Josh MacAlister

Josh MacAlister

Labour — Whitehaven and Workington

Speaking in the House of Commons on 10 November 2026

Debate

Mobile Phones in Schools

Contribution

The hon. Member has hit the nail on the head: that is the issue that schools need to navigate at the moment, and we need to help them. The edtech certification, on which we are starting the consultation, is designed to tackle exactly that issue and help school leaders navigate some of those choices, as are the trials and evaluations that we will put in place on AI chatbots. That is linked to the warnings from PISA about school systems elsewhere in the world, where technology has been left to let rip in the education system and has displaced books, reading, writing and some of the more tactile things that we know children need in school to have the right cognitive development.

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