Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Bethell and Baroness Cash

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I fear that what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has suggested is indeed happening: private schools, grammar schools and schools in wealthy areas are doubling down on their success by pursuing smartphone bans. Schools in areas of deprivation, where family and community ties are the weakest, are being left behind.

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak to this group of amendments, having tabled an amendment that we will debate in the following group. But as I have interests in the founding of Parent Gym and in the early years in particular—about which I hope to speak later—it would be remiss of me not to add a few comments, given some of the very esteemed contributions made in this debate.

I support all the amendments in the group with the exception of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for the reasons that have been outlined. My noble friend Lord Bethell touched on an important point in his intervention: we have a real issue around the different types of parenting and families, from those who are aware of the dangers to their children to those who deploy smartphones as substitute childcare. I fear that all the evidence—as very eloquently put by my noble friends Lady Jenkin and Lord Nash, who cited at length the reports and data around all this—show us that there are families who do not have the resource or means to engage in this daily battle.

I declare another interest: I am on that front line daily with my 14 year-old daughter; I hoped that she might have been here this afternoon, but she has conveniently not made it. It is a daily battle. What children will tell their godparents, when you are not around to hear it, is that they actually agree that you are right and that they wish they did not have their phone. They wish that phones did not exist and that they were not part of their life; they want them because their peers have them.

The report by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, published last week, has very notable commentary about the safety of some of the girls who were groomed by gangs. She talks with real concern—it is in an early section, for those who have not read the entire thing, as I have—about the fact that online activity means that we no longer know what is going on for children. We literally do not know who is in their bedroom at night. Who are they engaging with? Who can forget the case of Molly Russell—the terrible case that an Instagram post led to? There is one place where we can surely assume our child should be safe: at school. It is not an unreasonable request that we, as a society, look seriously at this to care for the health and safety of our children.

I am very aware of the comment by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, but it is the opposite to asking schools to police the use of phones. I completely empathise with the concern about asking schools to do more, but this is removing from them the need to police phones. It gets them off the premises, or at least locked up within the premises, so that bullying cannot happen online, grooming cannot be going on, boys who are being recruited into county lines cannot be harassed or intimidated while they are meant to be learning at school, and on it goes. Your Lordships have heard plenty from others on the various points.

I end on another note. Let us look at what the people who invented these things are doing. We all agree; no one has disagreed with the fact that they are addictive—we all feel it every day. What do the people who invented them to be addictive and who use behavioural science and neuroscience to do that, do with their children? They have screen-free schools—completely screen-free, incidentally: no tablets or laptops—and screen-free homes. What is China doing? It is hoovering up our children’s data to understand everything about our society and drive their behaviours in the most destructive way possible. If you ask AI, “If I were China, what would I do to destroy the West?”, the answer is exactly what it is doing: to destroy and undermine the mental health of whole generations of people. What does China do with its children? It gives them one hour a day, and it drives them to watch science and maths videos. I support these amendments.