Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

On 9 July at 1 pm, in a Committee Room in the other place, there will be a screening of a very short, 15-minute film by Fabio D’Andrea starring Peter Andre, which powerfully displays the danger of smartphones and social media. If any noble Peer would like to attend, please let me know. I beg to move.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 183CA and 183CB in this group. Before I do so, I will add my support to Amendment 177, from my noble friends Lord Nash and Lady Barran, and Amendment 458.

It is odd that, while we are legislating in this Bill for the provision of breakfast clubs, of which I have previously said I am a fan, legislating for the use of social media by teenagers and the use of mobile phones in school seems to be a step too far for a Bill that is focused on children’s well-being. That is despite the wealth of evidence, to which my noble friend just alluded, about how disruptive phones can be to children’s well-being and learning.

It is not good enough to say that 90% of secondary schools report having a policy in place to ban the use of phones in the school day—which, by the way, means that one in 10 allows access to phones in the school day. What matters is how effective those policies are, and the evidence shows that, in too many cases, they are not effective enough. Around 80% of secondary schools surveyed by the Children’s Commissioner allow children to keep their phones on them in the school day, with the expectation that it is not seen or heard. However, the evidence shows that that is not working. The National Behaviour Survey in 2022-23 found that 36% of secondary school teachers reported phones being used without permission in at least some of their lessons in the past week, while 59% of pupils reported the same.

When the previous Government introduced guidance on mobile phones in schools, they said that they would keep the approach under review and move to introduce statutory guidance if the situation had not improved. A key milestone for assessing that was the publication of this year’s National Behaviour Survey. When I asked the Minister in January when she expected it to be published, she said that it would be in the spring. I may have missed it—I do not think that I have—but could she update the Committee on when we can expect the results of the latest behaviour survey?

My amendments, in a sense, follow on from my noble friends’ Amendment 177, which I support, but they specifically focus on the advice and guidance for parents, teachers and carers of preschool-age children. To be clear, unlike many who have participated in this Bill so far, I am no expert in this area; I am working hard to ensure that I am across, and understand as best I can, the evidence in this area. However, to some extent, that is the point of my amendments: if you are a parent, childcare professional or teacher of preschool children, there is no clear summary of the available evidence and no clear advice on the best approach to children’s use of screens and technology in their early years, yet such screens and technology are ubiquitous.

A good starting point for both amendments would be the Chief Medical Officer’s advice provided for in Amendment 177, which crucially specifies that it should differentiate by age. I could not find any public guidance from the Government or Ofcom that really reflects that. In fact, much of the guidance that is available is inappropriate for very young children and may give parents a misleading understanding of how they can best navigate this tricky area for preschoolers.

In my experience—I declare my interest as a mum of two preschool children—there is nothing mentioned by your GP, by your health visitor or at children’s centres: so many of those important touch points in the early years of a family. The same absence of advice or guidance extends to early years childcare and education settings too. I could find no reference in the early years standards framework to the appropriate and safe use of screens in early years settings, and that surprised me. My amendments simply seek to fill these gaps to provide proper guidance to parents and early years settings. So I would be keen to hear from the Minister about what work the Government are doing in these areas.

Within the Government’s opportunity mission, they have set themselves a milestone of

“75% of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage assessment by 2028”—


an increase from 67.7% currently. With screens so ubiquitous in children’s and parents’ lives, and excessive screen use shown to impact on so many of the early learning goals, including communication and language, physical development and social and emotional development, this must be an essential part of the Government’s plans here.

Research shows that significant proportions of younger children have access to smart devices, including phones, and spend significant time online. Ofcom’s Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2025 shows alarming trends, not just on the scale of use but on the pace of change. One in five three to five year-olds have their own mobile phone, extending to 85% of their age group using any device to go online. More than half use messaging sites or apps and half use livestreaming. The proportion of parents of three to five year-olds who say that their child uses social media apps or sites has significantly increased in recent years, from around a quarter in 2021 and 2022, rising to three in 10 in 2023, and almost four in 10 this year. Over a third of parents of three to five year-olds whose child uses social media use it on their children’s behalf, and over four in 10 say that they use sites and apps together with their child. However, two in 10 of these parents indicate that their child uses these apps independently.

Many of the debates we have had about keeping children safe online focus on teenagers, which is not surprising given that the legal age for accessing social media is 13—it is older for some apps currently—and many of the observed harms are particularly acute in teenage years, as we have heard. But what constitutes appropriate use of devices and an appropriate amount of screen time will vary wildly for a two year-old compared to a 12 year-old, and we must reflect this.

So, more specifically, can the Minister say whether my understanding is correct that there is currently no guidance for preschool settings in the early years standards framework on the safe and appropriate use of screens, and if that is the case, do the Government have any plans to introduce such guidance? Can she also say what plans there are not just to produce guidance based on the best available evidence specifically for parents of preschool children, but on how they plan to disseminate this? For example, are there any plans to integrate guidance into the Start for Life campaign, or to provide tips and information for new parents through the health visiting programme?

