Dr Ben Spencer

It is a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition on this important topic. Thank you for calling me now, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will not speak for too long, because there are so many Government Members who are keen to take part in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) on bringing this private Member’s Bill to the House and all the different people, companies, charities and organisations that he has worked with as part of the campaign to drive it forwards. I do feel for him, as I know what it is like for a Back Bencher in the party of Government to navigate the challenges of trying to use a private Member’s Bill—I have had two ballot Bills myself—as a campaign vehicle to drive change. I therefore hope that he will forgive me for some of the comments I shall make about the content of this Bill. We can only deal with the text of the Bill before us, which was only published in the past few days, so my comments will necessarily reflect the detail of the hon. Member’s proposals. In a sense, this debates reminds me of Schrödinger’s cat, in that Members have made equally reference to a former Bill and a current Bill in their speeches. It feels like we are having a debate on a Bill that could have been and a debate on the Bill in front of us. Indeed, the hon. Member’s speech spoke to the lack of a need for further research, but equally the Bill calls for further research to take place. We have heard some fantastic contributions from all parts of the House. I would like to note the contributions from my right hon. Friends the Members for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who reiterated the importance of driving forward change. Many stories and personal declarations have been shared about the impact of social media and the difficulty of parenting at this time. I should declare that I am also a parent, although thankfully my children are not at the stage when they have started consuming social media in the way that I have heard others talk about today.