Time to act Sir Keir! Starmer promises crack down on social media for under-16s after Downing Street meeting

Sir Keir Starmer has tasked the Government with putting together "a game-changer" policy to tackle social media harms affecting children.

The Prime Minister pledged a crackdown “very quickly” after a consultation to help the Government decide what action it should take, titled Growing Up In The Online World, closes later on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event in No10 this afternoon, Sir Keir Starmer said: “It is important for me to hear from you and to listen to all of you. I have read the stories of all your family members.

“It is important that we act and we will act. I can absolutely assure you of that.”

Ellen Roome, who met Sir Keir at Downing Street, lost her 14-year-old boy Jools Sweeney who was found lifeless in his bedroom in their Cheltenham home on April 13, 2022.

The 49-year-old believes TikTok is to blame for his death, saying the teenager had been taking part in a "blackout" challenge he had first seen on the app.

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Technology Secretary Liz Kendall earlier said the Government would decide on its response before the end of the year.

“No-one’s going to stop me from doing what I think is right for this country,” she said.

The PM said earlier today: “I'm absolutely clear that this needs to be something where there's a game changer.

“So we will be acting. The question is only what we do. And that will be coming very quickly. Because we took powers earlier this year to make sure we can act very, very quickly.

“So the consultation will finish, we will then act and we will be decisive. It's absolutely clear to me that we need to take action to protect children and we can act quickly.”

Ministers have previously come under pressure in Parliament to ban children from the social media platforms deemed harmful.

Conservative former minister Lord Nash, who pushed for a law change, said: “The Government gave a commitment to Parliament that they would introduce some form of age or functionality restriction on social media for children under 16.

“We now expect them to deliver on that commitment fully and in the shortest possible timeframe.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have made their voices heard, asking the Government to raise the age for access to harmful social media to 16.

“And today the Prime Minister will meet the bereaved parents who have campaigned tirelessly to prevent their experiences happening to anyone else.

“Please, just get on with it.”

Ms Roome, previously said: “I, and other families who have lost children to social media, will tell the Prime Minister directly – social media is a product and like any other faulty product causing the deaths of children, it should be restricted until the companies responsible have fixed it and proven it is safe.

“We cannot go on with further speculation – we need clarity.”

But some groups have said that a ban may not be the appropriate instrument to tackle a wide spread of social media harms.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said “a ban alone would not be a panacea to all the risks posed by social media and the online world, and it would need to be supported by a much wider package of measures”.

He said: “Focusing on a social media ban at the expense of broader action to ensure companies get their houses in order would risk letting them off the hook.”

Mr Whiteman said late-evening scrolling “can also affect children’s concentration in the classroom” and urged ministers to consider what protections children should have on messaging apps and online games.

The Children’s Coalition for Online Safety, led by 5Rights Foundation and including groups such as the NSPCC and Girlguiding, demanded a broader overhaul of technology companies’ business models and product design choices that risk keeping young users hooked.

Leanda Barrington-Leach, executive director at 5Rights Foundation, said: “We will not fix this by tinkering around the edges, by tweaking features or relying on age limits alone.

“The issue is not a single product or setting; it is built into the system itself, into business models and design choices that prioritise engagement, data extraction and profit over children’s wellbeing.”

Ms Kendall some people are “very, very strongly for a ban” while others have proposed a different “way forward”.

She said parents whose children had died “want immediate action because they do not want to see any more children coming to harm, losing their lives in the way that their children have”.

The Technology Secretary continued: “We’ve got the powers now as a Government, we can implement the results of it straight away, we are not going to take longer than the end of the year.”

After Lord Nash’s interventions, Parliament agreed to give the Government a flexible power to regulate or block children’s use of social media through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act.

Downing Street said the Government would set out its response to the consultation “as soon as possible” but did not specify a timeline.

“I’m not able to obviously pre-empt the outcome of the consultation, and you’ll appreciate we haven’t made any final decisions, but those new powers that were tabled to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act will enable the government to act at speed to introduce targeted actions off the back of the consultation,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan, has meanwhile travelled to Australia to learn how their restrictions on children’s social media use are working in practice.

As a result, the Government could choose to bring in a ban on under-16s using social media, or adopt other measures, such as a limit on scrolling or overnight curfews for children.

Katie Lam, speaking for the Conservatives, told Sky News that a consultation was “reasonable” given any new rules need to be enforceable.

But the “challenge with this Government is they don’t really seem to do anything very quickly”, she added.

Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrats’ technology spokeswoman, said that “for too long, social media giants have been allowed to profit from addictive algorithms while treating children’s mental health as a mere afterthought”.

She added: “The Government are moving far too slowly.”