My previous discussions with the trust have come back time and again to workforce problems, yet across the country the Government have supported funding for greater workforce recruitment across the NHS and our trust, and there are more staff in our trust than there were under the last Labour Government. The Chancellor spoke about the importance of a long-term workforce strategy and committed to publishing one. When will the strategy be published, when will our local trust be consulted on it, and what impact will it have on the capacity of the trust to provide vital services such as the Garden Suite and enhanced support for women and children at the Alex site?

Finally, I will address illegal migration. We are a generous, open and tolerant nation, blessed with a keen sense of fairness. We welcome refugees—just look at how we have opened our homes to those fleeing war in Ukraine and Syria, as well as to those from Hong Kong—but our asylum system is being undermined by mass economic migration from safe countries such as Albania. I would like to have seen more in the Budget on resources and the plan to help the Home Office, the National Crime Agency, law enforcement, Border Force and intelligence services join together in tackling the issue. There is no single solution. The work that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are doing to reach agreements with France and Albania in particular can only be helpful. However, as a former Home Office Minister who led on violence against women and girls, I met the genuine victims of modern slavery, sex trafficking, and child and forced labour, whose stories are appalling and heartbreaking, and I am disgusted that our taxpayer-funded support systems are being hijacked by cynical smuggling gangs and an army of legal aid lawyers to allow Albanian men to seek a better life in our country by claiming to be modern slaves. By any measure, that is a grotesque abuse of our compassion and our scarce and finite public resources.

The figures are astronomical: there are currently more than 37,000 asylum seekers in hotels, costing the UK taxpayer £5.6 million a day. That dwarfs the entire budget of Worcestershire County Council, the acute trust and Redditch Borough Council. Surely we should be diverting that funding to the frontline public services that my constituents rely on daily.

I welcome the Budget, which gives additional certainty to businesses and enterprise. The Chancellor stated that the measures he has introduced mean that the forthcoming downturn will not be as severe as it otherwise would have been. As a country, we must continue to give our wealth creators every support to continue doing what they do best. It is their creativity and determination that will keep businesses and jobs going for everyone, protecting the vulnerable and giving us the best possible chance to have a competitive, growing economy as we emerge from these difficult economic times with more hope for the future.

Autumn Statement

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

The hon. Lady and I have talked about these issues many times and may I just say, across the political divide, that it has been a privilege to work with her on social care issues and to see the concern she has in public and in private about all these issues? I agree that it is a scandal that we have so many people detained in secure accommodation who could be in the community. I absolutely will work with my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary to see what can be done.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, with which I know my right hon. Friend is very familiar, is delaying returning chemotherapy services to the Alex—the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch—even though the pandemic is over. That means really sick cancer patients are having to travel to Kidderminster for their essential therapy. I strongly welcome the £3.3 billion investment he is providing today for the NHS, so can he confirm that there are really no financial or funding reasons for the trust not to return those services to Redditch, where they are so desperately needed?

[Jeremy Hunt]

Cancer patients in Redditch will have heard loud and clear that they have a formidable advocate in their MP. I will happily look into that specific issue, but the broader point is that the chief executive of NHS England says today that the funding we have found for the NHS is sufficient for it to deliver its core purposes, even despite the inflationary pressures. Of course, cancer services are core services.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill (First sitting)

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Ms Ghani]

Clause 5 provides the Secretary of State with the power to acquire rights in land, such as access over it, or to impose restrictive covenants over land for the purpose of phase 2a, rather than acquiring the land itself.

Subsection (2) introduces schedule 8, which specifies land where powers of acquisition are limited to the acquisition of rights or the imposition of restrictive covenants for the purposes specified in column 3 of the table in that schedule. In particular, the restrictive covenants can be imposed for the preservation of ground re-profiling. This will ensure that no future changes are made that detrimentally affect the ability to deliver, maintain or operate phase 2a. Subsection (3) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can acquire rights or impose restrictive covenants for the benefit of another person, such as a statutory undertaker.

