Victoria Collins

On behalf of children and parents across the country, we welcome the Government finally taking action to keep children safe online. I know how important this issue has been to the Secretary of State. For almost 18 months, the Liberal Democrats—as the first party to force a vote on the issue—have been pushing for action to raise the digital age of consent and implement doomscrolling caps, health warnings and a film-style age rating to ban harmful social media for under-16s. Today, we welcome the fact that the Government have finally caught up with those calls to act and listened to the parents and tireless campaigners who have worked relentlessly, and often in difficult circumstances. It is just a shame that it does not seem that it was those cries for help from parents and young people, or the mounting evidence, that finally made the Prime Minister act. After months of dither and delay, what has been announced today seems more like a panicked policy cobbled together ahead of a by-election and a Back-Bench rebellion. It is a real disappointment that, in their last-minute rush, the Government have not learned from Australia and other countries about how we can do better and deal with the root causes of online harm. Our Liberal Democrat harms-based approach would deal with addictive algorithms and features, such as from chatbots—not just the romantic companions or therapy bots that the Government have highlighted, although we of course look forward to hearing more about that next month. Our approach is supported by more than 40 charities and experts who stand up for children and a safer online world. It would create a clear framework for new platforms and future harms that have already arrived, whereas Australia is playing a game of whack-a-mole. We can learn to do better, so why have the Government not learned from the experiences of other countries as the Secretary of State said she would? How will the Government protect children from emerging threats and addictive features elsewhere, and not just prevent young people from signing up? How are the Government deciding what platforms will be included? What framework differentiates YouTube from YouTube Kids, for example, and will children still be able to access YouTube without an account, as they can now? What addictive features will be tackled, beyond infinite scroll, and what assurances are there beyond the Government being “strongly minded” to act? We do not mind the Prime Minister borrowing our ideas; we just wish he had borrowed all of them, and sooner. Of course, we continue to offer our services to work together. Our approach would ban harmful social media for under-16s by default and set a new safety standard to make the internet truly a safer place, just like the standards for films and toys that we have had in the offline world for decades. Children are growing up in the attention economy, where their focus is being sold. They deserve a Government who treat this as a seatbelt moment, not a press release for Makerfield. Will the Secretary of State use this opportunity to truly hold the tech giants to account and back a harms-based framework that puts children’s safety at the heart of this quickly changing technological world?