Digital Safety: Children

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Kanishka Narayan]

I thank my hon. Friend for a point well made. We have been consistently robust with tech companies on this question. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) for her leadership on this question. It is, to me, not a technology problem; we have the technology to act on this, and we will now deliver that in the real world.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this important urgent question, and suggest that the Minister perhaps shows a touch more humility on this important issue.

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition would welcome measures to prevent under-16s from accessing harmful social media. After all, it has been our policy for some time, and we are glad that the Government are finally starting to catch up. This Government’s record of kicking the can down the road on children’s online safety contrasts starkly with the action taken by the Conservatives. The last Government brought in the Online Safety Act 2023, which is already cutting the number of children accessing porn. When it became obvious that more needed to be done, the Leader of the Opposition stood alongside parents and campaigners in calling for more. Only then did the Prime Minister leap swiftly into action—by announcing a four-month consultation on an issue so necessary and so blindingly obvious to the rest of us.

Let us not forget that just six months ago, the Prime Minister was personally opposed to a ban. Now, with nothing else to show for his time in office, he has performed yet another U-turn and discovered that protecting children was his priority all along. This is not leadership; it is legacy hunting, and thin gruel after so many missed opportunities: the safer phones Bill, the amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and my noble Friend Lord Nash’s amendment, which was opposed not once, not twice, but three times before the Government finally conceded. Labour constantly voted down the very protections it now says are required.

So why now? Is it a genuine epiphany or is it the by-elections, or is it the rather inconvenient fact that a rival from the north has already staked out this ground, leaving the Prime Minister with little choice but to follow? Time and again, this Government have to be forced to do the right thing, and do it only after they have exhausted every other option.

However, I do want this to work, so I ask the Secretary of State, via the Minister, three questions. Will these protections extend to existing devices or only to new handsets? If it is the latter, I am concerned that because 90% of 12-year-olds have hand-me-down phones, it will leave the most vulnerable children the least protected—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I welcome the shadow Minister to the Dispatch Box, but he is supposed to have two minutes. He has now spoken for nearly three minutes, so I am sure that the Minister will have grasped what he had to say.

[Kanishka Narayan]

I first point out that in government, the Conservatives took seven years to pass a Bill and then found that law to be inadequate. That is why they are proposing all the things they are trying to do. This Government are listening to the people of Britain. I have been around listening to thousands of young people and families, and they say that they have a Government who are listening with humility and getting the action right on this central question. They say, on age assurance for adult content, that this Government have listened and acted robustly. They said so on Grok when the Opposition were missing in action. On the shadow Minister’s point about existing devices, I point out to him that a major provider has already applied age assurance at the device level for existing devices as well. We will learn the lessons and ensure that we are acting robustly in protecting young people.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the announcement today. The Education Committee recently took evidence from social media and gaming companies, which left every member of the Committee profoundly concerned. They downplayed the issues, denied the scale of harm and overplayed the magnitude and effectiveness of their own responses, so we have very little confidence that big tech knows what is required and has any motivation to do it. If, as seems likely, legislation is required after three months, can the Minister provide an assurance that the drafting of that legislation is already under way so that we do not lose any more time before our children are safe online?

[Kanishka Narayan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that time is of the essence, and I can confirm that we are working closely with the Home Secretary and the Home Office to make sure that we are ready to go if the companies do not act in the way they need to.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) this urgent question. I am very disappointed that the Minister brought petty party politics into his response, because we have consistently proposed legislation that could have been implemented months ago. I speak on behalf of parents, teachers, carers and the children themselves in asking why the Prime Minister is pleading with tech companies about this. He is the Prime Minister; he should be leading the charge on blocking child sexual abuse material on smartphones. It is absolutely baffling that we have only reached this point now. We saw earlier this year the horrifying effects of Grok and other chatbots that are able to generate and share explicit content containing women and children at the request of online users. Children deserve far more than this dither and delay. The tech companies do not even deserve this three-month ultimatum. The Prime Minister should not be begging; he should be telling the big tech companies, “No to the proliferation of child sexual abuse imagery, and no to putting profit over the safety of children.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Kanishka Narayan]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a remarkable champion for young people and families on this question, and I have deeply valued her input and expertise. On her question about definition, I will not pre-empt the decisions that will result from the consultation, but her representations on harmful functionalities are very much top of mind for me. I assure her that it will not be parents who will bear the burden of enforcement; we will ensure that it is very much the platforms who are responsible for enforcement and for acting.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Rather than trading party political points, can we all agree that these huge companies are rotting our children’s minds with addictive algorithms? While we know that banning things seldom works because people circumvent it and it leads to criminality, will the Minister and the Prime Minister go to these companies and say that they are in the last chance saloon—either they take decisive action, which we know they can do, or we will ban children from going on social media?