The clause also gives the Secretary of State the power to provide that a specified person may exercise the powers under the Bill to acquire rights to impose restrictive covenants. For example, it may be prudent to give a statutory undertaker the rights to impose restrictions so that they can maintain their own equipment on that land.

Subsection (6) introduces schedules 9 and 10, which contain provisions about the application of compulsory purchase legislation in relation to the acquisition of rights over land or the imposition of restrictive covenants. Subsection (7) amends section 5 of the High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Act 2017—the phase 1 Act—to make it clear that the Secretary of State can apply rights or impose restrictive covenants under that section for the benefit of another person, such as a statutory undertaker.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 8 to 10 agreed to.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

On a point of order, Ms Buck. Is it in order to have a second shadow Minister kneeling on the floor during the Committee’s proceedings? I would be grateful for your guidance.

[The Chair]

I understand the point, and normally that would not be acceptable, but my understanding is that the hon. Lady in question would have been a member of the Committee had she not lost her voice. With the leave of the Committee, perhaps a bit of flexibility would be acceptable in this case.

Clause 6

Acquisition of airspace

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I was very pleased to visit the hon. Gentleman at Dudley College and see the fantastic work that it does. He put forward some interesting ideas about local transport. We are conducting a zero-based capital review as part of the spending review and of course we will look at proposals on all those fronts.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Does the Chancellor agree that the announcement that small shops will save up to £8,000 in business rates is a fantastic boost for our high streets? Will he please commit to supporting the bid from Redditch for the future high streets fund?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Of course, the rates relief that we have offered over a two-year period to smaller independent retailers will help the high street, but retailers have to use that breathing space to adapt to the changing environment that they face. We cannot freeze the high street in aspic and we must face the reality of the digitisation of our economy. So let us work together to transform our high streets so that they are sustainable for the future.

Puppy Smuggling

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I care a great deal about this issue, as do many of my constituents. I am a dog lover, and the proud owner of two rescue dogs, Phoebe and Herbie, who give me such joy. I want to speak about this matter and, like the many constituents who have written to me, to call for more action.

Our exit from the EU affords us an opportunity to improve on what is already a good regime. I am delighted that my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), has secured this debate and laid out in his comments all the actions that need to be taken. I do not, therefore, need to add much more, but will just touch on some brief points.

Three areas need to be looked at: our efforts at the border; our internal regulations; and the international engagement we pursue. As hon. Members have mentioned, central and eastern European countries—Hungary, Poland and Romania in particular—most often provide the supply of puppies, which feeds a growing demand for fashionable dogs. Given the rise in the demand for fighting dogs too, other nations are becoming involved, including the USA; it is worth noting that some 13 American bulldogs have been intercepted at the border in the past year. However, the issue is predominantly a European one, and the EU pet travel scheme is routinely abused, allowing puppies to cross our borders to feed the growing demand. Forged documents, corrupt vets and an absence of border checks in the Schengen area all contribute to that environment.

Although we are leaving the European Union, we are not leaving Europe or this problem behind, so we have to keep working with the states that are most heavily involved. Lithuania, for example, has introduced legislation that means that pet passports can be issued only by a vet from the state veterinary service. Figures from the Animal and Plant Health Agency show a huge reduction in the number of illegally landed dogs, from 106 in 2016 to just three in 2018. However, more countries need to act. Many countries are involved, and we need to co-operate with them all.

Many of the steps that have been outlined are not new, but they would bring the regulations back up to a more robust level and deter criminals from smuggling puppies into the UK. I pay tribute to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Dogs Trust. I was delighted to go with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire to Downing Street to present the petition, and I thank everyone for their efforts in clamping down on the trade.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. May I nip back to the point about the 1.2% increase, if I may beg your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker? The 1.2% is the overall increase. What will happen—[Interruption.] No; the reality is that some Departments will have major cuts in their budget.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is referring to a number of figures that he claims show a hit to every taxpayer; but 32 million taxpayers have had their taxes reduced under this Government, so they are keeping more of what they earn and they are better off. How many of those 32 million people would see their taxes put up under his proposals, and how many would be poorer under his proposals?

