Mobile Phones in Schools

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. She ably makes a point about the range of uses to which technology may well be put and the ways in which it may well, depending on the evidence—which of course we are developing—support children’s learning. She also makes an important point about the use of devices. Our view as a Government is that any expectations on students should not require them to purchase screens or digital devices, for precisely the reason that my noble friend outlined. To return to the noble Lord’s point, the use of technology has to include people, and not exclude them by virtue of their family background or their income at home.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome that the consultation on certification for technology covers early years settings. We made good progress on the Bill earlier this year on guidance for parents and carers of early years children and early years settings in terms of screen time and the use of technology. Can the Minister update us on two areas with regard to that? The first is what the DfE is doing to understand whether that guidance is reaching parents and carers, whether it is understood by them and whether they are changing their behaviour in any way on the back of it. The second is what progress the DfE is making on consulting on more substantive changes to the early years foundation stage statutory framework, following the welcome update in September, to link to updated guidance. The DfE committed to further changes looking not just at pedagogy but at safeguarding. It committed to implementing that by April 2027, so time is a bit tight if there needs to be consultation and other action along the way.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes two important points. On the first, early evidence on the impact of the screen time guidance is encouraging. Independent research from Internet Matters found that three in five parents of children of five and under had heard of the Government’s screen time guidance, and 88% found it helpful, while 94% said, after reviewing it, that they were already taking or planned to take action.

On the point about the early years framework, in July 2026, the department published screen use guidance for early years settings. That builds on the guidance for parents published in March 2026 and was produced with contributions from sector experts, including the Digital Standards for Early Years Children Action Group and the Early Years Screen Time Advisory Group. As the noble Baroness argued for, that guidance is designed to help early years settings support children’s healthy development, which evidence shows requires sufficient sleep, play, real-world interaction and responsive adult engagement, while ensuring any use of screens is purposeful, safe and appropriate. That statutory early years foundation stage framework came into force on 1 September 2026, and it requires early years practitioners to have regard to the screen use guidance in their setting. However, I suspect that the noble Baroness is right, as I suggested earlier, that in all these areas, as technology and evidence develops, we will want to return to this to make sure that, whatever age our children are and whatever setting they are in, their use of technology is informed by the very best evidence and is safe for all of them.