The Conservative party believes in freedom. We believe people should be able to make choices about their own lives. That they, not the state, should decide what they do. But freedom is not a given. It depends on something more fundamental: the ability to make good choices in the first place. And that ability is not fully formed in children.
For too long, Britain has treated childhood as an afterthought. We know that a child’s early years shape the trajectory of their entire life. Yet our political system has too often focused more on repairing damage in adulthood rather than preventing it early on. That is a dereliction of our duty as politicians.
Children’s brains are still developing. Their impulse control, emotional regulation and ability to assess risk are not the same as an adult’s. That is why we have age limits on alcohol, a legal age of consent and safeguarding requirements in schools. To most people this is common sense. And yet, in one crucial area, we have decided to suspend that logic entirely.
Children today are allowed to spend hours a day online, exposed to violence, pornography and extremist content. Content that we know is linked to rising anxiety, poor sleep, reduced concentration and knock-on effects on behaviour and education. Content designed not for children, but for adults, optimised to capture attention and maximise engagement.
I am a firm believer that you can overcome a huge amount in life with the right knowledge and training. But by exposing children, at scale, to technologies that erode attention spans and disrupt learning, we are making that task harder. We are denying them the mental resilience they will need to shape their own futures.
That’s why we in the Conservative party have acted. Last year, the Conservatives announced our plan to ban smartphones in schools.
And this month, we have gone further by becoming the first party in Britain to support a ban on social media for under-16s. As Conservatives, we believe parents are best placed to raise their own children. But as a parent myself, I also know this: no one can be all-seeing. Children want to be doing what their friends are doing, and are clever enough to figure out how to do it. That’s why I know that the vast majority of parents support a ban, however difficult it will be to implement.
My husband and I are raising our children in a world that is more demanding than the one we grew up in. Their generation are growing up more anxious and worried than in previous years. They are more anxious than previous generations. It would be foolish to blame a single cause, but it would be equally foolish to pretend social media plays no role. Children should be free to grow up and grow into themselves. They should be free to make mistakes, to develop a sense of self and to emerge as healthy, confident young adults with productive lives ahead of them.
This is also about economics, not just health and wellbeing. A generation that struggles to concentrate will struggle to study. And a generation that cannot study will struggle to build the companies of the future, serve in our armed forces, or sustain our public services.
By restricting social media use for children, we aren’t just protecting children. We can also give more freedoms to adults online. We will no longer need to contort digital spaces to be universally “child-friendly”, or impose blanket restrictions on speech and content because children might see it. If we stop treating children like adults, we can stop treating adults like children too.
What is striking is how wide the consensus on this issue has become. Campaigners, clinicians, parents and experts are aligned. Even 61 Labour MPs have urged their own leadership to support action.
As usual, Keir Starmer and his Labour government haven’t done the thinking on this. The one thing they can normally be relied upon for is a U-turn. But so far they haven’t even managed that. Instead, they’ve announced yet another consultation, kicking the can down the road.
We will not be bought off with vague promises of a “national conversation” about whether we should get children off these adult platforms. The prime minister must set out how he will act and by when. The crossbench peer Lady Kidron, who supports Conservative peer Lord Nash’s amendment in the House of Lords, is right to say Starmer’s approach “is not leading; it is not governing”. He is “doing nothing – slowly”, which is “the very epitome of party before country”.
Let’s just get on with it.
Today, the House of Lords will vote on measures to get children off adult social media platforms and I am proud that it is the Conservative party that is driving this change. Putting our children’s mental health first is the right thing to do. How much longer will we have to wait until the government agrees?
Kemi Badenoch is the leader of the Conservative party and MP for North West Essex