Lord Addington:

Moved by Lord Addington

216: After subsection (2)(b), insert—“(ba) may provide for exemptions for assistive technologies that are deemed necessary for a student’s education,”Member’s explanatory statementThis Amendment would add assistive technologies that are necessary for students' education, to the list of exemptions that can apply to the prohibition of smartphone use and possession.

This is fairly straightforward. There is a bit of passion being stirred up and a nice pace, so let us not delay too long. The reason I am suggesting that we include smartphones as assistance to those with special educational needs is because smartphones fit in your pocket and are a great way of carrying technology with you.

Chris McCausland, who noble Lords have probably seen on “Strictly Come Dancing”, did a lovely little programme showing all the assistance you can get if you are blind that can be loaded on to your phone. I, as a dyslexic, have good voice-operated systems that I can carry with me everywhere and use because they are on my phone. It gives you personal independence. It means that you can operate these systems, and we have only just started to scratch the surface. If there is another personal device that does it, I am all ears. I do not know whether there is another one.

You can block social media so the phone itself can be used for other purposes. It is a plastic and metal box that carries technology; it is not the devil’s passport. If we use it correctly, we can change it so that it actually supports and gives independence to a person who otherwise has it restricted from them. I ask all noble Lords in this Chamber: do we want to give independence to those who have disabilities?

This Amendment would not solve everything, but it would address certain things. It would make sure that pupils could interact with lessons more easily. If they are restricted to a computer in front of them, that may well be better, but, for instance, they will not be able to take notes quite as easily—as in my case—or communicate quite as easily. The Carers Trust has been in touch to say that it does not like the proposal and would like an exemption for some of the people it is dealing with. This is moving very fast—there might be other groups.

I appreciate what the noble Baroness is trying to do but let us not be too rigid and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Technology is a way of helping to give independence, allowing people to access education. Please accept the fact that an absolute ban has downsides—downsides we can avoid. I beg to move.

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for a very moving speech there, but I will address his point directly.

This Amendment does not object to a child having a basic phone for safety. My plucky 11 year-old son travels to and from school every day with a big rucksack and a violin on the Circle line and the Jubilee line, come rain or snow. It worries the hell out of me every time he leaves the house, and I am not happy until he is back home. That is why he has a Nokia dumb phone in his pocket, so he can call me if he needs to. I confess that he sometimes plays “Pong” on a black and white LED screen when he is bored, but that does not damage his frontal cortex or bring him into touch with predators. He does not have a smartphone with all its nasty algorithms. Until they invent such a box as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, quite reasonably described, that is what a smartphone contains.

I do not, for instance, allow my son to go to the local pub, the Westbourne, where he might be beaten up. For the same reason, I do not let him on Instagram, with all its bullying. I do not allow him to go to the Ministry of Sound—wonderful organisation though that is—because he will be confronting sexual predators. For the same reason, I do not let him on Snapchat. I do not give him methamphetamine—whizz—or Es, because they are addictive and would mess with his brain, as do TikTok and YouTube reels. I do not, for instance, allow him on X, where he might see internet filth. For the same reason, he is not allowed to go to Soho to watch peep shows.

Toxic digital platforms are designed for adults and are engineered for addiction, fraudsters and predators—and, I am afraid, they are screwing with too many of our children’s brains. A simple device that makes calls and sends texts poses none of these challenges. That is what children should have. That is why schools should be in a regulatory position to ban smartphones during school hours.

My Lords, I have spoken on this issue so many times in this House that I am not going to repeat myself—really—except to say that I have never taught in a school that allows mobile phones either in school or on the way to school. I have taught in some of the highest-performing schools—non-selective state schools that are some of the highest performing for pupil progress in the country—and I do not think the two are unconnected.

We do not need mobile phones in schools. They distract and they disturb. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that I am sure we can take a smartphone, take out all the stuff the student needs and give it to them for the day. We do it with laptops for the pupils all the time. We do not need them on the way to school. It is a huge irony that we pack our children off to school with many hundreds of pounds-worth of equipment in their pocket and then worry about their safety. As part of a strategy to build a safe environment for our children online, the first step is very simple: ban phones from schools entirely.

