King’s Speech

Baroness Morgan of Cotes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hobby, on his maiden speech. It seems not five minutes—in fact, it was 10 years ago—since he was visiting the Department for Education to gently point out where we were going wrong with government policy; more gently, perhaps, than some of his colleagues on these Benches. We will return to that later in debates on education. I declare my interest as chair of the Careers & Enterprise Company.

I want to focus on the issues of tech and education. First, I welcome references in the gracious Speech to cyber resilience measures and the digital identity Bill, and I look forward to debating those. But as we have already heard, there will have to be much focus in this Session on online safety and the implications of new technology. I entirely support the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford about the Online Safety Act version 2-shaped hole in the gracious Speech. I also support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, on the need for tech companies to have a licence for broadcasting to children, and on the impossibility otherwise of Ofcom enforcing successfully many of the obligations under the Online Safety Act.

Something we are looking forward to in this Session is the report on the under-16 social media ban, due fairly shortly thanks to the last-minute government amendment. The first report from the Secretary of State on how that consultation is to be implemented is due by the end of July and is of deep relevance to many families and many Members of this House. The House will also have to consider the impact of new technology, particularly AI chatbots, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has spoken about so powerfully not just today but in other debates.

I am reminded of the damage that AI-generated child sexual abuse material can do. The Internet Watch Foundation says that in 2025, it saw over 260 times more AI-generated child sexual abuse videos—more than 3,400 of them—than in 2024, when it saw 13. This is a growing problem.

One other element of harmful content is, sadly, the rising tide of antisemitism online. Given the link with education in this debate, I think it right to mention the StandWithUs UK report, which I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, has seen, on the scale of antisemitism faced by Jewish students, particularly at UK universities. However, there was a report today in the Times of the antisemitism faced by schoolchildren in the classroom. I have been told that the report includes a recent bomb threat made via Instagram to the Jewish Society at Royal Holloway University. The Community Safety Trust has told us of over 1,500 online antisemitic incidents in 2025. This is another issue that the House will have to return to in this Session.

On schools, I support the direction of travel, and have said so publicly, of the Government’s reforms to the education of those with special educational needs. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hobby, I think there are questions to be asked, particularly about the preparedness of teachers and schools for more inclusion; about how families who have children with the highest needs, particularly the highest medical needs, will be catered for; and about the timing of transition for families who currently have education, health and care plans, many of whom are rightly concerned about having some of their entitlements taken away.

I remind the Minister that she has promised that we are going to return in this Session to dealing with the extension of relationship and sex education to the over-16s in our colleges.

Finally, I support the moves in the White Paper on more enrichment in schools, but it is not just about activity; it is also about the development of character, values and traits, and I look forward to debating that. This is undoubtedly going to be a heavy Session, and this House will have to do much of the heavy lifting in relation to its legislation.