The UK House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament, voted against an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would have effectively banned children under 16 from accessing social media on March 9, 2026. Members of Parliament (MPs) rejected the amendment by 307 votes to 173.
As governments across the world and in Indian states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Goa, consider Australia-style restrictions on children’s access to social media, here is what UK parliamentarians said during the debate.
Support For Outright Ban On Social Media
- Laura Trott (Conservative): “Polling out today shows that 40% of children are shown explicit content during the school day. This is an emergency. No more guidance; no more consultations, the Government should legislate.”
- Laura Trott (Conservative): “A quarter of children in primary school have seen porn, and the vast majority access it via social media. Some 70% of teenagers have seen real-life violence online, while only 6% were looking for it. In other words, the social media algorithm deliberately serves it to them”.
- Laura Trott (Conservative): “Criminals are using Snapchat and Facebook to groom children. Child sexual abuse imagery crimes are up enormously. Snapchat is flagged in almost half of cases. Meta platforms make up a quarter”.
- Rebecca Paul (Conservative): “Staring at a screen for endless hours is not healthy. It prevents children from developing the social and cognitive skills they need in adulthood and is terrible for their mental health”.
- Helen Hayes (Labour): “There are important differences of opinion between stakeholders on the best ways in which to regulate young people’s access to smartphones and social media, so I consider it right for the Government to consult”.
Algorithms, Addiction, And Manipulation Concerns
- Alicia Kearns (Conservative): “Social media platforms are being weaponised by algorithms, let alone by hostile states, to make children addicted to them. It is impossible for parents to protect their children who do not have the critical thinking skills before 16”.
- Peter Fortune (Conservative): “The vast majority of respondents and parents have said that they support the concept of a simple age limit on social media because of these particularly harmful algorithms”.
Evidence of harms to children
- Laura Trott (Conservative): “Sextortion is also a huge issue on social media. In 2022, there were 10,000 reports of sextortion by Snap. That was not in a year, but in one month, and those are just the ones we know about”.
- Sadik Al-Hassan (Labour): “A 2024 report found that 78% of young people have experienced at least one form of online harm, body shaming, harassment or non-consensual sharing of sexualised images”.
- Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat): “Researchers have identified nearly 10,000 accounts involved in the supply and distribution of Spice (a…
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