My Lords, I support Amendment 215 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and Amendment 216 in the name of my noble friend Lord Addington, who has great experience in matters concerning children with special needs, so I fully support his amendment. I shall speak on Amendment 215 on behalf of my daughter, who is a secondary school teacher and has considerable experience regarding the issue of children using smartphones in schools. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear that she is fully in favour of this amendment, like so many other teachers up and down the country. Her school has a phone ban and she tells me that it works really well, as it allows teachers to concentrate on lessons and not spend valuable time policing the use of smartphones during the school day.

It works also because it is a great discipline for children to resist the temptation to access their phones during school and lesson time. On the other hand, I have spoken to teachers at education conferences whose schools do not have a ban on smartphones, and they long for that change. They have told me that they spend a great deal of time preventing pupils using phones instead of concentrating on teaching. They express their frustration at how some children cause disruption and are offensive to teachers who tell them to put their phones away. Often, pupils are distracted or bullied and harassed on social media and messaging apps. Girls especially are very intimidated by boys sharing upskirt videos of them and making offensive sexual suggestions. These are some of the reasons why Amendment 215 is asking for a ban on the use of phones by children during school hours.

On arrival at school, pupils will simply be asked to leave their phones in a secure place until the end of the school day. In the event of an emergency at home, the school can be contacted and act on the situation appropriately. Pupils can be taken out of class and given back their phone to contact their home if necessary. Actually, I believe that if a child were to receive an upsetting emergency message on their phone in the class or playground, it could be very traumatic for them to deal with. My daughter told me of a case of one of her pupils whose father passed away unexpectedly. The school was contacted and the child was taken out of class and received pastoral care to help them deal with the distressing news and take in the devastating loss.

We know that the use of smartphones can be addictive and cause mental stress, depression, fear, anxiety and harm, which can be very difficult to deal with, especially in the school environment. Incidentally, this issue very much runs parallel with the current move to ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media accounts, which I very much support. It was great to see that Spain announced today that it will bring in an under-16 ban, too. Hurrah!

I urge the Government to accept these amendments, give clarity and make a general policy across all schools, state and private, that phones are banned, except in the circumstance of children with special needs, as highlighted in my noble friend Lord Addington’s Amendment 216. Let us give our children some respite from social media, YouTube and messaging apps during school hours; let us get away from the distractions and harms they currently cause to our children and help those children concentrate on their special education. Because, as my mum always says, “Education is your passport to life”.

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 216. The amendment to ban mobile phones in schools was introduced to safeguard children’s well-being, which is a principle that I wholeheartedly support. But it is therefore imperative that we consider all the ways that a mobile phone can be vital for a child’s well-being and security.

I was recently contacted by a mother of a diabetic child who relies on a mobile phone app to monitor her glucose level and manage insulin treatment. Without that device, her child would be at serious risk. For students who depend on assistive technology, whether for communication, medical monitoring or learning support, a mobile phone is not a distraction: it is a lifeline. We must ensure that, in our efforts to protect children from the harms of excessive screen time, we do not inadvertently endanger those who rely on these technologies to participate fully and safely in school life. This amendment provides the necessary clarity and protection for vulnerable students and I urge the House to support it.

Incidentally, I was contacted today by young carers who need access to a phone because of their caring roles. One young carer said, “I’m not going to go into school, then, because I’ll be too worried that something might happen to the person I am looking after”. So there are nuances to this issue and one of the ways of dealing with them is by supporting the amendment that was moved by my noble friend Lord Addington.

On the general issue, whether it is teachers, parents or grandparents, everybody has concerns about mobile phones in school. It is interesting to remember what the head of Ofsted said. He said that they had played a part in the ongoing scandal of poor school attendance,

“whether by chipping away at attention spans and eroding the necessary patience for learning, or by promoting disrespectful attitudes and behaviours”.

He also linked mobile phones in schools to the massive increase in permanent exclusions—which, in 2023-24, were up to a record 10,885 children and young people permanently excluded from school—and to the increase in the number of suspensions. I do not know whether they are a direct result of having mobile phones in schools, but clearly Ofsted’s chief inspector thinks that that is the case.

I think a ban will have to be agreed, but I hope that, when this comes back on ping-pong, the Government might clarify some of the ways that we deal with these exceptions, because there are issues as well. If, for example, a child or young person needs their mobile phone to monitor their glucose levels, how will that phone be handed in or given back? Will there be a register for that? It all needs to be thought through but, yes, we need to ban mobile phones in school.

My Lords, I too added my name to Amendment 215 but, like my noble friend Lord Hampton, I have spoken on this issue quite a lot and anyone who would like to know my view can find it in Hansard—reams of it.

