Lord Mohammed of Tinsley:

Moved by Lord Mohammed of Tinsley

Leave out from “disagreement,” to end and insert “do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 38J to 38P, and do propose Amendments 38Q to 38U in lieu—

38Q: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause— “Protection of children from harmful social media services and features(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, by regulations made by statutory instrument, make provision for the purpose of protecting the wellbeing of children in relation to regulated user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children in the United Kingdom.(2) Regulations under this section must, in particular, make provision requiring providers of such services—(a) to assess and specify a minimum age of access for the service, or for specified features or functionalities of the service, as part of a children’s risk assessment carried out in accordance with provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023, with the expected minimum age of access for social networking services being 16 years;(b) to use highly-effective age assurance measures to prevent access by children below the applicable minimum age;(c) where a user is identified as being under the age of 16, to apply proportionate measures designed to—(i) limit the supply of addictive design features and design features that are inappropriate for children, and(ii) prevent access to content that is harmful to children;(d) to display to users under the age of 16 clear, accessible and age-appropriate health and wellbeing warnings about the risks associated with prolonged or excessive use of the service;(e) to keep under review the impact of the service’s design, functionalities, algorithms and business practices on the mental health and psychological wellbeing of children.(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(c), “addictive design features and design features that are inappropriate for children” include, in particular—(a) infinite scrolling content feeds,(b) auto-play of sequential video or audio content,(c) algorithmic recommendation systems designed to maximise continuous user engagement,(d) sycophantic or manipulative features, or features that are likely to make a child understand the technology as human,(e) push notifications and alerts, including at night and during the school day,(f) the demand for unnecessary data in exchange for services.(4) Regulations under this section must require ofcom to publish guidance about—(a) the criteria for determining an appropriate minimum age of access;(b) the evidential requirements for children’s risk assessments relating to minimum age determinations;(c) the identification and regulation of addictive design features in relation to children; and(d) the form and content of health and wellbeing warnings.(5) In making regulations under this section the Secretary of State must consult—(a) the Chief Medical Officers of the United Kingdom,(b) OFCOM,(c) the Information Commissioner, and(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(6) Regulations under this section shall be treated as imposing enforceable requirements for the purposes of Part 7 of the Online Safety Act 2023.(7) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.(8) In this section—“child” means a person under the age of 16;“content that is harmful to children” has the same meaning as in the Online Safety Act 2023; “regulated user-to-user service” has the same meaning as in that Act; “social networking service” means an online service that—(a) allows users to create profiles and interact publicly or privately with other users, and(b) facilitates the sharing of user-generated content, including text, images or videos, with a wider audience.”

38R: After Clause 62, insert the following new Clause—“Child consent for harmful social networking servicesAfter paragraph 1 of Article 8 (child’s consent in relation to information society services) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data insert—“1A. In the case of a social networking service processing personal data for the purpose of delivering personalised content, targeted advertising or algorithmically curated recommendations, references in paragraph 1 to 13 years old are to be read as 16 years old where OFCOM has determined that the service, or a description of service into which it falls, presents a material risk of harm to the wellbeing of children.1B. For the purposes of paragraph 1A, a “social networking service” means an online service that—(a) allows users to create profiles and interact publicly or privately with other users, and(b) facilitates the sharing of user-generated content, including text, images or videos, with a wider audience.1C. Paragraph 1A does not apply to—(a) educational platforms and learning management systems provided in recognised educational settings where personal data processing is solely for educational purposes, or(b) health and wellbeing services where personal data processing is necessary for the provision of care, counselling or support.””

38S: Clause 65, page 123, line 36, leave out “This Part extends” and insert “Sections (Protection of children from harmful social media services and features) and (Child consent for harmful social networking services) and this Part extend”

38T: Clause 66, page 124, line 4, at end insert—“(aa) section (Protection of children from harmful social media services and features); (ab) section (Child consent for harmful social networking services);”

38U: Title, line 9, after “schools;” insert “about protecting children from harmful social media services and features; about the age of consent in relation to processing of a child’s personal data in relation to social networking services;””

My Lords, I personally welcome the noble Baroness back to her place after a short period of illness and thank her for taking the time last week to engage with us to better understand where we are coming from and give us the opportunity to understand where she is coming from. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lloyd, for her engagement over the Easter period. Both engagements have been very helpful for us.

