Former UK cabinet minister Wes Streeting has accused the government of being “asleep at the wheel” on social media and technology regulation.
A consultation to help the government decide what action it should take, called Growing Up In The Online World, is set to close on Tuesday.
It could pave the way for an Australia-style ban on under-16s using social media or lead to other measures, such as a limit on scrolling or overnight curfews for children.
Mr Streeting, who resigned this month in protest saying Prime Minister Keir Starmer was not being bold enough to improve Britain, said: “Our approach to mobile phones and social media has been akin to basically saying, ‘kids need to learn how to use woodwork, let’s give three-year-olds, five-year-olds some saws, some nails and hammers, and leave them unsupervised and see what happens, because they need to learn how to use the tools.”
“We wouldn’t do that with traditional tools – we shouldn’t do it with modern tools either,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.
Yesterday, Mr Starmer said action to crack down on the harmful effects of social media on children needs to be a “game changer” and pledged to act “very quickly” after the consultation closes.
“We are going to act. The question is only what we do,” he said during a visit to a nursery in East Sussex.
In April, the Prime Minister told social media companies to “take responsibility” for harmful content on their platforms, saying “things can't go on like this” after calling them to a meeting in Downing Street.
He met senior executives from Meta, Snap, YouTube, TikTok and X, who are accused of not doing enough to police harmful content online.
“In a world in which children are protected, even if that means access is restricted, that is preferable to a world where harm is the price of participation,” he told them.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall is facing pressure to change the rules that social media firms must follow if they operate in the UK.
She said some people are “very, very strongly for a ban” while others have proposed a different “way forward”.
She said parents whose children had died “want immediate action because they do not want to see any more children coming to harm, losing their lives in the way that their children have”.
“We’ve got the powers now as a government. We can implement the results of it straight away,” she said.
“We are not going to take longer than the end of the year.”
Mr Streeting said social media companies were designing platforms that are “addictive – they know that it is harmful and the business model is orientated towards getting kids while they’re young”.
He added that before he stepped down from his role as health secretary earlier this month, he argued for a social media ban at the Cabinet table.
“I’m liberated from the obligations of collective responsibility, which now means I can now say publicly what I think,” he said, referring to the convention that individual ministers speak for the whole government.
Mr Streeting, who warned the approach of “Big Tech is behaviour akin to big tobacco”, also said: “I trust Liz Kendall to act quickly following the closure of the consultation today.
Parliament has agreed to give the government flexible powers to regulate or block children’s use of social media, through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act.
After pushing for a default ban on the platforms considered to be the most harmful, Conservative former education minister Lord Nash secured a commitment from ministers they would introduce “age or functionality restrictions” on social media for under-16s regardless of the consultation outcome.
“The government gave a commitment to parliament that they would introduce some form of age or functionality restriction on social media for children under 16,” Lord Nash said.
“We now expect them to deliver on that commitment fully and in the shortest possible time frame. Hundreds of thousands of people have made their voices heard, asking the Government to raise the age for access to harmful social media to 16.
“And today the Prime Minister will meet the bereaved parents who have campaigned tirelessly to prevent their experiences happening to anyone else. Please, just get on with it.”
Ellen Roome, who believes her son Jools Sweeney died aged 14 while attempting an online challenge, said: “I, and other families who have lost children to social media, will tell the Prime Minister directly: Social media is a product and like any other faulty product causing the deaths of children, it should be restricted until the companies responsible have fixed it and proven it is safe.
“We cannot go on with further speculation – we need clarity.”
But another coalition of children’s organisations warned that focusing solely on age limits risked failing to address the structural drivers of online harms.
The Children’s Coalition for Online Safety, led by 5Rights Foundation and including groups such as the NSPCC and Girlguiding, demanded a broader overhaul of technology companies’ business models and product design choices that risk keeping young users hooked.
In a joint statement, 25 organisations called for a ban on targeted advertising and manipulative design features, a ban on personalised services for under-13s and default safety protections for under-16s with penalties for companies that fall short, stronger regulation of AI systems including child-focused risk assessments and the creation of an independent online safety commissioner.
More than 70,000 people have engaged with the consultation, according to a government representative.