However, I want to ask the Minister a few questions about the Government’s current position. I was delighted to hear the Prime Minister declare that no one thinks you should have phones in schools and that schools are expected to be phone-free by default. I am particularly pleased because that is a shift in government messaging: in the last two debates on this issue, I was told that the guidance was sufficient as it is and that 90% of secondary schools already have policies in place that work.

I am delighted, but I want to understand what recycling the guidance is going to do to change the experience on the ground for children. Only 15% of children say that phones do not affect their lessons in some way. How will the new guidance help?

My second question is around Ofsted inspections. Ofsted inspects about a quarter of schools each year, so each school gets between three and four years between inspections. I would like to hear from the Minister because I am concerned that, if we pass this today and stick with the Government’s guidance, there are some schools that will not be inspected for another four years. We have a problem in the real world. We will have new guidance, but with a system that will be checked at some time in the future. I am worried that many things could happen in that gap.

Thirdly, I looked at the government website, where Ofsted’s national director of education wrote:

“If a school chooses not to follow the guidance, inspectors will continue to explore the impact of mobile phones on pupils’ behaviour, safety and wellbeing”.

Can the Minister state under what circumstances not having a bell-to-bell restriction would be appropriate, given what the national director of education has said?

Finally, I hope to give the noble Lord, Lord Addington, a little support. I have long advocated for a bell-to-bell restriction, for support for schools to store phones during the day, and for exemptions for children, carers and even for pedagogical reasons—teaching about phones—and for pupils who need assistive technology. But this has taken so long, and we cannot let the exemptions undermine the need to act. If this goes through tonight, will the Government come back with something that is sensitive to these exceptions but does not undermine the purpose of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran? We cannot have an expectation of a phone-free school day, an inspection regime that means that, even if we arrive on this today, some schools will not have seen it in four years’ time, and a policy which the inspectors represent as a choice. This does not add up.

The reason most often given by Ministers against this policy is that it is worse at home. I beg the Government to give the kids a break and eight hours off. The Government are in loco parentis when children are at school. This would be a marvellous thing for the Government to do for parents.

My Lords, when I spoke on this Bill at Second Reading—which seems a million months ago, but perhaps it is not quite that long—I said that I was not convinced about having a ban on phones in schools. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said that I should listen to the arguments.

Whether we agree with online content and what children should access from smartphones is, in a way, a separate debate. There are two main arguments tonight which mean that I will support Amendment 215. First, as we have heard, this should be about supporting good educational outcomes. There is no doubt that having phones in schools is a distraction. We should give our young people the best possible opportunity to concentrate and focus for those eight hours in school.

Secondly, Ministers have said that there is guidance which strongly encourages schools to have policies that mobile phones should be put away. When I speak to teachers and heads, they say that, without something a bit tougher, it is very difficult to police, particularly when parents or families come in and say that there is an exception or why it should not apply. Sometimes they are even very aggressive towards teachers and heads who say that the pupils should not have phones. We should take the opportunity to support education outcomes and those who have to police this policy on the front line by supporting this amendment.

My Lords, I want to speak to this Amendment for two reasons. One is that my name is on it. The second is for nostalgic purposes, because the first time I spoke in this House was in a debate that my noble friend Lady Kidron was leading on smartphones in schools. I stood up and spoke in her Shadow—nothing changes, more than a year later. My niece was sitting nearby, observing democracy in action. Afterwards she said, “Well, what happens then? Do you just talk about it and then forget it?” I can tell her that we did not forget it and that it is still a work in progress.

I am still young enough to remember my maiden speech and introduction. The other thing that happened after my introduction—I do not know whether this happened to anyone else—was that once my friends and family saw the cloakroom downstairs, which looks like primary school, for ever after they say, “Are you going to school today, then?” The thing that has been like being at school since I have been here is that I have so many more WhatsApp groups on my phone, and my attention is fragmented so much more by them—even, dare I say, by WhatsApp groups about smartphones. That gives me the slightest insight into how much worse it is for young people, with the number of times that their phones ping during the day.

I support this amendment. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that it is really important to be mindful of people with special educational needs, but I have one caution. Although I am young enough to remember my introduction, I am old enough to have worked in augmentative communication clinics at Great Ormond Street over a 15-year period. In those days, devices were not in your smartphone; they got gradually smaller and smaller, but they remained augmentative communication devices, so it is possible not to have them as part of a smartphone. We need to be really careful about where it needs to be a smartphone and where it does not. I take the point about diabetics, but we must be very wary. A lot of young people with ADHD could say that they need their smartphone to organise themselves. Where are the edges? It should be exceptional rather than undermining the foundation of what we are trying to achieve.