I end by emphasising that this is not about judging parents or telling them what to do. I use screens and my kids use screens—both of us, sometimes or often, too much. It is not about moral panic either. It is about recognising that the ubiquity and nature of screens in our lives has changed. If we equip parents, caregivers and teachers with clearer information and tools, we can help them navigate this ever-changing environment with more confidence and support. It is important that the Government recognise this, particularly for early years development. I look forward to hearing their plans in this area.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is my first substantive contribution in Committee, I declare my education interests as chair of E-ACT multi-academy trust, of STEM Learning, of Century-Tech and of COBIS. I also own half of Suklaa Ltd, which has a number of education clients.

Amendment 458A in my name is an amendment to Amendment 458 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I am seeking to add an exemption for educational purposes to the exemptions from the policy of smartphone bans in schools proposed by her amendment. I have read Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation, Christine Rosen’s Extinction of Experience and Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop’s excellent Disengaged Teen. I know that our children are losing out on the vital developmental impact of unstructured outdoor play, thanks to the distractions of technology.

We are all losing the multisensory benefits of engaging with real-life experiences because we are too busy on our phones, including in this Chamber, and we are losing empathy as a result. The overconsumption of violent online content is increasing the bystander effect that distinguishes us as communities of people.

Our children are increasingly disengaged from learning, partly due to boring content at school and partly due to diminishing attention spans, thanks to too much time scrolling short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. I am only too aware that social media is addictive by design and is the main culprit in this complex set of problems. Multiple systemic reviews and surveys confirm that excessive smartphone use is associated with poor sleep quality, increased depression and anxiety and lower life satisfaction among teens, something that this country has a particular problem with and that cannot be solely blamed on phones and social media.

This month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a large study tracking more than 4,000 adolescents and finding that the smartphone risk to youth mental health is primarily linked to the addictive use of smartphones, social media or video games. Those who reported compulsive use were two or three times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts or self-harm by the age of 14, compared with their peers. The study found that it was the addictive behaviour that was the strong predictor, not the amount of screen time per se.

I therefore have some sympathy with Amendment 177 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I compliment him on the way he introduced his amendment—echoing, almost word for word at times, the speech he made on the very first group of amendments in this Committee. However, I am unpersuaded that Chief Medical Officers are the right people to lead on this. I am concerned that Ofcom may not be as rigorous as I had understood when we passed the Online Safety Act in enforcing the terms and conditions of platforms relating to their minimum age limits. It may well be that this House should look to another opportunity in the next Session to toughen Ofcom’s responsibilities and duties in this regard, once we have seen a little more of the impact of the Act as Ofcom is implementing it. Amendment 183CA from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, seems quite sensible, and I think Amendment 183CB should be pursued by the DfE, but in close partnership with Ofcom as the regulator.

Amendment 458 clearly has merit. Most schools have adopted such policies to ban or control smartphones following the previous Government’s guidance. At E-ACT we are now piloting the use of signal-blocking pouches that pupils are required to store their phones in during the school day. The early findings are that this has had a really positive impact on the schools concerned in terms of learning and behaviour. I am told by a friend who is a parent of children at Westminster School, over the road, that it is using geofencing technology so that when pupils enter the location, phones’ functionality is changed to turn off social media but to retain their use for emergency broadcasting, due to the security risk related to their proximity to Parliament.

In all these schools, children are benefiting from having a rest from their phones. Teachers benefit from the lessening of distraction and the absence of a back channel of conversation going on through lessons. In some other schools that have done this, there is even a reduction in playground fights because pupils are no longer able to film and share them online.

However, I am also working hard on issues related to media literacy, in part as a member of your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee. The issues relating to social media addiction are now being amplified by the ease of creating highly credible false content using generative AI. The algorithms will not only continue to be addictive but feed content that is misleading, upsetting and disturbing, as any of us can now create images, audio and video, at will, of anything that we can imagine. This needs a more sophisticated response than simply a ban. This needs education, in schools and for adult parents and grandparents. It was clear from the committee’s witnesses that just relying on a knowledge-rich teaching of media literacy will not work. If we just tell young people what is dangerous and harmful, what to look out for, we will fail. Children do not want this to be yet another thing that we tell them off about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Well, the noble Lord added considerably to his speech there. I did not use some of the arguments that he suggested were used in this Chamber about porn. I was not in this House so I do not know what arguments and debates went on. Nor did I suggest that there are not considerable issues around young people’s use of social media and the amount of their screen time. The noble Lord is very clear that he believes there should be a complete ban on social media for young people aged under 16. I do not know whether that carries a majority in this House, to be honest. Given that, it is important to demonstrate, as I attempted to do, the action that the Government are already taking to address all those issues, whether it is screen time, the impact of social media on young people, or mobile phones in schools. The Government are taking action on all of them, without necessarily thinking that there is one single silver bullet of a ban that can solve all those problems.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I will be brief. I really appreciate what the Minister said on early years. I think it goes a bit beyond safeguarding, but I will look really carefully at what she said. On the evidence point, she referred to the Children’s Commissioner’s work on the policies, but we need to know the effect of those policies. That is where the national behaviour study comes in. The Minister previously told me it was due in spring, but she said it would be later this year. It would be great to understand why there is a delay, if there is one. Could she be more specific about when we will see that study of what is going on in our schools? I will be happy for her to write.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

First, I said more than safeguarding; I hope she can go back and look at the record to see that. I was pretty sympathetic to the points she made, and I said much more than safeguarding. I share her frustration about when the survey will be published. That is all I can say about it.