Liz Kendall

Liz Kendall

Labour — Leicester West

Speaking in the House of Commons on 15 June 2026

Debate

Social Media Ban for Under-16s

Contribution

First, kids are savvy; social media has been an integral part of their lives, and they want to get around restrictions. I will be careful what I say this time, but just because children try to get around things does not mean that we do not have rules and boundaries. Secondly, we are trying to learn the lessons from Australia. It does not have the highly effective age-verification measures that we have. We want to put those measures in place here, but I am not going to claim that even those measures will mean that no kids are on social media platforms. We have got to take a decision and draw a line in the sand. This is as much about resetting the expectations of eight, nine and 10-year-olds, by saying, “You won’t be going on this until you’re 16.”

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