Finally, it is certainly possible for young carers to have dumb phones. They have talked about the relief when, instead of carrying their phone, it is in the school office, and the school office can come and get them quickly if there is a problem. They will not have their phone if they are in the swimming pool or playing sports, but there are ways to make sure that they are contactable. We need to think about this as carefully as we can and not, as somebody said, feel that the exceptions undermine the principle.

My Lords, I want to share the experience of schoolteachers, particularly head teachers. I and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, were on a call earlier this week with three head teachers from different parts of the country and from very different economic backgrounds. Their plea was: “You need to help us, because at the moment we have different policies on phones”. One, interestingly, was banning year 7s from having phones but not others. Another was to say: “Put it away. As long as we do not see it, it’s not a problem”. Others have pouches. A lot of their time is being taken up by a small group of vocal and often aggressive parents who demand that their children have their phones at school. Those head teachers are being distracted from their core duties to deal with this, and they were pleading with us, particularly with this vote tonight, to send a clear message to the Government that head teachers want to teach children rather than police smartphones.

The other thing I want to share is about the harms. We have talked a lot about social media, but often phones in schools lead to further bullying. We all saw a few years back the craze of happy slapping, where young people in playgrounds came behind others and slapped them, and the footage would be used and shared.

There is one other thing I want to share that is very personal. When one of my sons first started at a school in Rotherham, he was very keen to fit in—because we are from Sheffield—and he wanted to make friends. Unfortunately, a small group of so-called friends followed him into a toilet a few moments after he had gone in and, while he was sat on the toilet, they kicked the door in and took footage of him on the toilet. He did not tell me or the family. I got a phone call from a local community centre a week or two later to say, “Shaf, we are horrified by what we’ve seen. We’ve seen footage of your son. He didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t get up, and these kids were laughing. We saw it, and we think you should be made aware”. To their credit, the parents of the two young men who were involved came straight to our house when they found out; they were mortified. The school itself tried its level best, but, I have to say, we had to leave that school, and my son had to go to the other side of Sheffield to give him a fresh start.

There are real consequences. That is why, tonight, I will be backing the Amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the amendment of my good friend and colleague, my noble friend Lord Addington, on the requirements for people with special educational needs.

My Lords, I want to make just one point, following up on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley. The medical devices exception in the Amendment is already provided for. If a more general exception were made for special educational needs—that is already close to 30% of children—the pressure on parents and pupils would be to game this, and the proportion of children with a special needs label would rise to truly stratospheric levels, at which point the phone ban would clearly have no meaning whatever. I urge noble Lords to think about the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on other ways to provide the assistive functionality that might be needed.

My Lords, very briefly, it will come as no surprise that, when I was going to school, I did not have a smartphone, just like many of you here this evening, probably; we did not have that opportunity.

I fully support the principle of Amendment 215. I find a difficulty, though—this is a follow-up to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan—on the policing of this issue in schools. Doing your homework is a requirement at school; not every kid does it. Bullying and fighting in the playground are not allowed, but it still happens. I fully appreciate that the son of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, is not allowed a smartphone, but not every young person is accommodating like that: not every young person has the respect for their parents, let alone for their teachers.

It is okay making these Laws, but, unless we have some type of policing and enforcement, it will not be of any benefit, because you are going to punish the people who willingly give up their phone when going into school. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, says, “It is okay, they will simply be asked to leave their phone at the door”, but they will not all leave their phone at the door. Some will have a phone hidden. How do we police and manage it? That is my serious question, because I absolutely know that not every young person will willingly do it. What do you do? Are you going to criminalise teachers for not taking the phones? Are you going to criminalise parents for allowing children to go to school with their phones? It is not that simple.

I fully support the principle of the amendment. Let me be clear: I wish phones had never been allowed in school. But the management, policing and enforcement of this is something totally different and it is not dealt with in this amendment or anywhere that I can see in this legislation. I am willing to support this amendment, by the way, but it needs a lot more doing to it before it is finished.

