Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Nash Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Nash]

Leave out from “its” to end and insert “Amendment 37, do insist on its Amendment 38 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 38A, 38B, 38C and 38D in lieu.”

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Motion G1, concerning my social media amendment, as an amendment to Motion G, I will support the spirit of the Motion tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron.

I believe we need a dual-track approach. I pay tribute to those noble tech Lords, many of whom are here tonight, who worked so tirelessly on the Online Safety Act, but now it clearly needs updating and strengthening. Nobody could have foreseen the pace of technological change that has taken place in recent years. I believe that, in relation to children, we should have a dual-track approach to social media, which puts the onus squarely on the companies to make their products safe for children, as we would with any other product, using safety-by-design principles.

I have been a director of tech companies in California. The Californian techies are some of the most able, innovative, entrepreneurial, wealth-creating and job-creating people in the world. However, in the cavalier approach that they have taken to harmful content online for our children, they have gone way too far in prioritising their commercial instincts. We need to act now in a way that is truly effective—and of course we know that many of these techies do not let their own children anywhere near social media.

I do not need to spend much time talking about the clear evidence and causal link between social media and harm to our children, but I was horrified to hear the right honourable Liz Kendall say on the radio a few weeks ago that there is no proven causal link. Where has she been? This shows just how far behind the A ball the Government are in their thinking and why we can have no faith in the outcome of the consultation.

I provided noble Lords with an evidence document compiled by health professionals and others, showing the harmful effects of social media from 50 examples. Every day, I receive more research from around the world from experienced academics, health professionals and others to the same effect. This includes evidence from whistleblowers at social media companies about their company’s own internal research, showing clearly, based on the very extensive data available to them, the harms to children of social media. In recent days, the chief executive of Pinterest, a social media company with 600 million customers, has said that we are living through the largest social experiment in history and that social media, as it is configured today, is not safe for children under 16. As the Prime Minister of Greece said recently, when announcing measures similar to those dealt with in my Motion, as so many other countries have done, “The evidence is unambiguous”.

Only minutes ago, a court in Los Angeles found that Meta and Google were negligent and intentionally built addictive social media platforms, after a 20 year-old woman said that her early use of social media was addictive and made her depression worse. This comes after a court yesterday in New Mexico found that Meta is harmful to children’s mental health and fined it $375 million. These cases will likely influence the hundreds of similar cases now winding their way through the US courts.

There has been some comment in the press and by honourable Members in the other place that children’s charities are not united in their approach to protecting children online. I am delighted to be able to tell noble Lords that I have had extensive discussions with charitable and civil society organisations across the sector and there is broad agreement that an age-based restriction on harmful platforms should operate alongside full-throated enforcement of and increased potency of the Online Safety Act.

I turn to the consultation, and it is a shocker. It does not even satisfy the Government’s own consultation principles that such exercises should be clear and accessible—it has 62 questions, which I understand many parents have given up on after answering just a few—or that it should be targeted at appropriate stakeholders, as opposed to severely prejudicing parents’ ability to contribute. It has no structured engagement for front-line professionals such as clinicians, social workers and police, with no transparency as to how evidence would be used. The Government may have 30,000 responses but, given the length of the consultation document, I very much doubt that that represents a cross-section of society or the national conversation that they want. Market research professionals tell me that this would not begin to pass muster in a market research study. Some questions require technical or specialist knowledge, there is little information on how responses will be weighted between different groups, and it goes out of its way to emphasise, in square boxes, the benefits of social media without balancing sufficiently the disbenefits.

I turn to Commons Amendments 38A to 38D, and in particular Amendment 38A, which contains a very broad power enabling the Government to make changes to any Act of Parliament. There are many noble Lords here who are far more capable of pronouncing on this than I am.

This consultation and the amendments that the Government have tabled represent a blank cheque, with no definite timescale for action and no obligation to do anything. I have no doubt that no action has happened with the gender identity in schools consultation results—when they eventually came—and that they will require further lengthy consultation. I strongly suspect that this cheque will come back marked “insufficient action”.

