MPs have rejected a proposal that would have banned social media for children under 16, voting instead to give the government more flexible powers over the matter.
The proposed change, added to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, had been brought forward in the House of Lords in January, but was rejected in the Commons by a vote of 307 to 173.
Under the amendment approved in lieu, science secretary Liz Kendall would be given powers to “restrict or ban children of certain ages from accessing social media services and chatbots”.
Flexible powers
She could limit children’s VPN use, restrict access to addictive features such as infinite scroll, and change the age of digital consent in the UK, education minister Olivia Bailey told MPs.
Last week the government launched a consultation to seek views on how children can “grow up with a safer, healthier and more enriching relationship with the online world”.
This will include a consideration of whether social media platforms should come with a minimum age requirement or switch off addictive features.
Conservative former education minister Lord Nash, who tabled the amendment in the Lords to ban social media for under-16s, said the result was “deeply disappointing” and that MPs had “chosen to gamble on a process which may lead to half measures”.
He added that he would work with peers to try to revive the amendment when it returns to the Lords.
‘Dither and delay’
The Conservatives urged the government to legislate, while Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson said families had been left up in the air by a consultation that could “result in yet more dither and delay”.
Some 107 Labour MPs abstained from the vote, one of whom, North Somerset’s Sadik Al-Hassan, said that if social media were a drug, it would be taken off the market.
“As a pharmacist, I know if a drug were causing such measurable harm for 78%, it would be withdrawn, reformulated or placed behind a counter with strict controls on who could access it,” he said.
“We would act, because that is what the evidence demanded. The same logic must apply here.
“We have an identifiable source, we have overwhelming evidence of harm, and we have the power to act.”
