Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. There is no reason that action cannot be taken at the same time as a national inquiry—it is not an either/or. If the Government want to disagree with that, they will have to argue their case on the facts, and not simply smear any opposition to them as far right or say that parliamentary procedure means it cannot happen.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Laura Trott]

No, I am going to finish. This is an opportunity for MPs across the House to give victims the justice they deserve. Hon. Members have heard our arguments on the inquiry and on schools. I hope that today, when we vote on our reasoned amendment, the Government see sense on both.

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[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

Every year, around 500,000 children in this country are abused. That number is likely higher, because the vast majority of abuse is hidden. The Bill is about safeguarding them. It is about stopping vulnerable children from falling through the cracks—for example, by having a register of those who are home-schooled. It is about trying to prevent horrific crimes, such as those committed against Sara Sharif, from ever happening again. The Children’s Charities Coalition has called it “a major step forward”.

I want to be clear that no party has completely clean hands on this issue. Under successive Governments, vulnerable children have been systematically failed by the institutions that were supposed to protect them, such as the police, social services, local authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service and schools. They were disbelieved and their lives were devalued. We in this House owe it to victims and survivors of the past, present and, sadly, future to give them justice and protection where the state failed so badly. If we are to do that, we cannot turn child sexual abuse and exploitation into a political football. I want to be clear that it is by no means all Members on the Opposition Benches who are guilty of doing that; there have been dedicated, powerful advocates for children on both sides of the House.

However, the Conservative leadership, and Reform MPs, marching to the beat of Elon Musk’s drum, are plainly weaponising the pain and trauma of victims for their own political ends. I do not know whether they just do not realise how deeply painful and retraumatising it is for survivors to hear their abuse being spoken about so flippantly, often in graphic terms, by people who profess to care but did not act when they had the power to, just to bolster their unrelated political agenda, or whether they just do not care.

I implore hon. Members on the Opposition Benches to stop. When they say that child sexual abuse and exploitation are the result of alien cultures or a multiculturalism project that has failed, they mask the reality, which is that child sexual abuse and exploitation are happening in every area of this country, and are perpetrated by members of every social class, every race and every religion. Reform MPs are chuntering on the Opposition Benches, but that is a fact, and when they deny that, they are failing victims and survivors. When they say that abuse is imported from other cultures, they imply that abuse is the norm and is okay in some cultures towards some victims. It never is.

Just as perpetrators are diverse, so are their victims. If we mask the reality, we cannot tackle the problem. What the vast majority of perpetrators have in common is that they are men. Of course, it is not all men, but it is enough men and enough victims for male violence to be a national emergency, and one that the whole House must commit to ending.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Lady worry, like me, that the recent attempt in the debate to reopen an inquiry is less about supporting victims and stamping out sexual violence, and more about inciting racial tensions?

[Nadia Whittome]

I share the hon. Member’s concerns. I also take the opportunity to applaud her for her work over many years in this House on the all-party parliamentary group for childhood trauma, raising the issue before it was politically convenient to do so.

I am thrilled that the Bill includes measures to help with families’ costs, such as free breakfast clubs for all primary school children, which will boost children’s wellbeing. I want to see us go further still and provide free school meals for all children. The Bill also allows the Secretary of State to cap the profits of children’s home providers, ending the obscene scandal of local authorities forced to shell out huge sums to private providers. Finally, I urge that this ambitious and important Bill is backed by even further investment in areas that will improve children’s wellbeing. We need more money for children and adolescent mental health services, for children’s social care and to tackle child poverty.

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[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Having been a secondary school teacher before I became an MP, I congratulate the Government on bringing forward legislation that once again puts children at the heart of what we in this place want to achieve. The Every Child Matters initiative was introduced nearly two decades ago.

My party and I welcome many things in this Bill, but we believe that it could go even further. It was clear from discussions with the National Association of Head Teachers in Bath and North East Somerset that local authorities need further responsibility for admissions. I am pleased that local authorities will have greater powers to direct admission to maintained schools and academies when children need places. However, if the local authority has responsibility for admissions, it should have the powers of an admission authority. I welcome the introduction of a register for children not in school. We Liberal Democrats support the policy that all new teachers in state-funded primary and secondary schools should have, or be working towards, qualified teacher status. That is a crucial step in upholding the quality of education, and we Liberal Democrats have been calling for it for a long time.

