Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)

My Lords, it is a source of great regret to me that I will be following the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and possibly the noble Lord, Lord Nash, into the Lobbies, because I think the Government are making a mistake here. We should have been much more courageous in addressing these problems. I am mindful of the fact that the United States of America is making life rather difficult for us at the moment, because taking any kind of independent stance seems to be a reason to be roundly scorned by the United States President, but there has to be a moment when we take a stand. We have done it with the war in Iran and it would be right to do it here, for the very reasons that have been expounded by others already, which is that this is about protecting our children. We are making a grievous mistake by not listening to those voices about the need for us to work in coalition on this and not to make it something that we worry about. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, just said, we have to be prepared to stand up to the technology oligarchs who basically do not want any regulation at all. We have to be brave and courageous, in this area, in empowering Ofcom to do its job properly and in protecting those whose lives are made so difficult in trying to restrain their children from using these phones in the ways that we have heard about. I really regret it, because I do not want to disagree with the Government at the moment, but we should see that there are principles that must be adhered to here. I hope that other colleagues on these Benches see this as too important for us to put off for three long years.