Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle harmful platform features that put children at risk online.

Protecting children online is a priority for the Secretary of State. Through our recent consultation, which included parents and children's consultations and nationally representative polls, we heard from over 116,000 people.

Following this, on 15 June the government published a progress statement announcing a ban on social media services from providing their services to under 16s as well as targeted functionality restrictions on a wider range of online services. This includes restrictions on creating livestreams and communicating with strangers. These functionalities will also be off by default for 16 and 17 year olds.