Does the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, think that, if those kids had been asked to leave their phones at the door, it would have stopped them breaking into the toilet cubicle with a phone hidden in their sock or down their shirt? This is an incomplete amendment that I am willing to support, but unless something better and deeper is come up with that allows it to be enforced and policed without criminalising teachers and parents, I am afraid it is not going to be of much use.

My Lords, for precisely the reasons outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, I have great suspicions about this Amendment. It underestimates the operational difficulties of what is proposed, not least because the catchment age of this Chamber does not really allow us fully to experience or understand them. Therefore, I agree with the Government’s contention not to go straight to a statutory measure. However, it would help us if the Government made it plain, in the light of the experience in Australia—which we will be able to estimate in the next few months—Spain and so on, and of the experience of non-statutory guidance, whether they are open to considering statutory legislation somewhere down the line. It would be helpful if we understood that we have an open mind on this.

I rise to support this Amendment. The Government have, as I understand it, proposed non-statutory guidance that all schools should prohibit smartphone use by pupils in schools. This is indeed a move from their previous position, that most schools are already doing this and thus a firm rule is unnecessary. However, those of us who actually work in schools know that some schools do have a strict, clear smartphone policy which is actually effective. For instance, in my patch, students either cannot bring them with them, or they are taken off them when they arrive and locked away, or they have to go into a locked pouch. We are experimenting with all three to see which is the most effective, but I can say that they have all been highly effective in improving the behaviour and focus of students.

On the point about enforcement, if a smartphone is seen, it is confiscated for a long time. This is a firm and clear policy, and it is working. However, many schools, possibly most, have much a looser policy, rather along the lines of the Government’s now proposed non-statutory guidance: a weak and ineffective policy allowing children to use them in the loos and in the corridors, out of sight. I do wish sometimes that the Government would just admit they got it wrong.

When I was taking legislation through your Lordships’ House—five Acts as a Schools Minister—I took many amendments from Opposition Benches because they were sensible and I agreed with them. Clearly, the Government have moved on this; they accept they were wrong, but they will not admit it. They should go the whole way, and rather than producing some wishy-washy non-statutory “should” guidance, they should accept a clear rule or duty, as in Amendment 215. Teachers want it: they want a clear, firm rule consistently applied across all schools, as do parents, particularly those with children in different schools, who can find different policies very confusing.

I support this amendment because it is clear, strong and effective.

My Lords, will you allow me to introduce another voice—a voice that is not of this House? On 18 January 2016, Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who took her own life aged 14, said on BBC television that a total ban of smartphones would be wrong. Why? Because he saw that the greatest danger is not mobile phones or smartphones, but social media. You can ban phones from school, but then the children go home and log on to social media.

Social media causes far greater damage because of the algorithms used. Ian Russell was clearly of the view that what is needed is careful thought and for those who know the dangers of both, and the complications involved, to make recommendations to the Government on how to tackle the use of smartphones in schools and the use of social media because of the damage it is causing all our children. I do not think banning mobile phones on its own will deal with the real danger of social media algorithms.

Amendment 216 to Amendment 215, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, needs to be considered very carefully. We glibly talk about pupils with special educational needs. Then, when someone tells us about the advantages of a phone in dealing with some of the difficulties in his life, we say that this is going to create an exception which will weaken the banning of smartphones in schools. A child like him in school would be dependent on a phone for his medical needs. We can always explain it away, but I, for one, am persuaded by the noble Lord, Lord Reid, because he is wise.

The Government have moved in some directions, wanting schools to be the ones who deal with this. I know the policing is difficult, but we need to wait and see what is the outcome in places such as Australia, as the noble Lord said, and listen to the voice of Ian Russell, who has been campaigning longer than any of us because he lost his daughter, and not simply brush it aside because we have the right to pass legislation and go down this road. So I plead for us to wait and not simply tag it on to this Bill. I know it is to do with the well-being of children, and schools, but I suggest that this is not the place to do it.

My Lords, the House is probably keener to hear from the Minister than from me. I am grateful to noble Lords for their remarks. It was clarified that there are exceptions in the Amendment around medical devices. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, of course, we want children with special educational needs to be independent and would be very happy to work with the noble Lord to look at that. But I agree completely with my noble friend Lady Spielman that we risk having one in three children in a classroom then being allowed to have a phone, which I know is not what the noble Lord wants either. With that, along with the rest of the House, I would like to hear from the Minister.

My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impact of mobile phones in schools, including the distraction from learning and the wider effects on children’s well-being. For this reason, we have always been clear that mobile phones have no place in schools.