My reason for tabling this group of amendments is that we have some concerns around the Henry VIII powers that the Government are seeking. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, may not hold as strong a view as I do on the Henry VIII powers, but noble Lords across this House have issues whenever a Government want to take on lots of powers, and I note that the noble Lord proposes a Sunset clause. I have concerns about how the Government intend to make changes once the consultation happens. My view is always that, if these are powers that are required for a set period, so be it; however, I still have concerns around what may happen in future if another Government come in and want to use them. I am sympathetic to what the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has proposed but, through my amendments, we hope that the Government may take the opportunity to support our quest and bring in their own primary legislation.

There is also the issue of whether we have a ban or regulate addictive features. We have always been clear in the amendments we have proposed previously that we did not favour an outright ban for under-16s, but wanted an age rating so that the duty fell upon the social media providers to deal with those features that young people get addicted to, such as constantly scrolling and so on. That is where we stand, and I am sure many Members of your Lordships’ House, if they were able to vote on our Amendment, might well be there as well. That is what we need, rather than an outright ban.

I get that your Lordships’ House has previously voted for the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to make sure that this issue stays live. It will be interesting to see what happens later today when some of those amendments will no doubt be proposed.

Secondly, as the Minister mentioned, we have issues around the collection of data and GDPR, particularly around the age of consent. Currently it is 13 and we want it to be 16. I hope the Government address that.

On enforcement and additional harms, while empowering ofcom on the issue of guidance on addictive features, it will also introduce specific requirements for platforms used to access services to mitigate the risks of them being used to create and distribute child sexual abuse materials. This includes mandating human moderators and co-operating for law enforcement. In all our efforts, we have tried to do the best for our young people. We have tried to help and assist the Government and nudge them in the right direction, and that is what we will endeavour to do today.

Ultimately, from speaking to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and others in your Lordships’ House, I do not think we are too far away from where we should be. It is just a matter of the speed and pace of implementation. I note that the Government keep saying, “It will come out after our consultation”, but we have been debating this since last year. I will put on record again—I have said it in meetings before—that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, was the first to have flagged this, to his credit. To be honest, I do not care which political party someone belongs to if they are here to safeguard our young people: credit where credit is due. We have tried to work across parties, with the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and with the Cross Benches to ensure that we get to where we are.

I will briefly move to smartphones in schools, rather than mobile phones, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, because we have always been clear that it is with smartphones that we have a problem. At the meetings that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and others have been to, parents and head teachers have said that the issue of concern is with smartphones, social media, WhatsApp groups and others.

We have noted some parents’ concerns around being able to access or get in touch with their children and young people, particularly in rural areas. That is why we often talk about being able to have the more old-fashioned phones that many of us had 20 years ago, which basically allowed you to make phone calls and not much else. Therefore, we have been clear that it is smartphones that are the issue for us.

I know that my noble friend Lord Addington was very clear about supporting what he often refers to as the “devices” that enable people who need extra support in school and how to deal with that, but that issue clearly fell in your Lordships’ House when we tried to propose it. I take reassurance from the Minister’s commitment about enhancing that guidance, because head teachers have been looking for that. They have been saying that there is a small but very vocal group of parents who, whenever we bring in a policy like this, stop them managing those schools and supporting the teaching of young people, as they constantly have to fend off those parents.

In that sense, the Government are heading in the right direction. They might not be quite where some of us want them to be, but I thank the Minister for that and look forward to hearing other contributions from your Lordships’ House.

My Lords, I too welcome the Minister back to her place, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, for his remarks. I will speak to my Motion A2. For anyone who has studied them, the verdicts in the two US cases are clearly game-changers. The evidence from the social media companies themselves is damning. I have a treasure-trove of these documents, if any noble Lord would like them.

Immediately following these cases, the Prime Minister made some very strong statements about protecting children from the harm of social media, and the Right Honourable Liz Kendall spoke only yesterday about the importance of highly effective age verification to ensure that children cannot access the harmful features of social media. This is exactly what my proposal does. I listened very carefully to what she said yesterday and, if you can get a fag paper between us, it is a pretty thin one indeed—so I have decided to take the Prime Minister at his word and, instead of batting my Amendment back again, to lay an amendment to the Government’s amendments to the effect that they must, rather than just may, raise the age for access to those harmful social media sites to 16 within 12 months. Those sites would be chosen very selectively and, I am sure, would be very few in number—definitely not an outright or blanket ban—and this would be stated in the Bill. I have also proposed in the amendment a Sunset clause of two years on the Henry VIII element of the powers that the Government are proposing to take.

