My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I support Amendments 19, 22 and so on in the name of my noble friend Lady Harding, on app stores. She set it out so comprehensively that I am not sure there is much I can add. I simply want to thank her for her patience as she led me through the technical arguments.
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I support these amendments as I accept, reluctantly, that children are becoming more and more independent on the internet. I have ummed and ahhed about where parental responsibility starts and ends. I have a seven year-old, a 10 year-old and a 12 year-old. I do not see why any seven year-old, frankly, should have a smartphone. I do not know why any parent would think that is a good idea. It might make me unpopular, but there we are. I accept that a 12 year-old, realistically, has to have a smartphone in this day and age.
I said at Second Reading that Covid escalated digital engagement. It had to, because children had to go onto “Seesaw” and various other apps to access education. As a result, their social lives changed. They became faster and more digital. It seems to be customary to stand up and say that this Bill is very complicated, but at the end, when it passes after all this time, the Government will rightly want to go to parents and say, “We’ve done it; we’ve made this the safest place in the world to be online”.
Unless we support my noble friend’s amendments and can say to parents that we have been holistic about this and recognised a degree of parental responsibility but also the world that children will go into and how it may change—we have heard about the possibility of more app stores, creating a more confusing environment for parents and young people—I do not think we can confidently, hand on heart, say that we achieved what this Bill set out to achieve. On that note, I wholeheartedly support my noble friend’s amendments.