It was clear from the examples given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that schools can deliver this. Research from the Children’s Commissioner shows that the overwhelming Majority of schools already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day. However, it is also clear that the old mobile phones in schools guidance inherited from the previous Government did not deliver the clarity or consistency that schools need to implement mobile phone-free schools.

Amendment 215 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, requires schools in England to prohibit the use and possession of smartphones during the school day. As I say, the vast majority of schools already have policies in place that restrict access to mobile phones. The problem, therefore, is one of clarifying the guidance and enforcing those policies. That is why we have acted to address both. On Monday 19 January we published strengthened guidance which is clear that all schools should be mobile phone-free environments by default for the entire school day and pupils should not have access to their devices. That includes lessons, time between lessons, break times, lunchtime and in the loos. Not only does the strengthened guidance remove any ambiguity as to what effective prohibition of mobile phones looks like, but it includes practical, real-world case studies, demonstrating how schools are successfully implementing and sustaining these policies.

We know that schools need help. Where they do, they can get one-to-one support from the DfE’s attendance and behaviour hub lead schools, spread across all regions of the country, that are already effectively implementing mobile phone bans and have exemplary track records of supporting other schools to improve their practice. We have gone further: to reinforce the importance of effective implementation, Ofsted will, for the first time, check school mobile phone policy on every inspection, with schools expected to be mobile phone-free by default. It will check how effectively these policies are implemented when judging behaviour during inspections.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, questioned whether that would be effective, given the, in some cases, four-year gap between inspections. To be clear, Ofsted is one of the most powerful signals that the department gives to the sector on its priorities for teachers and leaders. While not all schools are inspected every year, the prioritisation of mobile phone policy in every inspection will improve policies across the system. From my time teaching, it is my experience—and I am sure it is the same for others across the House, including the former chief inspector—that Ofsted does not have to be on the premises to have an impact on what schools are doing.

We have already communicated these changes to the sector, but I make it clear that schools have our full support in taking this forward. This is a national reset on mobile phone use in schools, and we expect all school leaders, pupils and parents to follow this guidance. But this is not the end of the conversation, and we will continue to listen to the voices of parents, teachers and children on this issue.

I remind the House that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has announced that the Government will launch a short, sharp consultation on how to improve children’s relationship with social media and mobile phones. This will be a three-month consultation, with the Government reporting back in the summer. On the point made by my noble friend Lord Reid, as part of this the consultation will seek views on whether the mobile phones in schools guidance should be placed on a statutory footing, working through the evidence and bringing any proposals forward once these views have been taken into account.

Amendment 215 addresses the issue in a way that the Government cannot support. It is unclear what “possession” is meant to cover. If we define possession too tightly, we create problems for schools. On the radio this morning, the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, was praising the use of, for example, sealed pouches as a way to prevent the use of phones but also promoting this amendment. Of course, many schools already use sensible, effective approaches such as sealed pouches, stopping pupils accessing their mobile phones throughout the school day, which is the intention of this policy, but an overly strict definition of possession could make those approaches non-compliant, and we should not undermine what already works.

Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is an amendment to Amendment 215, and requires schools to provide exemptions for pupils who use mobile phones as assistive technology. Our strengthened guidance is clear: exceptions to the mobile phone policy may be required for children with specific special educational needs, disabilities or medical conditions. That includes users of healthtech or assistive technology. For example, pupils with diabetes might use continuous glucose monitoring with a sensor linked to their mobile phone to monitor blood sugar levels. Where mobile phone use allows pupils to manage their medical condition effectively, our guidance ensures that these cases are protected. Where school leaders need to make additional exceptions to or flexibilities in their policies based on a child’s individual needs, we trust them to do so.

For these reasons, and given the wider action the Government are taking to improve children’s relationship with technology, mobile phones and social media, I hope—although I do not have a lot of hope—that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

My Lords, I remind the House that the Question before the House is on Amendment 216 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so we must first deal with that before we return to Amendment 215.

My Lords, as it appears that everybody wants to vote on this, I would like Amendment 215 to be in half-decent shape. I think it needs my amendment; therefore, I beg leave to press my amendment.

Ayes 36, Noes 144.

Amendment 216 (to Amendment 215) disagreed.

My Lords, the Minister says that phones have no place in schools and that the Government want a national reset. I say that we need our Amendment. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Ayes 178, Noes 140.

Amendment 215 agreed.