At the heart of my amendment are safety-by-design principles, with the responsibility resting firmly with the companies themselves. Noble Lords may be interested to know that I and my team have agreed a statement of principles with more than 40 charities and other organisations including the NSPCC, 5Rights, the Anti-Bullying Alliance, the Centre for Protecting Women Online, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, the National Children’s Bureau, Coram, the Internet Watch Foundation, the Mental Health Foundation, Mumsnet, Parentkind, the NEU, NASUWT, the Centre for Young Lives and many others. Central to these principles is safety by design, with responsibility resting firmly on the services themselves. My amendment also contains a disapplication of the Online Safety Act safe harbour, which would make enforcement easier for ofcom; the involvement of Ofcom, the Children’s Commissioner and the medical royal colleges as expert advisers; a requirement for digital literacy provision for children; and a transparency provision.

I will say a few words about Australia and whether age verification can work. The Australian eSafety Commissioner said a couple of weeks ago that the reason a number of children still have accounts there is simply because the social media companies are not doing their jobs properly, and it is now moving to enforcement. As the right honourable Liz Kendall said yesterday, in this country we would propose highly effective age verification, as is working for pornography, as opposed to the weaker Australian reasonable steps. Many countries are also moving to a similar approach to this, and the social media companies have admitted that this can be done if they put their minds to it, so this concern is unfounded.

It is essential that we play catch-up with the pace of change online much faster than we are. It would be such a small step for the Government to now accept the principles of my amendment—not to have what some have called a blanket ban but for this merely to be used highly selectively and definitely not to apply to apps for particular vulnerable groups. The consultation can then be about how to effect this and learning over the next 12 months from Australia and the many other countries effecting similar measures. The rest of the consultation can then be about the equally urgent matters of AI companions and chatbots, VPNs and the other matters it covers. The Government have acted swiftly on pornography, nudification, intimate image abuse, cyber flashing, content that promotes self-harm and suicide, the preservation of data after the death of a child, and other areas. But on this, the Government have merely said in their amendment that they will make a statement about progress within six months. This commits them to nothing.

Over a six-month period, the LLMs that drive products such as ChatGPT and Claude will become twice as powerful, have access to twice as much data and run at half the cost. We have to play catch-up much faster. It was clear from the shocking evidence discovered in the American trials that there are people of conscience in social media companies, but they were suppressed. It would be morally irresponsible of us to allow this to happen in this country and I urge noble Lords to vote for my Motion.

My Lords, during the short time we have been debating a ban on social media for under-16s, several countries have brought in or are discussing such a ban. Even China is due to bring in restrictions on the use of mobile phones and social media. Those who argue that our children will be at a disadvantage for not accessing social media should realise, that most children will be in the same boat: they will not be at a disadvantage. That is why I am supporting the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Nash.

My Lords, I think we have all agreed that there are troubling aspects of social media usage among young people, which are taken very seriously. It is very appropriate for parents, teachers and policymakers to be concerned and to discuss how best to help children navigate the digital world. From previous contributions, people will know that I am not sympathetic to the banning approach. I am not going to rehearse that, but I want to make a couple of points.

First, I am still very concerned about the Government’s proposed Henry VIII powers. I appreciate the Sunset clause from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, but I tend to go along with the way that the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, has explained it, because we cannot just keep handing over power to the Executive and saying, “We trust you to get on with it”. I am not convinced that that trust is merited.

In general, however, I appreciate that the Government have been more open about consulting on this difficult issue. I hope that continues and I encourage the Minister, and the Government in general, to consider new evidence as it comes in. The experiment in Australia shows things not just about social media or the big tech companies, but about the way that children have got around the ban and are now using unregulated sites, with some danger to themselves. If the Government are still open, that is very important, because there are enough experts—scientists and other people working in this field—who really are concerned that the pressure for a drastic policy such as this, with social media harms becoming a go-to explanation and bans becoming a go-to solution for a wide range of the cultural and political challenges facing young people, is something we need to be careful of. Oxford psychologist Lucy Foulkes describes it as a “neat explanation”. She says that

“social media makes a nice bogeyman, but the claim is just not backed up by the data”.

