Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Bellamy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Nash and Motion G1 following his amazingly powerful speech. I also suggest that Commons Amendments 38A and 38B be rejected on constitutional grounds as they would give Ministers unacceptably wide Henry VIII powers. I declare my membership of the Constitution Committee, but of course I am not speaking on its behalf.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to seven features of these amendments. First, there is the power to amend other Acts of Parliament. Secondly, powers are given to the Secretary of State to restrict access by children of an age to be determined by the Secretary of State. In other words, it is not for Parliament to determine the age.

Thirdly, these amendments apply to any internet service, site, feature or functionality. It is not restricted to social media, which of course is my noble friend Lord Nash’s main objective. Rather, it applies to any internet service, including news services and search engines; that is unacceptably wide. Fourthly, and as importantly, nothing is said about the criteria on which these powers are to be exercised. There is no mention of harm, or of any rules or other constraints on the power of the Secretary of State.

Fifthly, there are provisions that enable the Secretary of State, in effect, to impose curfews—one must not listen at night or at certain times of the day. Sixthly, there is the power to impose time limits, such as half an hour a day, 40 minutes or two hours. These are very wide powers. Finally, there are provisions about mandating digital ID checks and setting an age of consent somewhere between the ages of nine and 13.

The essential point is that no Executive should have the power to restrict access to the entire online space, by children or anyone else, without clear limits defined in advance by Parliament in primary legislation, specifying in particular the age at which and the grounds on which such restrictions should apply, the limits of such restrictions and clear safeguards to protect democratic scrutiny. The correct approach is for the Government to continue with their consultation. When they have the information that they need, taking account of my noble friend Lord Nash’s criticisms of the consultation, and are fully equipped to deal with this, they should bring back to Parliament a Bill in which all these important matters are properly defined. The powers in question should be properly framed, rather than being rushed through, as they are now, on a Henry VIII basis.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy; I will reiterate the points that they have been making.

The amendments pose the question of how best to make meaningful change to online safety law for our children. We must choose between two possible options. The first, as the noble Lord, Lord Nash, proposes in Amendments 37 and 38, is to make the changes through primary legislation, setting out the nature and extent of the changes to online safety in this Bill, with the finer details left to regulations. The second option, as the Government propose in Amendments 38A to 38D, is by delegating to the Executive the nature and extent of the changes to online safety by means of sweeping Henry VIII powers. These powers would enable Ministers to modify any provision of the Online Safety Act 2023, amend or repeal any provision of primary legislation to make consequential changes, and amend, repeal, revoke or modify any provision of our data protection legislation.

The first option is transparent and gives the decision on the nature and extent of the changes to Parliament by means of the strongest method of scrutiny and accountability in our constitution—primary legislation. Those changes would have to be implemented by the Secretary of State within a boundary set by Parliament in the primary legislation. The second option requires blind faith that the Government will in fact do anything at all—and, if they do, it means accepting a lesser form of scrutiny and accountability in the form of secondary legislation, which can be debated but not amended. It is very much a “take it or leave it” approach to whatever the Government come up with.

For example, the secondary legislation that the Government might at some point bring forward could provide that what is unsuitable for children on social media is entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State, taking into account the extent to which the platform in question displays what the Secretary of State considers to be political bias, gender-critical views, the promotion of religious beliefs et cetera. There would be nothing in the primary legislation to constrain the Secretary of State when deciding which services should be restricted for children and how. Parliament would then have to either accept the secondary legislation in its entirety or reject the whole package.

For my part, I overwhelmingly prefer the first option. Whatever one’s view on the substance of what we are debating, it is a seismic and controversial cultural change for our children and parents. It imposes significant legal constraints on internet service providers and puts heavy monitoring and enforcement duties on Ofcom. The public need to have reassurance that the nature and extent of this huge change have been decided in the most robust way for which our cherished parliamentary democracy allows—unquestionably, that is primary legislation.

The Attorney-General, in his much-lauded Bingham lecture in 2024, said that “excessive reliance on delegated powers”, including

“Henry VIII clauses … upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law … but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty”,

and raises

“real questions about how we are governed”.

Does the Minister agree with her Attorney-General and, if so, how does she reconcile that with Amendments 38A to 38D?