No 10 is facing renewed pressure to ban social media for under-16s after the Conservatives and the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, supported limits to prevent harm to children.
The government is understood to have no plans for a “blanket ban” on social media use by under 16s. However, sources said it was closely monitoring the impact of moves taken to prevent children setting up accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch.
Amid concerns about the impact of social media on teenagers, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said her party would back a ban on social media for under-16s in an attempt to prevent addictive platforms causing problems for young people.
She said she did not like the word ban but she wanted to see an age limit of 16 in the same way that Australia had introduced restrictions on social media for children.
Badenoch’s intervention comes ahead of a cross-party effort in the House of Lords to amend the children’s wellbeing and schools bill this month to introduce a ban.
The campaign for a ban is not just coming from the right of politics. Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor and potential future Labour leadership contender, said on Sunday: “I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Kemi Badenoch is saying about children and social media. It seems to me parents would welcome a cross-party consensus around much bolder action.”
Andy Burnham says he thinks parents would welcome a consensus among parties about bolder action on social media. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
This weekend, one of the UK’s biggest teaching unions, NASUWT, called on the government to ban social media for under-16s over concerns about mental health and concentration. It wants legislation to be tightened so big tech firms would face penalties for allowing children to access their platforms.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has also recently suggested he would like to see more action to protect children online.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said previously he was personally against such a move and Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, has also stated her opposition but the government is closely monitoring the reaction to Australia’s ban and considering its policy options.
Badenoch told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “What we are seeing is a lot of children spending so many hours a day on platforms that are profiting from their anxiety, from their distraction, and they are actually designed to be addictive.
“So what we want to see is common sense, protection for children and freedom for adults. We want to give parents some understanding that the government understands what they’re going through. So we want to bring in age limits.
“The internet is a wild west, social media in particular. We don’t think children should be on there, and we want the industry to set the direction of travel so that we can start working with them now in order to get the proper solutions in place.”
Some peers believe it may be possible to force the government to rethink its policy on social media for children if it is defeated in the Lords on the children’s wellbeing and schools bill.
The Conservative peer John Nash, a former schools minister who proposed the amendment, said on Sunday: “Raising the age limit for social media now has backing from across the political spectrum, including Labour and Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, the NEU and the NASUWT.
“The evidence is overwhelming and the political support is there. The government should back my amendment and begin to reverse catastrophic harm to a generation of children.”
The government believes it has already taken action that strikes the right balance to prevent harm to children by bringing in its Online Safety Act that mandates that social media companies protect under 18s from harmful content such as self-harm and suicide. However, it has said it is always prepared to listen to parents and do everything necessary to keep children safe online.