Can the Minister clarify, in terms of the consultation and the gathering of information to inform policy, whether there will also be discussions about weighing up the pros and cons of bans and so on, with the unintended consequences for vital democratic freedoms? Could age-gating, for example, lead to a form of digital verification for adults, which would be illiberal? There is also the impact on socialising the young. I know we have heard that, if everyone is banning it, that is okay; I am not convinced that China banning anything is something I want to be excited about, personally. We have to weigh up whether putting an emphasis on safetyism outweighs the potential benefits of teaching young people how to negotiate the digital world, rather than just taking them off it.

On the Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, there are a couple of things that I am not sure about and need clarification on. In the phrasing

“are likely to cause, encourage or facilitate compulsive, obsessive, addictive or other unhealthy behaviours”,

“are likely to cause” seems to me to be the opposite of evidence-based. How does that decision get taken on board?

On the use of “addictive” and the allegation that these are addictive apps and so on, should we just uncritically accept that? I know that it is being used in the law courts in America, but accepting the “addiction” label medicalises bad habits and relieves the young of any responsibility for their own behaviour. Is there a danger here of teaching the young that they have no control and peddling a myth of powerlessness in relation to technology and young people’s own desire in just wanting to do things? You can imagine that, “It’s not my fault; it’s the algorithm what done it”—always blaming someone else—is a danger that undermines the lessons that young people should learn about self-discipline in order to grow up as independent moral agents.

Finally, on teaching lessons—maybe I misunderstood this—in Motion A2, under the heading,

“Supporting children’s understanding of user-to-user services”, which sounds very educational, and obviously we are discussing a schools Bill, it seems to me that there is a danger in the curriculum of overintervention. It is one thing teaching business models and implications of online collection of children’s data. The Minister explained the issues around digital literacy well and I am all for that; it is a positive thing. But adding to primary legislation such centralised, specific demands, as they seem to be, that the national curriculum

“should contain age-appropriate material to explain the reasons for children under the age of 16 being prevented from accessing different kinds of regulated user-to-user services” just feels to me like PR for the Bill. I am not entirely sure that it is helpful for children. It sounds far too much like politicising the agenda rather than making it open-minded.

I am involved in a schools sixth-form debating competition called Debating Matters. We have a motion that is for or against the ban on social media for under-16s. There are two sides to this debate and, even if there is law change, I would not want the curriculum to teach only one side of the debate as though it is the truth and the final word, because that would be manipulative and not right.

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Nash, tabled his Amendment at the first stage, when we were battling with the House of Commons on the drafting of the Bill, I gave him my support and voted against the Government. I voted against the Government not because I was against them but because, as I told my noble friend the Minister, I wanted them to have another thought about this issue. They have now had another thought about this issue and proposed legislation that is considerably stronger than the legislation we last looked at. Therefore, I welcome the position that the noble Lord has now taken.

A few years ago, in professional circumstances, I had the duty to look at some of the pornography that is available, and I have to tell your Lordships that it is quite vile. I have no reason to think that it is any better now: it is probably more vile.

The other thing that we should take strongly into account is the access that is required to get into and view the pornography that is available on the internet. It is a much bigger problem than we might perceive.

So, my present position is that I again support the noble Lord, Lord Nash, but in his more sophisticated approach of accepting the government amendments but suggesting that there could be some improvements. I hope my noble friend the Minister will accept the proposed improvements that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, has moved.

My Lords, I say at the outset that I shall support the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, should she choose to test the opinion of the House, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash. What I have already said at great length is recorded in Hansard, so I will just say that the scope, the timing, the lack of scrutiny, the consultation itself and now the idea that a report to Parliament is an effective form of scrutiny are all problematic. I would prefer banning unfit companies’ access to children rather than banning children.

However, even if the amendments in front of us were perfect in all those ways, they still would not be effective. I met Ministers last week, and they freely admitted that neither their plans nor the amendments address the fundamental problem of enforcement. If we pass any one of the amendments in their current form we will simply give ofcom more duties but no powers, and parents will still have absolutely nowhere to go when their child is in danger. Over the past six weeks, I have put forward measures on an individual redress mechanism, injunctive powers for parents when their child is at immediate risk of harm, individual liability to concentrate the minds of senior executives, and a review of Ofcom’s wider enforcement powers, including its ability effectively to issue a business disruption notice. Each is essential to making this regime work, and each has been rejected by the Government. None is included in the amendments, none is included in the consultation and none, I am told, will be in the King’s Speech.

