Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Benjamin]

127: Clause 32, page 57, line 11, leave out “C” and insert “D”

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 127, 129 and 130 in my name, which are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson; I thank him for his support, as always.

These amendments are on behalf of young performers in the fast-paced and flourishing entertainment industry. I congratulate all of the young people involved in films nominated for the BAFTA awards. I have worked closely with Spotlight, experts on international child performance licensing, and child licence co-ordinators, all of whom have a wealth of experience in dealing with child performers and the issues that surround them and their well-being; I thank them all for their hard work and commitment.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have addressed the concerns raised by noble Lords in this group, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I am overjoyed. I am so happy for the child performers of today and the future, because we are breaking down barriers that might prevent them having an exciting experience in the creative industry. I thank the Minister for partially accepting my amendments; I am most grateful for that.

Once again, I thank her and her team for the hard work which has gone on behind the scenes for us to get to this point. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for his support—and for giving us an insight into his career; it was interesting to hear that from him. I also want to take the opportunity to thank the Minister for her clear commitment to reviewing the regulations that govern child performing, both in this country and abroad.

The creative industries are a source of great pride to our country, but at their very heart must be the well-being of the children who contribute so much to their success. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for recognising this and that the existing framework must keep pace with the realities of the modern world we live in. It is so important that we do that for our children.

I particularly welcome the Minister’s assurance that the review will be undertaken in close collaboration with industry colleagues and those with front-line experience. It is important that we listen to what they say; they are at the forefront of what is going on in the lives of children who are performers. Working together this way is essential if we are to strike the right balance, enabling opportunity and creativity while ensuring robust safeguards that protect children’s welfare, education and long-term prospects.

I look forward to continuing working with the Minister and her officials. The job is not done—there is a lot further to go. For that commitment and the constructive spirit in which this work will be undertaken and move forward, I sincerely offer my gratitude and beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.

Amendment 127 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is occasionally accused of being somewhat angry and irate when we get on to these subjects. That is entirely understandable. She founded 5Rights in 2013. We are now 13 years later, and she is repeating some of the same arguments, warnings and evidence again and again. I remind your Lordships that for many of those years the noble Baroness was the person to whom all the bereaved parents would go, to have somebody who understood what they were going through and who would work to coalesce and bring them together so they had a community, because they had nowhere else to go. She has lived directly with the shame, the fear, the anger and the sorrow of those bereaved parents and has helped them deal with that. In so doing, she has worked with them, and everybody thought and hoped that delivering the Online Safety Act would provide, at least in part, an answer. That those parents are as disappointed as they are with where we are is a cry of shame which Parliament has to listen to. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron: I do not mind which way you vote—that is what I tell kids: “Whatever you do, vote”—but whichever way you vote, let us send a message back and get this dealt with.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady Kidron and the right reverend Prelate. We have a choice to make today, and I hope that we will make the right choice.

I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, which is really important. Early years matter—they matter so much that we must do everything we can to protect them.

I also support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to which I have added my name. I wish to speak on Amendment 94A, which is really important, as I strongly believe that children under the age of 16 should not be able to access social media and have social media accounts. This is a necessary measure until the online platforms accept their responsibility, implement stringent safety controls and perform their duties to our children. We have given them the opportunities to do so; now is the time for us to act decisively. Each minute we wait, more damage is done to our children’s well-being.

It is great that the Government have moved on this issue, but they have done so in the wrong direction. There is no need for a consultation, which will cause even further delay. We have all the evidence we need; we have to stop this catastrophe now. The world is watching us, and I believe that many countries will follow suit, because this is a global crisis.

There are those who believe that this amendment is a blunt instrument and will prevent children accessing the outside world. I do not agree. Let us consider the options. What would we rather have: children becoming addicted, showing signs of anxiety, even taking their own lives and being exposed to the terrible age-inappropriate dangers allowed by social media providers, who do not have our children’s interests at heart, or protecting them until those social media providers get their act together? I know which option I would choose. This amendment sends a clear message to those who want to harm our children and fail to protect them. They have failed in their duty, and now is the time for us to act.

It is important to make clear that children do not need a social media account to access the internet. I am not proposing to ban children from the internet, which is a great source of information for their educational studies on platforms such as Wikipedia or BBC Bitesize. The amendment is preventive. It would prevent them having social media accounts where they can be contacted and reveal personal and private details that expose them to potential abuse, harm or coercive behaviour. The word “ban” is emotive, but the amendment is a preventive measure in the same way that children cannot buy alcohol or a lottery ticket. You would not allow your children to freely play on the motorway, so why do we allow them to easily open social media accounts that can cause harm and trauma and, in some cases, endanger their lives?

