Nash goes on to make the case for a ban,We have reached an inflection point,We are facing nothing short of a societal catastrophe caused by the fact that so many of our children are addicted to social media,Many teenagers are spending long hours – five, six, seven or more a day – on social media,The evidence is now overwhelming as to the damage that this is causing.

We have long passed the point of correlation or causation.There is now so much evidence from across the world that it is clear that by every metric – health, cognitive ability, educational attainment, crime, economic productivity, – children are being harmed.Kemi Badenoch has called on Keir Starmer to “just get on” with a ban on social media for under-16s, saying delay is a dereliction of duty that is harming children’s mental health.She made her comments in a Guardian article published shortly before peers started a debate on an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill that would ban social media accounts for under-16s.The debate is still going on, but a vote is expected within the hour.

You can follow the proceedings here.Keir Starmer has noticeably hardened his rhetoric towards Donald Trump, telling the Commons that the US president’s condemnation of the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius was intended to weaken the UK’s resolve over Greenland.The world would be a “better, more secure place” if America took over Greenland, Nigel Farage said at Davos, while insisting that he still believed in the sovereignty of nation states.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.Claire Fox, the former Brexit party MEP, said she thought teenagers should have acces to the internet.

And she said they were clever and devious, and would be able to get round restricitons if they were imposed.She said the Nash amendment was a threat to adult civil liberties, and to freedom, and she said she did not believe a ban would have the advantages its supporters claimed.Lord Bethell, a Conservative, goes next.He says he was impressed by Hilary Cass’s argument (see 5.44pm) because, as a former health minister, he knows how difficult it is to get the leaders of the royal colleges to agree.

If they all say this is a crisis, then it is one, he says.He says the argument about the harm being done to teenagers by social media is persuasive.He says, when he was in government, he and others worked hard to make the Online Safety Act a success.He goes on:It is a long, landmark piece of legislation.Bits of it I am extremely proud of.

But it assumed that we could work with the platforms to moderate their algorithms, to remove the filth, to prevent the predators, to limit the screen time.It assumed that we were working in some kind of collaborative partnership with Facebook, Google, TikTok, meta, Snapchat, Twitter, and all the other social media companies, in protecting children.But that was a catastrophic misjudgement about the nature of these companies and the nature of their leadership.And the outcomes for our children, which have gone significantly backwards in the last two years, is a testimony to thatHe says he cannot understand how tools like Grok AI were ever assessed as being safe for children.“It’s a complete joke,” he says.

He says he does not accept the argument that a ban is not needed because better protections might work,You cannot algorithmically mitigate something that is not a design problem, but a business model problem,The algorithm isn’t broken,The algorithm is doing exactly what it was designed to do,It is to maximise engagement, to keep eyes on the screen, to amplify provocative content, because provocative content keeps people clicking, including our children.

This is not a market failure.This is a market working as designed by the companies that have monetised our children’s child hood as a commodity.He urges peers to back the Nash amendment.Beeban Kidron, the film director and crossbench peer, is speaking now.She says she is angry about the government’s consulation on a social media ban because she thinks it has just been announced “to stave off a backbench rebellion”.

She goes on:It’s not child safety, it’s not governance, it’s party management.She says child safety experts have argued that a social media ban would be too blunt.She says the Online Safety Act should be properly implemented.But that has not happened, which is why this debate is happening, she says.She blames Ofcom.

Ofcom are too timid.They’re too close to tech.They’re too secretive.They’ve narrowed the scope, they’ve tackled the act in the most bureaucratic fashion possible, and they have held parliament in contempt by failing to enact all parts of the act.Kidron says she will vote first for the Lib Dem amendments, and then for the Nash amendment.

She says peers need to send an amendment to the Commons so that the government acts,Lord Clement-Jones, the Lib Dem spokesperson for the digital ecconomy said that he agreed with Lord Nash’s diagnosis of the problem,But he said he had concerns about the 94A amendment,He said that the Australian legislation set out what platforms were covered,The Nash proposal would allow a minister to decide what platforms should or should not be covered.

He said he was concerned about how that would work,And he said the “cliff edge” approach would not protect children after their 16th birthday,And he said a ban could drive teenagers into more dangerous sites,Clement-Jones said the ban proposed by Nash would risk “a dangerous dog’s approach to regulation”,He said that law failed because it “focused on the type of dog rather than dangerous behaviour”.

He said the Lib Dems were backing alternative amendments (94B and 94C) that would put in place a more flexible scheme.He described it as like “film-style age ratings for platforms”.Jim Knight, a former Labour MP, said that he was in favour of the government’s consultation being allowed to go ahead.But he said that after that the government should “act swiftly”, on a platform by platform basis.Hilary Cass, the paediatrician backing the Nash amendment (see 5.

10pm) is speaking now.She says children are increasingly going to hospital as a result of self-harming practices that they have learned about online.The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has since sent a letter, signed by every medical college president to the secretary of state of DSIT [the department for science, innovation and technology] and DHSC [the deparment for health and social care] about what they described as an extraordinarily moving meeting with clinicians giving personal testimony about the horrific cases they have treated.Now, my medical colleagues here, if there are any, would know that college presidents are like cats.You can’t herd them.

So when 23 of them, all 23, agree there is a risk, you need to be very afraid.Cass says she does not see the need for a consultation.On Monday evening, I spent 25 minutes online using an incognito browser page.I learnt that I could end my life by inhaling helium., I watched two videos of girls being choked, and I accessed a video with ten tips about how to enhance my sex life with strangulation.

Not, I hasten to add, because I wanted to do any of those things.I just wanted to see how easy it was.And it was easy and no age verification was needed.My Lords, if we think children may be in danger, we act first and we ask questions later.On the wards, if we had concerns about the competence of a clinician, we suspended them from service first and investigated later.

The government has launched a consultation on a social media ban.But Nash said that this was “unnecessary, misconceived and clearly a last minute attempt to kick the can down the road”.He said a ban was needed now.Every day which passes, more damage is being done to children.Nash says children are also in favour of a ban.

78% of Gen Z say they would try to delay their child using social media for as long as possible,And polling published today shows that 60% of 16 to 24-year-olds, those who have most recently have the experience of social media as teenagers support, a 16-year-old age limit,And also over half 13 to 24-year-olds say social media is fairly or completely responsible for increasing misogyny or violence against women and girls,Nash says peers have been sent a document by him citing 50 studies from aroundd the world “showing a clear link between excessive use of social media and harm to our children”,Since 2016 has been a 477% increase in children’s contact with mental health services and eating disorders among 17 to 19 year olds have risen 16-fold.

There’s been seven-fold rise in young girls admitted to hospital with these disorders.And the evidence is clear that there is a strong link between this and the substantial increase in rates of ADHD, suicide, depression, anxiety and self-harm among teenagers with overexposure to social media.Nash says teachers says social media is the main cause of disruptive behaviour.Our children are turning up at school sleep deprived.It’s clear that many are going to sleep on many nights of the week in the small hours.

And he says children are being radicalised by social media.