Children’s Social Media Accounts

Scott Arthur Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I would like to start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson). I am sure all my constituents in Edinburgh South West who signed the petition will be grateful for the time he invested in crafting his introductory speech. Like others, I pay tribute to Ellen Roome. She has shown herself to be a fantastic campaigner and I am sure her family is proud of her. However, the situation she finds herself in is absolutely shameful. The hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) is right to question the motives of the social media companies and to ask who would oppose them doing the right thing. Hopefully we will hear from them sooner rather than later on this issue. However, we have to accept that the framework within which these companies are operating was set by either action or inaction within this building, so we have a duty to fix it.

My children are all adults now, at least in theory—I hope they are not listening. However, when they were younger, it was always difficult to get the balance right between respecting their privacy and ensuring that they were safe in all aspects of life, but particularly online. We have to accept that the internet is a dangerous place. All of us are concerned about material online relating to eating disorders, self-harm and even suicide and, we should remind ourselves, have a duty to do more about it.

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) is not in his place today, but before Christmas he had an Adjournment debate on the role of internet service providers in blocking the most harmful content, which had been linked to the deaths of vulnerable young people. I went along to that debate just to learn more about the subject, but was utterly ashamed and frustrated at what is happening. There are companies that seem to be looking for reasons not to do the right thing rather than find a way to support vulnerable people across our country.

I hope the Minister can support as much as possible what Ellen Roome and her campaign are asking for, but we all, including the Minister, have to go beyond that. It is not just about the law: it is about creating a culture online for our young people where service providers and social media companies feel that they have a social responsibility to support the most vulnerable people in our society and do all they can to support them.