Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children

David Chadwick Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is leading on the guidance on screen time. I will definitely raise that issue with her. My primary schools are extremely worried about screen time. For children under 5, there are also implications for language development, fine motor skills and communication confidence. All those issues are important, but I will definitely raise the point about the impact on people’s eyes with my right hon. Friend.

[David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)]

Over the past year, I have spoken to hundreds of children in schools across my constituency as part of my safer screens tour. It has been very distressing to hear from them about the material that they have been exposed to, and to hear that social media companies have not come back to them when they have reported this harmful content. If the Secretary of State agrees that there should be a ban on children accessing harmful social media platforms, will the default age for accessing them be 16?

[Liz Kendall]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I have set out that we will consult on the age of 16, but I remind the House that the Online Safety Act has very strong provisions against illegal content for people of all ages and harmful content for children. We need to make sure that it is effectively enforced now, whatever decision is made through the consultation.