The Prime Minister said last week that this cannot go on. I agree. It is staggering that, two years into his Government, every promise made to parents has been kicked down the road. The Government are building on top of a regime that they know does not work. In the best-case scenario, we will get regulations with more unenforceable duties that have not been scrutinised in 2027, maybe in 2028—indeed, if we do not pass the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, maybe not at all.

I too heard the Secretary of State yesterday. She announced that she would extend her newly acquired powers over chatbots—put into the Bill only last Thursday—to child online harms, having rejected the very possibility that the House put forward on Thursday. This is not a serious approach. The Government should come back with an Amendment that offers a proper prospect of immediate and meaningful change and proper enforcement to tackle this so that our children are safe online.

My Lords, I shall briefly add to the eloquent contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I recognise that all parties have moved and that the groups of amendments are much closer than they were when we last debated this topic. However, I worry that the pressure is still on the child, not on the tech companies.

I too will support my noble friend Lord Nash should he choose to divide the House, but I ask the Government to think carefully, when they bring back the next group of amendments—as I suspect they will need to—about what the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, just said about setting up a regime that, in technical economist-speak, internalises the risks within the company so that the company has to bear the cost to work out how its products are safe enough for our children to use. That is what we do in the physical world. We do not ban children using toys; we enforce health and safety legislation so that toys cannot be sold to children unless they are safe. Unfortunately, I fear too much of this is banning children and not enough is holding executives and businesses to account to make their products suitable for children.

My Lords, I largely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who brings all the rigour that you would expect from an MBA from Harvard Business School to the analysis of this problem. Ultimately, it is a business issue. These companies are making a vast amount of money from, basically, monetising the time that these children are spending on what are designed to be addictive products. That is the simple truth. Until and unless we find a way of disrupting the business models of the companies behind those platforms in such a way that it hurts them—the point at which individual directors and senior executives know they will be held personally accountable and may well go to jail, as well as the companies being fined vast amounts of money—there will really not be a tipping point. This often feels like pushing water uphill.

I want to make a point about educational technology. We are focusing very much on smartphones and the terrible effects they are having on so many young people. Simultaneously, the Government have been promoting, quietly but overtly over many years, the increased use of technology in schools, from primary schools onwards, partly as an understandable result of Covid, when your Lordships’ House even managed to embrace technology to a degree that many of us would have thought completely unthinkable. Schools have indeed been embracing technology, and in many cases the effects on the young people in those schools that have done so are not good.

Many countries of the world have recognised this and are doing a complete U-turn on their previous eagerness to get children in front of touchscreens and computer programs. They are trying to reverse the effects because they have been doing it for long enough that they have seen the evidence produced of the effect that it has on children: reduced attention spans and reduced vocabulary. In Scandinavia—surprise, surprise—libraries are doing the unthinkable: they are bringing back books, having largely decided to no longer invest in them five or six years ago.

I appeal to the Government, and particularly to the Department for Education, to look carefully at what is going on in schools. Schools need advice from the Government about how to deal with this issue. The blandishments of these companies, which are large, sophisticated and profitable in selling their products to schools, have all the smoothness of a tobacco or asbestos salesman, but in many cases their terms and conditions mean they are monetising those children and their details, along with the schools’ details, and the educational product they are producing is substandard.

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion D on the phone ban. The Minister talked about strengthening guidance and Ofsted being able to inspect schools’ mobile phone policies, but I speak as a parent as well as a teacher when I say that parents do not understand statutory footing; they understand a legal ban. If the Government want to reduce unnecessary burdens on head teachers then, from what we have seen over and again, that has to mean an outright ban in the Bill.

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley in his Motion A1. We are united across this House and, indeed, across Parliament in our desire to protect children from the significant harms of the online world, but, as we consider these amendments in lieu, we are presented with three rather different legislative strategies.

