Contribution
I am delighted to come to the House today to welcome a proper phone ban in place for schools. The Government have finally done the right thing, but they have been on what I would euphemistically describe as a journey. We should remember that the former Prime Minister told us that a legislative phone ban was “completely unnecessary”. The previous Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), stood opposite me here and, in her warm and friendly manner, dismissed it as “a headline-grabbing gimmick”. When I raised this topic at Education questions, a then Education Minister told me to think of something better to go on—not condescending at all. When I asked the Government in this House to rule out a “not seen, not heard” policy, they refused. The stats that the Minister is citing today are correct, but they are essentially the same as the stats we quoted a year ago in this House, and the Government refused to act on them.
Let me remind Labour Members how many times they voted against a legislative phone ban in schools: not once, not twice, but seven times. Even the Minister, who I am sure has agreed with me all along, was forced through the voting Lobbies time and again, and the new Education Secretary, who also voted against it, has clearly had a change of heart.
The Conservatives and, to be fair, the Liberal Democrats, who also supported the ban, were told by Ministers that the majority of schools had a phone ban in place and that the existing guidance was working. It was therefore quite something this morning to have facts that I was repeatedly told in this House were incorrect being used by the Education Secretary, in the media, to justify the new guidance. We must also remember that the guidance was put on a statutory footing only a month ago. One month, and already the Government have to come back and toughen it up. We could have saved a lot of time and confusion for schools if the Government had just listened to us in the first place.
The Minister has confirmed that the guidance will only come in next September. That is a self-inflicted whole extra year of lost learning time while schools have a previous set of guidance, issued only a month ago, that the Education Secretary admitted this morning is not working—all because the Government refused to listen to the evidence. That is at best frustrating and at worst chaotic.
We have got there in the end, however, and this is a significant moment. I pay tribute to the many campaigners who have fought for this, the many parents who have spoken out and the many pupils who have bravely spoken about their own experiences. Smartphones in schools are a disaster for learning, a disaster for safeguarding and a disaster for happiness. This is an important step forward in giving children their childhood back.
I welcome the news that the Government are consulting on an independent safety certification for edtech. Will the Minister clarify whether the review will look at all edtech products currently being used in schools or just new edtech products entering the market? Will he also confirm that the review will look at education outcomes as well as safeguarding? Does he have a timeframe for the consultation? How is the review consistent with rolling out unevidenced AI tutors for the most disadvantaged? Those are the very pupils who need evidence-led, teacher-led support. Will the Government commit to not rolling out the programme until they can guarantee the safety and efficacy of AI tutors?
I welcome the Government finally getting to the right place. A full phone ban in schools is the right thing for behaviour and attainment in our classrooms. It will keep schools as places of learning and will turn the tide on the pervasive screen creep that is destroying childhood. We must never accept that just because something is new, it is progress; just because it involves technology, it is automatically better; and we must never again allow anything into our classrooms that has not been proven to be safe for children.