For the last 20 years or more, I have been speaking out and begging children to resist temptation and to be aware of what the online world was seducing them into. I have begged them to switch off and say no to these temptations, which lead them down a path of potential harm. Unfortunately, my message and warnings did not spread far enough and we are now facing a crisis, an epidemic of children suffering from mental health issues, depression, isolation, bullying, blackmail and intimidation—the frightening list goes on and on— because of their exposure to the dark side of social media.

What have we done to our children? Many of them have had their innocent childhoods snatched away from them, sliding down into a cesspit of uncontrolled harm, danger and disturbing behaviour. The scary reality of the depression and mental health issues that children are experiencing is frightening. According to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, there was a 22.7% increase in suicide rates of those aged between 10 and 24 between 2012 and 2022. It has been well documented that adolescents are showing rising addiction to social media and face a doubled risk of suicidal behaviour. There has been a fivefold increase in eating disorders among 11 to 16 year-olds, according to the NHS Digital mental health of children and young people in England survey. The Nuffield Foundation predicts that GCSE results will worsen steadily over the years to come, when fewer than 40% of pupils will achieve good grades in maths and English. The decline in children being exposed to books and reading skills is now becoming evident, and many organisations, such as BookTrust, are striving to encourage reading and to persuade children to pick up books and become lovers of the written word.

Another worrying concern for us all, as highlighted last year by the Children’s Commissioner, is that 59% of children first saw pornography by accident and 27% have seen pornography by the age of 11. One mother told me that her four year-old was abused by a 10 year-old who said to her, “I’m going to rape you and you’re going to like it”. Where did he get that kind of language from?

In one Demos focus group, every single girl had received unsolicited sexual images. There is also evidence that children are now using mainstream social media to host live sexual content for payment. How did we get to this? Why have we allowed it to happen? The proportion of children reported as perpetrators of sexual offences is rising, driven significantly by early exposure to pornography. This is something that I have long lobbied to prevent. Thank goodness we now have Ofcom-implemented protection due to the Online Safety Act.

Social media can be addictive and consume time and energy in a negative way, especially for young people. Research from the World Health Organization has found that 11% of adolescents globally show signs of problematic social media use: addiction-like symptoms, including the inability to control usage; withdrawal symptoms when offline; neglect of other activities; and signs of anxiety. In England, 20% of 11 year-old girls and 23% of 13 year-old girls have problematic usage. That is three to five times higher than adult alcohol dependency and 3.5 times higher than adult drug dependency. Let us release our children from this dependency and anxiety. Let us set them free from all this. We must do that.

Children need a world of positive role models, giving them a holistic understanding of the world around them, presented in a verified way, not an online environment that distorts their thinking, behaviour and perception of the world with misinformation, conspiracy theories and fake news—a world filled with influencers, a world making them feel inadequate. My daughter is a teacher and is having to deal with the outcome of all this on a daily basis, like so many other teachers across the country.

What is social media doing to our children today and exposing them to? What type of future is ahead of them? If we do nothing now to protect our children and grandchildren, we should be ashamed of ourselves, as the damage to young minds and heartaches of families will only increase. There is an argument for more parental control, but parents cannot look over their shoulder 24/7; they need our help.

I urge the Government to back the amendment and help to protect our children, because there is a strong case from teachers, health practitioners, parents and law enforcement that children under the age of 16 should not be able to access social media accounts. We have a huge responsibility to safeguard our precious children and their well-being. The amendment is vital. It would send a clear message to those who would harm our children and allow them to be scarred for life. As I always say and will say again, childhood lasts a lifetime. That is why I wholeheartedly support Amendment 94A, and I urge other Members to do the same.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 94A, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Benjamin and Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Nash. In the interests of time I will not talk about the other amendments, but I commend the noble Baroness on her introduction of this group of amendments.