[Peter Dowd]

I will pick up some of those points later.

The reality is that meanwhile, the Government have presided over the slowest recovery since the 1920s—stubborn fact. The OBR has revised down GDP growth, and business investment is now falling. Those are not my figures; they are the OBR’s figures. What about wages? I will touch on the points that the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) raised. Real wages are still lower than they were a decade ago, and according to the OBR,

“average earnings growth remains below the rates typical before the financial crisis”.

These are real people’s real lives—real wages are not going up. For many workers who have seen their wages stagnate, borrowing and debt has plugged the gap. Household debt relative to income is forecast to increase over the next few years.

What about transparency in Government spending? Long gone are the days when Tory Ministers hailed their Government as the most transparent in history—replaced by a culture of secrecy and a disregard for parliamentary convention that saw the Government held in contempt of Parliament for the first time in history. It is not a proud record to have.

Even on transactional issues, such as the regular and timely release of figures for departmental spending of over £25,000, the Government seem to have quietly backslid, in some cases releasing data series late, incomplete, or not at all. The question is: what are they hiding? The Chief Secretary has made much of the Government’s record on the deficit, yet the reality is that on her watch, and that of her predecessor, they have simply passed deficits on to our schools, our hospitals and our local councils, with departmental spending cuts of over £40 billion since 2010.

Communities: Charities and Volunteers

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), who gave a fantastic speech.

I have been volunteering all my life—it is truly in my DNA. I started when I was around seven, taking children from inner-city Birmingham to camps in the countryside. I continued at university, doing a stint as a counsellor answering the Nightline service, and then with a long-standing role with the National Childbirth Trust. Finally, I spent 15 years with the scout movement. I have also taken an active role at my local church throughout my life.

In my business life, I have seen the massive value and benefit of volunteering and community activity for my businesses and other businesses that I know about. I was proud to be a founding trustee for the LoveBrum charity, which helps to empower small charities that do not have Government funding—true grassroots charities working across Birmingham, where my business was based—to make a real difference and receive funding. It is fantastic to see those charities now going from strength to strength. I have seen how leaders throughout the business community have embraced volunteering for their employees, because they know that it helps to build stronger employees and a stronger work culture. Ultimately, it makes businesses attractive places to work, so it is truly a win-win.

I have been privileged and fortunate all my life to have taken part in such activities. I have made friends for life, developed new skills and learned more about myself than I could ever have imagined. Such opportunities have truly changed my life. In particular, if someone can stand up in a room full of eight-year-old cub scouts and get them to be quiet and say their prayers, it is just a small step to standing up in this place.

In common with other Members, I wish to pay tribute to some of the fantastic charities in my constituency. I have been blown away by the compassion and commitment of local people in Redditch. I cannot mention them all, but I wish to highlight the Repair Café; Carers Careline; Men in Sheds, the recent recipient of a £10,000 Big Lottery grant; Redditch Nightstop; Boys2Men, a charity that recently won the inspirational mentor award from the Kids Count charity here in Parliament; Your Ideas; the YMCA; Home-Start; Where Next; the Sandycroft Centre; and, of course, the League of Friends of the Alex hospital in my constituency.

In the time I have left, I wish to focus on the impact of the National Citizen Service in my constituency, which I have visited and supported. Volunteering is a fantastic opportunity for young people to develop confidence as they go on to tackle the challenges in their lives. In particular, the NCS scheme enables them to get out from behind the technology and screens that so often dominate the lives of young people today. It puts them in situations outside their comfort zone, and they have to work together in groups with young people they would not normally meet in their neighbourhoods or school classrooms. They are learning vital life skills at a really early age. NCS builds their confidence and helps them to develop resilience to tackle some of the problems that they face in this day and age. I really want to congratulate the Minister on the work that the Government are doing in that regard.

