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Sir Keir Starmer is under fresh pressure to accelerate his attempts to tighten controls over children’s use of social media after the government was defeated on the issue in the House of Lords on Wednesday.
Peers approved an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill by 261 votes to 150 that would impose a social media ban on young people below the age of 16 — a policy that came into force in Australia last month.
The amendment was put forward by a group of peers from different parties including Labour’s Baroness Luciana Berger, Liberal Democrat Baroness Floella Benjamin and the Conservative Lord John Nash.
Nash, a former schools minister, said the “vast majority” of parents wanted the crackdown, saying the volume of evidence in academic studies showing damage to children’s health caused by excessive smartphone use was huge.
He told peers that the early teens were an important time in a child’s development and they should be protected from social media. “What are we waiting for, when many of our children are being harmed?” he said.
Many peers expressed concern that although Starmer had shown greater interest in addressing online harms for children in recent weeks, the consultation that he launched this week would take three months.
Downing Street bowed to pressure on Monday and announced the government was considering an Australia-style ban on social media for children.
The government’s consultation on curbing harmful internet and phone use set out a range of options. These included setting a high digital age of consent, implementing phone curfews to avoid excessive use, and restricting potentially addictive design features such as winning “streaks” on games.
Starmer was bounced into action after high-profile figures urged him to consider a ban — ranging from health secretary Wes Streeting to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
In the Lords on Wednesday, Baroness Beeban Kidron, a former Hollywood director and founder of the 5Rights Foundation, was among those backing the amendment and criticising the length of the government consultation.
She said: “The UK, once at the forefront of tech safety . . . has squandered its advantage. Instead we are becoming a case study for those who would like to prove that the tech sector is beyond national laws, that it is a law unto itself.
“The government has . . . ignored the howl of pain from parents and children, preferring to sup with big tech.”
Baroness Hilary Cass, former chair of the British Academy of Childhood Disability, who was one of the co-signatories of the amendment, warned of children affected by sextortion, cyberbullying and gaming addiction, with some unable to leave their bedrooms.
She said disadvantaged and neurodiverse children were at the greatest risk. “We’ve heard about children suffering PTSD after seeing beheadings or videos of animals being tortured,” Cass added.
Another amendment put forward by the Liberal Democrats that advocated a film-style system with age ratings to access certain platforms was defeated in the Lords.
That approach is backed by the NSPCC, the children’s charity, which said it believed that bans were “not the answer”, and called for a “risk-based approach” to minimum age-setting on platforms.
“A risk-based approach to minimum age-setting offers a clear way to incentivise companies to take meaningful action to improve their safety, in order to reduce their risk level,” it added.
Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told peers the many amendments tabled showed that while tougher action had found consensus, what that reform should look like still had a “range of views”.
She added the government’s review would be a “short, sharp consultation” that would report back in the summer. “We will act robustly,” Smith said.
Following the government’s defeat on the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, the legislation will return to the Commons, where the government could seek to strike out the amendment.
UK ministers will visit Australia to gauge the effectiveness of its ban for under-16s on apps deemed to be potentially harmful, such as X and TikTok.
Users in Australia now have to pass robust age verification checks to access the platforms.
The UK government will also produce new screen-time guidance for parents of children aged five to 16, in order to address concerns that young people’s lives are dominated by too much time in front of devices.
