Growing up in the Online World: Consultation

4. What steps her Department has taken to help ensure that parents and children are able to engage with the consultation entitled “Growing up in the online world: a national consultation.”

Making it as simple as possible for parents and children to get involved in our consultation is really important to me personally, because I know that this is an issue that so many families grapple with every single day. We have dedicated surveys for parents and young people. Almost 38,000 parents and 12,700 young people have completed the survey so far, and there are also other events that my Ministers and I have taken part in. However, there is a still a week to go, so I say to anybody who is watching questions to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology: please, get involved and answer. We want to know what you think. We want your views, because we have to get this right.

I speak to parents in Plymouth on this topic regularly. Ninety-two per cent of parents are concerned about the impact of social media, but many just do not have time to take part in a lengthy consultation. I also note concerns raised about the framing of some of the questions in the consultation, including prompts to consider the benefits of social media. There is also an absence of any clear mechanism for considering evidence from medical experts and frontline professionals separately from submissions from tech companies, which obviously have a commercial interest in opposing any restrictions. There are also concerns about the use of AI to analyse responses. Will the Secretary of State confirm that those concerns will be taken into account when assessing the consultation results, and will she reiterate her commitment to taking bold and decisive action this summer?

Let me just reassure my hon. Friend on some of those points. We have had 38,000 parents respond to the surveys, which I think is good, but there is more to be done there. In terms of medical professionals, we have had a response from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, multiple individual medical doctors, Health Professionals for Safer Screens and local providers such as Cardiff children’s services. We also have an expert panel that is chaired by the eminent paediatrician Professor Russell Viner, and there are many psychologists and psychiatrists on that. We are actively seeking the views of medical professionals and parents. There is still a week to go. Many hon. Members have fed in views from their constituencies. I encourage everybody to do that in the remaining six days.

A considerable number of parents in my constituency have written to me concerned about their children’s safety and online dangers. They welcome the Government’s consultation but are concerned about the timing, and they would like reassurances about how quickly the matter will be dealt with. In the meantime, does the Secretary of State have any advice on how they can help their children deal with the threat?

We will come forward with proposals before the summer. We have already taken powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 to implement the results of that consultation, which I intend to do by the end of the year. In the meantime, we are not waiting. I have taken a number of steps to amend various Acts to give greater protection, and we also produced really brilliant advice for parents—“You Won’t Know until You Ask”—about how to talk to kids of different ages about social media. It is available for free online, and I have personally found it very helpful.