The government has launched a consultation on banning social media for under 16s in the UK as a part of a series of measures which it says are intended to “protect young people’s wellbeing.”
The package will also see England’s education inspectorate, Ofsted, given the power to check policies on phone use when it goes into schools, with ministers saying they expect schools to be “phone-free by default” as a result.
The world’s first social media ban for young people took effect in Australia in December 2025, prompting other countries, including the UK, to consider following suit.
Some experts and children’s charities have cautioned against the idea – but it has strong backing elsewhere.
On Sunday, more than 60 Labour MPs wrote to the prime minister saying the backed a ban with the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey also calling on the government to act.
“Some argue that vulnerable children need access to social media to find their community,” Brianna’s mother Esther Ghey wrote in a letter seen by the BBC.
“As the parent of an extremely vulnerable and trans child, I strongly disagree.
“In Brianna’s case, social media limited her ability to engage in real-world social interactions. She had real friends, but she chose to live online instead.”
The former school standards minister Catherine McKinnell, who is one of the MPs who signed the open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, told BBC News parents currently “felt unprepared to deal with the pace at which social media has changed.”
Speaking on Breakfast, on BBC 5Live, she added that while children should still be able to be “connected in an online world”, she didn’t believe that meant “being bombarded with information sent to you by algorithms devised to create money by tech companies.”
Parents and young people
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said in a statement to the Commons on Tuesday, “I can tell the House we will bring forward a swift three-month consultation on further measures to keep children safe online.”
According to The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, the consultation will “seek views from parents, young people and civil society” to determine the effectiveness of a ban.
It would also look at whether more robust age checks could be implemented by social media firms, which could be forced to remove or limit features “which drive compulsive use of social media”.
And Ofsted will give tougher guidance to schools to reduce phone use – including telling staff not to use their devices for personal reasons in front of pupils.