There are a handful of issues that consume me on a daily basis, and the negative impact of social media on millions of children and young people in this country is one of them. Despite the important introduction of the Online Safety Act to control illegal material and prevent children accessing harmful and inappropriate content, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, expertly articulated, not a week goes by in this place when we do not hear how Ofcom is struggling to enact and enforce this important legislation. That law does nothing to protect the next generation from social media, with its highly addictive algorithms, its constant notifications, its ability for unsolicited contact by people unknown to children and its barrage of content that young people are not even seeking or searching for. While it might not fall under the definitions of illegal or harmful, it is still misogynistic, divisive and shaming; diminishes our children’s self-worth; is racist, dangerous, and violent; and contains a disproportionate amount of misinformation and disinformation. We are going backwards because, if we do nothing, the situation will only get worse as the tech companies continue to fight for our children and young people’s attention and develop their social media products to get as many eyeballs on their platforms as they can in the pursuit of profit.

As one of the handful of parents in this place with primary-age children, I am deeply concerned by the constant stream of case studies that I hear from other parents about the effect that social media is having on their children, who have had to move school due to bullying on social media, who have had the police turn up on their doorstep due to their children being groomed or exploited on social media platforms, or whose child is in in-patient mental health care for eating disorders they are suffering from that have been amplified due to social media use.

I am deeply concerned having listened closely to our teachers, who, as we have heard, are having to grapple on a daily basis in the classroom with the consequences of the content that our children and young people are being bombarded with on social media and the impact it is having on their attainment. That is no surprise, given that Ofcom tells us that the average time our children are spending on these platforms is 21 hours a week.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 97, to which I have added my name. In Committee, I likened the waiting for Wales argument to a legislative Waiting for Godot. Well, Godot has arrived in the form of a very thorough evaluation of the first three years of the Welsh legislation. The overall message, as we have heard, is very positive.

I was particularly struck by what the report says about positive parenting, as this was a key argument used by my noble friend the Minister in rejecting the original amendment in Committee. The report makes it clear that this is not an either/or situation. The abolition of the reasonable punishment defence in Wales has been implemented in such a way as to promote and support positive parenting practices. Thus, the report makes it clear that, thanks in part to the introduction of a parenting support scheme which we have heard about, the response to physical punishment is proportionate and focused on behaviour change rather than criminalisation.

Elsewhere, the report notes that the aim of the Act was to protect children’s rights while adopting an educating and preventive approach which avoids criminalising parents. It suggests that this aim is being realised in practice, in that implementation is acting not to criminalise parents but to help educate and support them in managing behaviours differently. This addresses one of the fears sometimes expressed about abolition of the defence.

I argued in Committee that this is a very much a children’s rights issue, and the report points to research that indicated that professionals view the Act as having enhanced their ability to safeguard children’s rights, with nearly 60% reporting that it had either supported or greatly supported them in protecting children’s right to be free from violence.

This is, of course, an interim report, but in Committee my noble friend referred to it as helping to build the evidence base needed for the Government to make a decision, and I think it is fair in its claim to provide a robust initial evidence base. I am not sure what further evidence the Government need to be added to the pile that already exists. This amendment is very much a compromise, and I can see no good reason for them not to accept it. I hope they will, because otherwise it could be a very long time before English children are free from the harmful effects of what the four Children’s Commissioners described as an outdated and morally repugnant law.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 28 in the name of my noble friend Lady Tyler, which I hope the Government will support. I should like to speak on Amendment 97 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on the legal defence of reasonable punishment. I declare an interest as vice-president of Barnardo’s, which has been campaigning for the end of the reasonable punishment defence, along with its partners in the children’s sector.

We already know that physical punishment can cause significant harm to a child, including poorer mental health and increased behavioural problems, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has said. Any child who is physically punished is also at greater risk of even more serious abuse, which can be devastating.

Professionals who work with children can find it difficult to assess and respond to potential risks, since distinguishing between physical punishment and abuse is challenging. As a result, Wales and Scotland have acted to remove the reasonable punishment defence from the law, but England has not done so. Children in this nation remain uniquely vulnerable, with less protection from assault than adults and other children elsewhere in the UK.

I turn my attention to the Welsh review, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Some 95% of parents in Wales now know that physical punishment is illegal and 86% believe it is ineffective. We feared widespread criminalisation of parents, but that has not occurred. Fewer than five cases have been referred to the CPS, with no convictions to note. Instead, families have been diverted to supportive parenting programmes, which have led to positive outcomes for many of them, including in children’s behaviour and parental well-being. Professionals have also reported greater clarity and confidence when dealing with such cases. That shows that the law is working but, most importantly, that children are being protected.

There is widespread support for change. Polling from the NSPCC has shown that the majority of safe- guarding professionals, including teachers, healthcare professionals and the police, would like to see the end of physical punishment of children. More than 300 public figures also supported a change in the law. The Government wished to wait until evidence from Wales on the law change was available, but that evidence is now available.

