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Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Nash and thank all noble Lords who cosigned it. I am nervous about making this speech today because I am praying that my daughter does not read Hansard.

I speak as a member of this House, of course, but also as a mother. I have a direct and vested interest in this amendment and make no apology for that. But I also feel I have to speak for the army of parents who, like me, have watched, frankly, in disbelief as our children’s childhoods have been steadily hollowed out to varying degrees.

Obviously, lots of us are doing everything we can to keep our children safe. I am the devil incarnate at home because I have not allowed my daughter to use Snapchat. We have gone into a sort of plea-bargaining state, if I can put it that way, whereby I have not allowed Snapchat but have allowed Pinterest. I thought Pinterest was perfectly harmless. I thought it was a nice place where I picked wallpapers and had a jolly nice time going through it. What could possibly be the problem? I was delighted. I said, “Yes, of course you can have Pinterest”. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, it is quite an artistic way to operate. But in fact, Pinterest is now just pushing my daughter a whole load of consumer advertising. She has popped in that she wants a T-shirt of some make or other and, of course, now—bang, bang, bang—the notifications are coming in non-stop.

There is a big reason why we now have teenage girls—not even teenage girls; 11 year-old and 10 year-old girls—slathering their faces with hyaluronic acid and anti-ageing creams, products they should not even know about let alone be buying, not least because they are blooming expensive. It is ridiculous.

Adolescence is a period of profound emotional and neurological change— hormones, friendships, identity and insecurity playing out in a young developing brain. To then introduce the relentless comparison, exposure, validation and amplification of what social media does is to add a weapon to those brains, which are simply too young to cope. Crucially, they just should not be expected to cope.

I completely accept the arguments against a full ban. I hardly ever disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I met with Molly Russell’s father

two days ago and have huge respect for him and for the other side of the argument that perhaps it is just too black and white. But I am afraid that these companies absolutely thrive in the complication, sophistication and difficulty. Meanwhile, as a parent, there I am trying to get the parental locks on and to work out how to turn off the mind-boggling push notifications and stop the device going into the bedroom—with degrees of success. Five years ago, a partial ban or platform-led safeguards might have been defensible, had we been dealing with companies worthy of trust. That trust has now completely disintegrated.

From the work I have done on the pornography review, we know that boys aged 11 and probably younger have seen pornography. A boy, before his first kiss, aged 13, will have seen rape porn, strangulation porn and incest porn. Where did he see that porn? Mainly on X. Eight out of 10 sites are social media sites, not pornography sites. That is an outrage, and it was something they knew about and, actually, were actively pushing. It was not that the kids were necessarily looking for it; they were pushing those algorithms on to them. So, how can we possibly trust having a dialogue with these firms when we know that that is their business model, as my noble friend Lord Bethell made very clear?

At the other end of the scale, research shows that 70% of offenders who attempt to contact children do so online. This is a business model that is borderline criminal, certainly very toxic, and so sophisticated. Regardless of the amendments that say, “We’re going to have conversations with Ofcom and we’re going to do X, Y and Z”, they have already made off like bandits with our children’s innocence, and to be perfectly honest I think they will carry on doing so if we take that approach. An overall ban is essential, then afterwards we can look at which apps and sites will be suitable.

6.30 pm

During my meeting with Molly Russell’s father this week, we had one of the most thoughtful and constructive meetings I have had in a long time. Whatever the outcome of today, we have agreed to work together going forward. His campaigning has been principled and tireless and is rooted in love for his daughter. Respectfully, I believe that some of the arguments that have been put forward against the ban do not withstand scrutiny. Children do not need social media platforms to find protection, belonging or community. Childhood social networks existed a long time before algorithmic-driven platforms were optimised for engagement and profit. I accept the comments of my great friend the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, about children who are vulnerable when they lose their networks, but, with difficult issues such as this and difficult laws, you have to govern for the majority while being mindful that some minorities will suffer. What is causing more harm? I believe that social media, wholesale, is operating in a way that is causing huge harm for under-16s.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, I do not accept that announcing yet another consultation is a serious response to a problem of this scale. A review at this stage, as she said, is just the cynical management of politics, and I hope that many of my esteemed friends in the other place will see it for what it is.

We have got to send this back to the Commons. Regardless of whether we agree on a full ban or partial ban, we have a job to do. We must not lose this shot at helping and protecting our children in this way. We are not short of evidence; we are short of action.