I am a little more sceptical on the core pay and conditions framework. Teachers deserve a system that values their dedication equally, no matter where they work. The Bill promises something that we can all support: a single framework for teachers’ pay and conditions—one set of rules applied consistently across Government-maintained schools and academies. That sounds fair, and most academies already follow the framework. However, the Department for Education has stated:

“Before requiring academies to comply with the framework we will ask the School Teachers’ Review Body to consider additional flexibilities within the statutory framework to make it most effective for all schools.”

If academies decide to opt out, teachers working just a few streets apart could find themselves on vastly different pay scales, with different benefits and working hours, simply because their schools made different choices. There could be a postcode lottery when it comes to teachers’ pay.

The impact does not stop there. National benefits, such as the teachers’ pension scheme, which rely on widespread participation to remain viable, could be put at risk. If too many academies decide that the framework is too costly and leave it, the system could unravel, jeopardising the financial security of teachers across the country. We must build an education system in which every teacher is treated fairly and equally, regardless of the type of school that they work in—that is a critical issue of fairness—and I urge the Government to ensure that that happens.

Let me turn to the declining mental health of our children and young people. There is no mention in the Bill of having a dedicated qualified mental health professional in every school—a policy that we Liberal Democrats have been championing for a long time. Around 50% of mental illness begins to manifest before the age of 14, so support in primary and secondary schools is key. A dedicated mental health professional in every school would ensure that all children and parents had someone they could turn to for help.

There are many aspects of the Bill that we Liberal Democrats support. However, I urge the Government to ensure that there is a single framework for teachers’ pay and conditions across Government-maintained schools and academies. I also hope that they will join the Liberal Democrats in advocating for a mental health professional in every school—and for the extension of free school meals for children, which we have mentioned before.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

I will talk about that in a second, but I appreciate the hon. Member’s patience.

Social media was sold to us in that way, but these platforms have been driven not by connection, but by engagement algorithms optimised purely for profit—something altogether more troubling. Parents such as me are locked in a daily battle, which they simply cannot win alone, of fighting platforms that have been specifically designed to keep children hooked. This is not just my experience. A 2024 report found that 78% of young people have experienced at least one form of online harm—body shaming, harassment, non-consensual sharing of sexualised images—or been publicly outed. As a pharmacist, I know that if a drug were causing such measurable harm for 78% of young people, it would be withdrawn, reformulated or placed behind the counter with strict controls on who could access it. We would act because that is what the evidence demanded, and the same logic must apply here. We have an identifiable source, we have overwhelming evidence of harm and we have the power to act.

Big tech companies are billion-dollar corporations that have built their business models on capturing the attention of young people for as long as possible. If we are serious about holding these companies to account, we should go further. I urge the Government to consider a windfall tax on social media companies, so that those who have profited from the exploitation of children begin to pay for the damage they have caused. Like the tobacco industry before them, these companies knew their product was harmful and took steps to make it more harmful and more addictive, but then denied responsibility for the consequences. We do not accept that argument from tobacco companies, and we should not accept it from big tech either.

The revenue raised could make a real difference. Youth centres have closed, and the pubs and community spaces that once gave young people somewhere to go and something to belong to have disappeared. Mental health services are overwhelmed. Education support is stretched. A generation has been harmed and the companies that profited from that harm should contribute to repairing it. That is why I welcome this debate today and any discussion on raising the digital age of consent, regulating social media and, crucially, holding big tech to account.

I understand the urgent call for action, to put our boot on the neck of big tech companies that have hurt an entire generation and put our children at risk—I share that desire completely—but I also understand that we need to get this right. It is relatively straightforward to identify what change is needed. The harder and more important question is how we make those changes in a way that is enforceable, durable and genuinely protective of children. A well-intentioned measure that cannot be properly implemented or enforced helps no one. We must learn from Australia’s model. The world is watching. Our teachers, parents and healthcare professionals are watching. Our children depend on what we decide in this Chamber today, tomorrow and in the future. Their opportunities, hopes, and dreams are in the balance, so we have to get this right—for them.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

There is now overwhelming evidence that addictive algorithms and harmful content are deeply damaging to our children’s wellbeing. We Liberal Democrats support Lords amendment 38, which would ban social media for under-16s, although our preference is for online regulation with film-style age rating of user-to-user services.