The amendment before us does not seek to legislate the defence away at once. We ask only that the Government meaningfully consider the evidence from Wales and consider abolishing the so-called reasonable punishment defence in England through future legislation, within six months of this Bill becoming law.

When the proof of harm is so extensive and the evidence of change is so promising, I strongly feel that asking for a transparent response to that evidence is a reasonable and proportionate request. Children should not have to wait indefinitely for clarity on what their rights are, or for protection and fairness when evidence that could potentially change their lives already exists. I ask other noble Lords across the House to stand with children and give their support to this amendment, and, more importantly, for the Government to accept the amendment, as that would show that they too put children at the heart of the matter when it comes to equal protection for children. As I always say, childhood lasts a lifetime, so let us do it.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to Amendment 97. As we have heard, the law changes in Wales on reasonable punishment are going well. Children in England have less protection in law from assaults than adults and their peers in Scotland and Wales. The law as it stands is unclear and open to interpretation, making it harder to safeguard children.

As a teacher, I know first-hand the challenges that this poses for professionals safeguarding children. When the law contains ambiguity, safeguarding becomes more difficult. I have come across cases where children have reported that if they do not get good grades then they will be beaten. That is a safeguarding risk that I would report, but for safeguarding leads it is a nightmare that they have to judge the extent of any injuries. The fact that you can still legally hit a child with calculation is bizarre and barbaric. That is reflected in the NSPCC’s YouGov polling from August that 90% of social workers, 77% of healthcare professionals and 75% of teachers all believe that the law in England should be changed—and they are voters—while some 81% of parents with a child under 18 think that physical punishment of any sort is unacceptable.

Like many others, I want to see the reasonable punishment defence removed entirely to give all children protection from assault. I support the amendment as a clear and pragmatic compromise to bring in, in a timely way, the evidence that the Government want to see on the impact of implementing this change on parents, professionals and public services. The Government’s openness to reviewing the evidence and hearing from a range of people on this issue is welcome. I therefore hope they will support this amendment in that spirit.

Given the challenges that the current law poses for professionals, it is welcome to see the positive impact that removing the defence has had in Wales. Professionals across safeguarding, education and healthcare report that the law has clarified and strengthened their ability to protect children’s rights and have better conversations with parents. That reinforces the call from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that removing the defence would support professionals in safeguarding children and providing clearer advice to families. The report has also shown that the concerns around criminalising parents have not materialised. In fact, it has meant that families have been able to access support.

With zero convictions and fewer than five cases referred to the CPS but hundreds of families accessing parenting support, the report concludes that the aim of the Act—not to criminalise parents but to help to educate and support them in managing behaviours differently—is being realised. I quote that in Wales

“the law is working and making significant progress in protecting children’s rights”.

Employment, Education and Training: Young People

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right to highlight both the regional differences and the correlation with disadvantage in identifying levels of young people not in education, employment or training—or NEETs, as they are rather horribly known. The problem needs early intervention and targeting. The Department for Education is supporting local authorities to identify young people who are at risk of becoming NEET, so that they can be supported to stay in education and training in the first place. My own department, DWP, is reforming careers support and introducing a youth guarantee so that, right across England, every young person, from 18 to 21, has the option of apprenticeships, employment or quality training. We have also convened a small advisory group, including the mayoral combined authorities, local councils and others to make sure that we pursue a mission to reduce the number of young people who are NEET in a targeted way.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, the charity First Star Scholars—I declare an interest as patron—works with children in care and has a success rate of over 72% of them obtaining GCSEs and 50% attending university. Care-experienced children usually under- perform, with less than 20% achieving GCSEs and just 6% progressing to university. Will the Government agree to meet with me and First Star Scholars to address this so-called care cliff to help reduce the number of care leavers not in education, employment or training and enhance educational outcomes for these vulnerable young people?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising such an incredibly important point. I have the pleasure of having responsibility in my department for disadvantaged groups including care leavers, and I would be delighted to meet her and talk about this further. For a brief outline, here are some of the things the DWP does to support care leavers in different ways: they get priority access to universal credit and budgeting support and help; care leavers in staying-put arrangements can claim benefits under their own steam until 21 in many cases; and, crucially, we have a second-chance learning scheme, which means that if you are 18 to 21 and a care leaver, you can claim benefits and still study full-time to catch up on education you may have missed earlier. There is a lot more, which I cannot wait to tell her about. I look forward to meeting her.