The Government’s proposal in Motion A asks this House to grant sweeping, enduring Henry VIII powers to the Secretary of State, allowing them to amend or repeal primary legislation via secondary regulations. The Government’s amendments remain completely silent on the predatory nature of addictive design. By ignoring the psychological triggers engineered to hijack a child’s attention, the Government are fighting big tech with one arm tied behind their back, regulating, as we have heard today, the user rather than fixing the product.

I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and his tireless and principled campaigning in this area, and I welcome the fact that his Motion A2 attempts to rein in the Government’s executive overreach by applying a two-year Sunset clause to these Henry VIII powers. I recognise that his amendments are no longer a blanket ban, but his core proposal remains a blunt instrument. Although well-intentioned, this approach is built entirely on exclusion. It risks creating a dangerous cliff edge for young people: rather than helping children to safely develop digital resilience, it would potentially suddenly expose them to the unfiltered internet the moment they turned 16.

Motion A1, by contrast, offers a far more precise, workable and future-proof alternative. Instead of handing unchecked powers to Ministers or trying to build an impossible wall around the internet, it places direct statutory duties on tech companies to clean up their platforms. As we have heard, that is essential. Under our Amendment 38Q, where any user is identified as being under 16, the platform must apply proportionate measures to limit the supply of addictive design features and prevent access to harmful content. As my Honourable Friend, Munira Wilson MP, stated in the Commons:

“This needs to be big tech’s seatbelt moment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/4/26; col. 920.]

Recent US court cases, which the noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned, have exposed internal documents showing that tech executives deliberately designed these platforms to keep children hooked. Motion A1 would dismantle this addictive architecture, preserve parliamentary sovereignty and spark a race to the top for safe, enriching online spaces. I urge the House to support that approach.

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my noble friend’s Motion A2 and my Motion D1. My noble friend has once again laid out the arguments in favour of his Motion A2 most eloquently and elegantly and the Minister in her opening remarks talked about it being

“not whether but how and what action will be taken” by the Government. Her Right Honourable Friend the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and all Ministers sitting on the front bench today have at different times made a commitment to act. But that is not what we have in the Government’s Amendment. Their amendment is not a commitment to act; my noble friend’s amendment is. I hope that the Ministers opposite will forgive me for pointing out that the only charities they ever quote are those which have caution about the approach that my noble friend is advocating. As he said, over 40 charities have signed the principles document that has been developed with them. Of course, that gives those of us on this side of the House reason for real concern as to why no other charities are ever quoted in interviews by the Government.

My noble friend’s amendment has several material advantages over the Government’s current approach. First is the simplicity in that the commitment to act is in the Bill. Your Lordships are very familiar with the risks posed by putting everything in secondary legislation, particularly secondary legislation with an enormous Henry VIII-shaped power. Secondly, it puts into effect the Prime Minister’s commitment but also allows the Government to use the consultation to shape the “how”—including on enforcement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, rightly pointed out, and in relation to breadth and scope—but it sets out very clearly at proposed subsection (4)(a)(i) to (iv) the principles that would be followed in relation to addictive behaviour, serious harm and exploitation, illegal content and loss of privacy; your Lordships, I know, will have read the amendment. Thirdly, with great simplicity, it also sunsets the Henry VIII powers, which I think we can welcome across the House.

As my noble friend said, the US court cases have changed the evidence and the conversation. There is a simple way forward for the Government to resolve this impasse, which is to accept the principles that underpin my noble friend’s amendment. They may choose to use different words, but the principles should remain. The Minister talked about action that is not just swift but appropriate. However, the government amendment still allows for inaction; it would still allow the Government to do nothing at the end of this. My noble friend’s amendment does not leave that option. That is not an option that Ministers say they want. I think they should close that loophole when, as I hope, we come back to this at a future point.

I turn to my Motion D1 in relation to smartphones and mobile phones in schools. Before I speak to that, I would like to put on record my agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on edtech. He will remember the amendments that we had at an earlier stage of the Bill, and I think that is a serious issue for the House to come back to. Unfortunately, I was unaware until the noble Baroness announced it that there was going to be a change in the Government’s position, which I find at the least curious since the amendment has been in my name throughout. Obviously, who they choose to speak to and take advice from is the Government’s prerogative, but, as the Minister knows, I wrote to her office asking for clarification last week by email and I have received absolutely no reply, so I find that unfortunate to say the least.