While the Government dither and delay, children across the country are being exposed to deeply harmful content every single day. I have spoken many times about the saturation of pro-eating disorder content that children view on social media, but the harms do not stop there. Social media is increasingly acting as a marketplace for the illicit drug trade. Researchers at the University of Bath have found that up to a quarter of vapes confiscated in secondary schools contained the deadly drug Spice. The Government’s own data reveals an eightfold increase in young people entering treatment for Spice in 2024-25.

How are young people getting their hands on these dangerous drugs? Through social media. Researchers have identified nearly 10,000 accounts involved in the supply and distribution of Spice, using TikTok as a means of communicating and advertising to children. Ofcom agreed that the content is “priority illegal content”. However, it declined to use its powers under the Online Safety Act 2023. We are facing a shocking reality. Children, right now, can buy the most dangerous prison drugs on mainstream social media: Snapchat, TikTok, Telegram. If Ofcom will not step up and the Government will not make it, what choice do we have but to prevent children accessing these platforms altogether?

The Government’s amendments in lieu of Lords amendments 38 and 39 completely miss the point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) outlined. The Government must act now to stop children being exposed to illegal and harmful content online. We cannot allow endless inquiries, consultations and delays to stand in the way.

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I will not; I am sorry.

More than 40 charities and experts support this approach. Our constituents have made their views clear too. I have been inundated with emails, the overwhelming majority of which support a ban. Now is the time for action. The Government could accept this cross-party amendment and give children an escape route from the dark corners of social media.

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

I would like to talk to the social media element of the Lords amendments. The argument for stronger protections for children online has been won, not least because of the appalling harms that have come to so many children because of the lack of proper, functioning legislation. I will use my time, which is limited, on this subject to make clear what I would like the Government to do and why I will be voting down the amendments in front of us tonight.

I want to focus on my steadfast belief that we must age-gate functionalities instead of age-gating social media, because I think that phrase will immediately become outdated—it is already outdated in schools.

One of the big problems with the Online Safety Act and how long it took to come in is that so many technologies are now not covered by that legislation—it is not evergreen. I am determined to ensure that my time in this place is used to create evergreen legislation for the issue of our time, which is protecting children from the horrendous and exploitative harms that they are coming to.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

I congratulate and thank the Minister for her brilliant leadership throughout the passage of the Bill. It is fantastic to see this Labour Government delivering for children. In Plymouth, the free breakfast clubs have made an enormous difference. The measures in the Bill, including those with amendments, will be fantastic for children going forward.

On the amendment relating to social media age restrictions, I first note that the Opposition are doing a good job of making it sound like they have campaigned for this for years and years. They were in government for 14 years. Can I reveal to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, when it became their policy? It was three months ago, in January. I congratulate them on a very hard-fought three months, when the strong zeitgeist of the entire western world has been to age-restrict social media.

I thank Science, Innovation and Technology Ministers on the Front Bench for doing the hard work. They are not in opposition, quickly jumping on a bandwagon and trying to claim easy wins; they are consulting thoroughly with residents across the country, including in the south-west. I am really grateful for that, because we have to get this right—we have to do it. There is immense support across the House and among many colleagues for increasing age restrictions. We want this to happen and the Government are listening to us, but they want to do it in a careful way and I support doing it in a way that sticks. I note that our Labour party colleagues in Australia have done it and found immense success in their public approval ratings. Why is that? It is because the public know and families know—in fact, I think I can say that children know—that further protection through increasing age restrictions is needed. That is why it is so crucial to get this right. I welcome the Government’s amendment.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions his Labour colleagues in Australia and the great success they have had with their vision. Why are his Government dithering and delaying?

[Fred Thomas]

I politely disagree about dithering and delay. The Government are getting on as quickly as possible. The consultation was launched rapidly and is taking place right now, and the Government have committed to implementing the findings of the consultation as quickly as possible. I can assure the hon. Lady and the whole House that Back Benchers such as myself and my colleagues on the Government Benches will be holding the Government to account to ensure that they do that as quickly as possible. I have been assured that they are going to do so, and I take them at their word. It is really important that the House gets behind these measures, and I am extremely grateful to Ministers for making this happen.