Question
I welcome the thought that has gone into this new guidance for schools on phones, but young people have told me that their worst relationship with their devices is when they are at home, not when they are at school. I really welcome the independent safety certification approach, but we need to close the loopholes on safety for digital devices across the board so that they meet the same standards as technology everywhere. Does the Minister agree that we have more work to do to implement digital product safety so that technology is safe for everybody, everywhere, all the time?
Answer
I wholly agree with my hon. Friend that we have much more work to do. The magic of the social media ban, which comes alongside a series of other Government actions to reclaim childhood, is that if we get it right, it will give hours of time back to children. The time that is being used for doomscrolling at the moment is taking away time for children to do real-life things that are hard and rewarding and that give them genuine joy. When I have spoken to young people and asked, “If you got an hour back from your screen, what would you do?”, there is such a variety of answers, and that gives us a real sense that those things are what children should be doing. It just goes to underscore the importance of the ban.60% vibes
Verdict: AMBER (72/100)
The reply directly answers the one question asked. The Minister agrees that more work is needed on digital product safety, with no hedging on that point. The answer is brief and names no specific measures, and some of the surrounding comments on social media and children's screen time are off-topic, so a member of the public may still want to ask for concrete next steps.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does the Minister agree that more work is needed to implement digital product safety so that technology is safe for users? | Addressed | Direct | The Minister directly answers the question by agreeing that 'we have much more work to do', which is the unambiguous affirmation the item asks for. The item does not request a named mechanism, so the lack of one is not a hedge. The later vibes statements about the social media ban and children's screen time are tangential and add no substantive answer to the digital product safety point. |