Lastly, I pay tribute to the 21 bereaved parents who support my amendment, many of whom are here in the Public Gallery. I thank them for their hard work, their commitment and the fact that they are here—but I wish they were not, because I wish they did not have to be. I do not want to stand here in six or 12 months’ time, banging the same old drum, with even more bereaved parents in the Public Gallery. I urge noble Lords to support my amendment by agreeing to my Motion G1. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The noble Baroness is perfectly reasonable to raise that. It is certainly contested in academic studies, even if it is, like, “Never mind the evidence, the product should be safe anyway”. I am suggesting that evidence-based policy requires evidence and that, when the evidence is at least contested and there is no direct correlation between screen use and mental health, we should pause. I am saying that because I think that teenagers and young people using the online world can be both virtuous and full of vice. Therefore, I do not want a ban on all 16 year-olds going on the internet. It is as straightforward as that. I have explained that before, so I am not going to—

[Lord Nash (Con)]

It is a long way from a ban on all teenagers going on the internet. It is highly selective for those apps that are clearly harmful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the constructive and heartfelt contributions made in the House today. We have heard a wide range of views, and I reiterate my thanks to noble Lords who have engaged so closely with Ministers in recent weeks as we work through these complex questions. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, not only for the expertise that she brings but for her comment that all in this House share a commitment to children’s well-being online. It is this that motivates us all.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has set out the reasons behind Amendments 37 and 38 and why he wants to see swift action. I fully understand those intentions. To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, I said that it is not if we act, but how. It is the intention of the Government to act. The question is how.

The noble Lord’s amendments would require us to act before the consultation is concluded and would commit the Government to a specific set of measures that may not ultimately represent the most effective or proportionate way to protect our children. That is why the Government cannot accept Amendments 37 and 38; it is not because we do not agree with the objectives but because legislating could risk unintended consequences. It would mean acting before listening to what the consultation tells us and to what parents and children need.

Some 20,000 parents have responded to the parent-specific survey. We are extremely keen to assess and hear what parents and children say. Additionally, these amendments are restricted to user-to-user services under the Online Safety Act. It is hugely important that we seek views across other services. We know that children use other mechanisms, such as AI chatbots and gaming, which are not consistently caught by the definition of user-to-user services.

I just want to say that we are taking the consultation extremely seriously, as we are the national conversation. Alongside the publication of the consultation, we announced that a parallel academic panel will be formed, and this panel of experts will assist in assessing the development of the evidence base, drawing on the international expertise that many noble Lords have mentioned today, for example from Australia, to advise us as we take these matters forward.

Many noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Nash, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville—have rightly pressed the question of pace and swiftness of action. The reason for the Government’s amendment in lieu is exactly that: to provide a clear and deliverable route to take forward what we want to do, informed by the results of the consultation. The consultation closes in May and we will respond by the summer to set out next steps. That means we can act within months, not years.

The use of those powers and the parliamentary scrutiny of them were mentioned by many noble Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Bellamy and Lord Carter, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that we absolutely recognise the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and the expertise that parliamentarians in both Houses provide. Each of these powers will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which will ensure appropriate parliamentary scrutiny before we enact policy changes. We feel that the delegated powers the Bill proposes are justified and proportionate, and we have sought to provide as much detail as we can to support their scrutiny.

Lastly, on Amendment 106, on mobile phones in schools, our position is clear: mobile phones have no place in schools. We believe this is primarily an issue of enforcement, and that is why we have set out the strengthened guidance and why we are supporting with our network of attendance and behaviour hubs. We are backing head teachers to take the necessary action.

In closing, I urge noble Lords to support the Government’s amendment, which gives us power to take effective, evidence-based action, and to resist Amendments 37, 38 and 106. We share a goal: the question is simply how best to achieve it. Our amendment is the right one and I hope that noble Lords will join us in supporting it.

[Lord Nash (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to what the Minister has to say, but I have also read the consultation very carefully and listened to the statements made publicly by the DSIT Secretary of State. I can only conclude from those that the Government have no real commitment to do anything serious about the harms that our children are experiencing on social media, and I ask the House to agree to my Motion G1. Therefore, I would like to test the opinion of the House on my social media amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Young of Cookham) (Con)]

I must inform your Lordships that, if Motion G1 is agreed, it pre-empts Motion G2.