Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant

Labour — Rhondda and Ogmore

Speaking in the House of Commons on 7 March 2025

Debate

Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill

Contribution

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The use of a mobile phone as another form of aggression is a very disturbing part of the trend we have seen. She is quite right that we need to consider action in that field. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton referred to services that are “inherently addictive by design”. I think there is actually a contradiction in terms there. They are not inherently addictive; they are addictive by design. Those are two quite different things. We should strive to achieve no services provided for children being addictive by design, which is precisely one of the things that the Government are determined about. I should say to the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) that I indicated earlier that I had had no meetings with tech by making a zero with my fingers, but that is not quite true. I had a meeting a few months ago with Baroness Jones and TikTok, although I expressed as strongly as many Members have in this debate the kind of views that they have in relation to the operation of TikTok. It is not that I have been convinced by TikTok—if anything, we were trying to put the argument to it about the need for responsible activity in this field.

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