Government 'frightened' by social media giants: Peer blasts 'indecisive' Labour ahead of crunch vote on child ban
Starmer’s desire to maintain relationship with Trump could be behind Labour delays on social media ban for children, says Lord Nash
The Government needs to stop being indecisive and move to ban social media plaftorms for under 16s now, Lord Nash has told LBC ahead of a crunch vote.
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Speaking to Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Lord John Nash said the Government is a bit indecisive and "a little frightened" of companies including TikTok but urged it to move quickly to protect young children.
It comes as MPs are set to vote on his proposed amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill - an age limit on harmful social media platforms for under 16s similar to the ban rolled out in Australia.
Lord Nash told Nick that the world-first ban in Australia is proof that social media firms will "come quietly" to the ban as he urged MPs to back his amendment.
He said the UK is currently moving too slow and "can’t keep playing catchup".
Lord Nash said: "The government frankly is a bit indecisive as we know they are very much behind the a ball in terms of their thinking on this. They weren't really engaged with this until we brought it to their attention.
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"And they may be a little frightened of the companies but the government acted really quite decisively on pornography, they acted decisively on unification apps."
It comes after a landmark trial in the US found Meta's Instagram and Facebook and Google's YouTube liable for social media addiction.
Lord Nash said: "Particularly now following these game changing US cases where some pretty shocking material was disclosed by the social media companies and they were found to have acted with malice, oppression, fraud and to be negligent and to deliberately designed addictive apps.
"These are game changers and the Prime Minister has said that and that he will now act to legislate against these harmful aspects of social media.
"I'm proposing that what they do is to effectively adopt my amendment or come forward with their own amendment now which does the same. Because the situation is moving so fast. We can't play catch up slowly."
Nick also put to Lord Nash that one of the alleged reasons the UK is not moving quickly in this space is because Sir Keir Starmer wants to preserve his relationship with Donald Trump, who has many connections with the people that run these companies.
"Is that a fair claim?", Nick asked.
Lord Nash replied: "It could be. But I think it was quite clear from the documents in the States that there are people of conscience working in these social media companies, but they're suppressed.
"And I wouldn't want to see a situation in this country where we have people of conscience being suppressed because of other issues. Children must come first."
This is the second time that Lord Nash's amendment has been tabled by the Lords, with the first attempt voted down amid Government opposition earlier this year.
The opposition from Labour comes despite having announced a consultation into a potential ban themselves.
The consultation sets out to find out the best way to "ensure that children have healthy online experiences".
The examination of measures to curb online addiction will close on May 26.
Sir Keir said plans could be unveiled before the end of the year, and other policies to curb phone addiction among children.
That could see an end to features such as infinite scrolling or "streaks" that reward daily use of an app.
Arguing such features "shouldn't be permitted", Sir Keir said: "This is the platforms trying to get children to stay on for longer, to get addicted. I can't see that there's a case for that, and therefore I can see we're going to have to act."
He added: "You saw in the last government, we had an Online Safety Act, which is good, because it restricts what's available online.
"The trouble is, it took eight years from the original idea to get to an outcome; we can't have eight years when it comes to social media and whether we ban it or [put] massive restrictions in place.
"So, we've taken the powers to make sure we can act within months, not years.“
LBC has dedicated several days of programming and content to online safety, with a major focus on the dangers facing children and holding those in power to account, from the government and the UK regulator to tech companies and social media platforms.