Even with the statutory guidance announcement that the noble Baroness just made, the current guidance the Government have published, which they now propose to put on a statutory footing, still allows schools to have a “not seen, not heard” policy—the noble Baroness is shaking her head. I asked for confirmation from the department and got none, so in that silence I went to a number of school and trust leaders and asked them. The answer I got was that there is, at best, confusion and, at worst, an assumption, including from schools which currently have a “not seen, not heard” policy, that that can continue unchanged and “will continue to be the norm in schools”.

If the Government agree that that is not what children and teachers need, they need to put it clearly in their guidance that it is unacceptable. I appreciate they have taken out the example of using bags and jackets—whatever it is—to put a phone in. They just need to say, in words of one syllable so that schools understand it, that this is not an acceptable policy. There is much evidence that the presence of a smartphone in one’s bag or pocket is a distraction. The temptation to turn it on when going to the lavatory, when out of sight or when in the playground is almost irresistible—indeed, it happens to adults too. Given that that is the case, putting flawed guidance on a statutory footing achieves nothing.

As the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, said, there is no distinction in the Government’s approach between smartphones and brick phones or dumb phones. The Government talk about how keen they are to give headteachers discretion in this area —not something they were very keen on in every other amendment to this Bill—but the distinction is really important, because it has a bearing on when children first get a smartphone. Parents want to be able to contact their children on the journey to and from school, but they do not need a smartphone for that, so there needs to be distinction in the guidance as well. The Government are obviously very resistant to accepting an Opposition amendment, even when headteachers are calling for them to do so. I do not know why headteachers, parents and children would not thank them if they saw sense and accepted this amendment.

My Lords, on Motions A, A1 and A2, the Government, as I think I made clear in opening this debate, recognise the concerns raised in this House and the strength of feeling among parents about protecting children online. As I and other Ministers have said, we share that commitment. This is a complex issue, with a range of views, expressed once again today during this debate, about how it is best approached.

Points were made by noble Lords about enforcement, the development of the online safety regime, and other issues that my noble friend Lady Lloyd and others in DSIT will continue to think carefully about. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, slightly took us back to discussions that we had earlier on the issue of edtech. I am happy to provide him with further information, expanding on the information that I gave in Committee, about the approach that the Government are taking, particularly to develop the evidence around what is and is not appropriate use of technology in the classroom. Given the strength of feeling, we have been clear in government that it is important that we act not only quickly but in the right way.

The cases in the US, as commented on by noble Lords, have rightly and understandably raised interest. While we do not comment on foreign court judgments, we welcome international efforts to strengthen online safety and will want to learn from what is happening around the world. However, I note that the UK has the most robust online safety framework in the world, with a regulator empowered to issue fines of the same order of magnitude or larger. That is why the Government have announced that we are going to take further action to protect children’s well-being online through our consultation.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and others have identified, there is a range of action in different countries; I agree that it is not the same action in different countries. I was fortunate, before I was confined to my bed before recess, to go to New York, to the Commission on the Status of Women, where I attended a useful session with a focus on the action taken by different countries to protect children online. What I thought was notable was the wide range of different approaches being taken in different countries—different ages, different scope and different speeds at which it was happening. We cannot simply look abroad to find a consistent approach. That is why, while watching very closely what other countries are doing, we want to be confident that what we introduce here works and works for all children, including the most vulnerable. That is why testing options now, taking evidence from families themselves and putting in place the legislative powers to act quickly once the consultation closes is the right thing to do. It means that we can move in months, not years.

As has been said on numerous occasions, the Government’s consultation looks beyond a simple social media ban to a wider range of harms, from addictive design to time spent online, allowing for a more comprehensive and effective response with long-lasting outcomes. It considers at least some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. In other developments, as I outlined in my Opening Speech, the Government are taking action through the curriculum, supporting schools to enable children and young people to be much clearer about media literacy and the nature of what they will encounter online at some point, whenever that may be in their lives, when they have access to it. This is clearly an important development, both in the curriculum and in the way in which our schools are teaching.