I want to highlight the role that social prescribing can play in this really important arena. I have heard Members say that, often, those who volunteer get more out of the process than the people who are the recipients. Surely, this is a fantastic opportunity to harness this power for good to contribute to the health of our nation as a whole. We need to connect our communities—there are people who need help and who need volunteering—in a systematic and widespread way. That would be a massive and encouraging step forward. The Health Secretary has recently outlined such a plan, which, I am pleased to say, will be backed up by Government funding in the future.

I must just mention the Commonwealth games. Redditch is obviously very close to Birmingham where we will be holding our Commonwealth games in 2022. I am the vice-chair of the all-party group for the Commonwealth games. I have been leading a campaign in my local area to ensure that there is legacy and an active contribution from Redditch to this fantastic event. We want to play a part and we are looking forward to the games.

We are a nation of volunteers. I will finish with one quote. The recipe for happiness is very simple. What we need is, “Someone to care for, something to do, and something to look forward to.” Volunteering addresses all three of those things.

Social Media and Screen Use: Young People’s Health

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I rise to make a statement on our report on the impact of social media and screen use on young people’s health. Before I cover our key findings, I want to pay tribute to Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who tragically took her own life. The decision of Ian Russell to speak out and raise concerns about what Molly saw online, through Instagram, has had a profound impact in raising public consciousness of the potential risks, but also in galvanising the debate and the call for action to ensure that children are protected from harm.

I thank the 174 organisations and individuals who provided us with written evidence, and the 37 individuals who gave oral evidence. I am particularly grateful to all the young people who took part in our survey and told us of their experiences of using social media. We received over 3,000 responses from schools across the UK, which was amazing. This is an evidence-based report, and it would not have been possible without the input of all those people. I thank the parliamentary outreach and education services for facilitating the responses from schools. I would also like to thank the brilliant team who support the Science and Technology Committee in the work we do.

Throughout our inquiry, we heard repeatedly that children no longer make a distinction between the online and offline worlds. The boundaries between the two have become blurred. In 2015, almost a quarter of 15-year-olds in the UK spent six hours a day or more online outside school, and much of that time was spent on social media. At its best, social media can be a positive, transformative force in a young person’s life. It is a way of keeping in touch with friends and of connecting instantaneously with people across the world from different backgrounds. Crucially, it has given many young people an opportunity for their voice to be heard on the issues that they care most about.

At its worst, however, social media has been linked to cyber-bullying, grooming, sexting and the promotion of harmful information and behaviours. Those risks are not new and they are not caused by social media. We are clear throughout our report that social media can act both to amplify and to facilitate those risks. For example, we heard how bullying no longer stops at the school gate. Instead, it finds its way into children’s homes via social media, sometimes taking place in front of a large online audience.

Frustratingly, we do not have a good enough understanding of the scale of the problem—be it cyber-bullying via social media or grooming—nor do we have robust academic evidence of the relationship between the use of social media by young people and its effect on their health. That is not an acceptable situation. It cannot be right that we do not yet have a good grasp of who is at risk of experiencing harm from using social media and why, or of the longer-term consequences of that exposure on children.

Social media is, of course, still a young research field, but the more pressing problem is that researchers lack access to key data on social media and its use. That valuable data is held by social media companies. It has the potential to provide the types of insights that are so clearly needed, yet social media companies have not readily shared it with bona fide researchers. It is deeply disappointing that we continue to grapple around in the dark on this issue when the answers could be forthcoming.

In our report, we call on social media companies to make anonymised high-level data available for research purposes to bona fide researchers, while also respecting data protection principles. We also stress that the Government should consider what legislation needs to be in place to make that happen. Incidentally, I very much welcome the chief medical officer’s report today and her call for access to data for research, which matches the Committee’s call. I also very much welcome her guidance to parents and others.