We have listened to concerns about pace, which was another important theme of the debate today. The argument is that the Amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, would enable faster movement, because we would not need to consult. The Government have laid the groundwork to act swiftly on the outcome of our current consultation without the need for lengthy primary legislation. It is a short, sharp consultation, which we believe is the right thing to do to make sure that we take the right approach. I reiterate that we have been clear that it is not a question of if but how we act. In addition, the government amendment would allow any subsequent regulations to capture a wider range of harmful features and functionalities and to tailor measures to where harms are actually occurring. We are committed to working as quickly as possible to deliver additional protections. We will not wait years, as with the Online Safety Act. We are determined to get it right and we will not compromise on what is best for our children’s future.

There is concern about scope—I think I have responded to some of that concern—and scrutiny. That is why we have tabled legislative powers to act swiftly on the basis of evidence, alongside a clear commitment in the Bill to report to Parliament within six months. We have made it clear that these powers can be used only for the purposes of protecting children. I hear the concerns raised by the noble Lords, Lord Mohammed and Lord Clement-Jones, about Henry VIII powers. To be clear, the power permits the Secretary of State to apply only existing parts of the Online Safety Act, with modification if needed, to ensure that the new regulations are effectively incorporated into the legal framework. The power would not allow this Government, or any future Government, to amend the existing online safety duties. We have been clear that the powers must have due regard to the effects on children of different ages and we have provided, as I outlined in my opening comments, for meaningful scrutiny, through engagement with relevant Select Committees, before any regulations are laid. We have been clear throughout, as demonstrated through these new legislative powers, how we will do this both quickly and effectively.

Moving on to the issue of mobile phones, it is important to reiterate that there has already been progress in the ways in which schools deal with mobile phones. We know that the Majority of schools have policies that prohibit mobile phones, which is why we believe that Amendment 106 is unnecessary. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, slightly understated the changes that we have made to the guidance and the range of other measures that we have put in place around the guidance to support head teachers and to enable it to be implemented more quickly.

On the specific issue of whether “not seen, not heard” as an approach is appropriate, she is right—we have now taken that out of the guidance, and we would be willing to consider whether we should be stronger on that. The question that the noble Baroness asked was whether the use of guidance would make this impossible. She knows that the point of guidance, whether statutory or non-statutory, is to provide clarity in the broadest context about how we expect schools to operate in this area. It is a complex area where different schools and different head teachers might have different ways of achieving the outcome—we are all clear that there should not be access to mobile phones for children at any point in the school day—but it is not possible for me to say that it would be impossible, as she knows.

However, as I have said, we have moved on this. We recognise the strength of feeling on this issue, both in this House and beyond. That is why today, to recognise that—notwithstanding the fact that we think the guidance already in place provides head teachers and schools with a range of approaches to be able to deliver the objective that we all share—we are committing to tabling an amendment in lieu, which will place the existing guidance on a statutory footing in the Bill, creating a clear legal requirement for schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, knows from his experience in schools that having guidance which is statutory is a clear statement to head teachers, parents and others that what is included in that guidance will be expected to be happening in schools, and it provides the ability for schools, as I have suggested, to be able to deliver that in the way that is most appropriate. It is an important message for head teachers, if they feel they need it, to be able to say, “Look, this guidance and what it expects from schools is statutory”. In doing that, we have listened to concerns about how we support head teachers in delivering on this policy, and we have listened to Parliament.

This approach is robust, proportionate and effective. It ensures clarity and certainty going forward so that all schools can become mobile free. Given those assurances and the progress that the Government have made in both areas of this group, I hope that noble Lords will feel able as soon as possible to bring these issues to a conclusion as part of this Bill.

Before the Minister sits down, both the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and I raised the issue of smartphones as distinct from mobile phones. I understood the Minister to say that she would consider improving the guidance to make it clear that “not seen, not heard” was not in line with the spirit of the guidance. Will she also undertake to look at whether there is any refinement that could be considered in relation to smartphones?

Yes, I will undertake to do that. I think it is interesting that that type of question is exactly the reason why the use of what will become statutory guidance is a more appropriate way of dealing with the nuances of this issue than the type of legislative ban on the face of the Bill that some people are arguing for. Because of that flexibility, I will undertake to do that.

I thank the Minister for her comments and response to the points raised. I thank all noble Lords, in particular my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, for setting out clearly, alongside myself, our position on social media. I welcome the comments on having better clarity on the smartphones issue. I am not minded to test the opinion of the House on this occasion.

Motion A1 (as an Amendment to Motion A) withdrawn.