The lack of good-quality academic evidence does not give us a licence simply to sit back and do nothing. We heard repeatedly from parents, carers, teachers and children themselves that they were worried about the detrimental effects of social media. Arguably, we have waited far too long for social media companies to step up to the plate and address the risks that their platforms facilitate. Successive voluntary codes of practice and guidance have not delivered effective protection for children online.

Legislative progress, too, has been patchy and achingly slow. Most online content is still subject to little or no specific regulation, creating, in effect, a “standards lottery”, as the regulator, Ofcom, has described it. Change is long overdue. Sometimes the opportunity to enact vital changes feels infuriatingly out of reach. I hope that will not be the case on this occasion. The Government’s forthcoming online harms White Paper, with the prospect of legislation to follow, presents a crucial opportunity to put a world-leading regulatory framework in place. This chance must not be squandered.

First and foremost, a principles-based regulatory regime for social media companies should be introduced in the forthcoming parliamentary Session. The regime should apply to any site with registered UK users. At the core of this new regime must be the principle that social media companies have a duty of care towards their users who are under 18. In essence, that means that children must be protected from harm when accessing and using social media sites. It should be achieved through social media companies acting with reasonable care to avoid identified harms. If enacted, it would be a powerful, game-changing step, and it is one that my Committee urges the Government to take.

Social media companies must also be far more open and transparent in how they operate and particularly how they moderate, review and prioritise content. To achieve that, the Government should introduce a statutory code of practice for social media companies to provide consistency on content reporting practices. This will require primary legislation. We were particularly encouraged by the German example of the Government setting a clear 24-hour timeframe in which social media companies must respond to reports of potentially illegal content. A similar approach should be put in place in the UK.

To uphold the new regime, a regulator should be appointed by the end of October 2019. We believe that Ofcom, working alongside the Information Commissioner’s Office, is well placed to perform this role. Ofcom should not only monitor compliance with the proposed code of practice, but have the necessary teeth to take enforcement action when warranted. Enforcement actions must be backed by a strong and effective sanctions regime. Consideration should be given to whether directors ought to be held personally liable.

Finally, the digital literacy and resilience of children, as well as of their teachers and parents, must be improved. Young people in particular must be equipped with the skills that they need to navigate and assess what they are seeing on social media and beyond. To achieve this, personal, social, health and economic education must soon be made mandatory by the Government for both primary and secondary school pupils. It should deliver an age-appropriate understanding of the harms and benefits of the digital world.

I want to finish on an optimistic note. I am encouraged by the sheer amount of interest in and the work that is currently being undertaken on this matter, which is occurring both inside and outside Government. What we need now is action—effective action in the form of new primary legislation that brings forward a robust regulatory regime, underpinned by strong sanctions. What we do not need is more toothless voluntary codes that can be ignored by social media companies.

Success depends on sustained leadership and commitment from the Government, even when it is difficult. At the core of this, there needs to be a legal duty of care, with the clear understanding that there are consequences for their actions if social media companies fail to protect children. Without leadership and perseverance, the worst that social media has to offer will continue to blight the lives of children. This must not be tolerated.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

I thank the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee for coming to the House and making a statement, and other members of the Committee for their work. I welcome this report. It is a fantastic piece of work, and I look forward to researching the issue in more detail. Did the right hon. Gentleman consider the concerning and tragic case of the teenager, Molly Russell, who allegedly took her own life after viewing images on Instagram? Did the Committee consider the concerning issue of social media companies that will not release the data concerning a young person who has died, possibly as a result of images that have been seen in that way, and did it form a view on what should be done?

[Norman Lamb]

Molly Russell’s father, Ian Russell, spoke out after we completed our report, and what he said about the experience of his daughter is central to our recommendations. There must be much greater transparency, as well as mechanisms to ensure that the very harmful materials that Molly saw on Instagram do not come in front of children online. Children must be protected from such harm, and the hon. Lady is right to highlight that issue.