Speeches by Voaden.

“I have a question for Esther and Andy; I will go to Andy first. Last week, as you will be aware, we had witnesses from Meta and TikTok in front of the Committee. Depressingly, although probably not surprisingly, they both rejected the idea that their platforms are addictive, although they did accept that there was a ri…”

“Absolutely.”

“And it incentivises better behaviour by the tech companies, ultimately.”

“We have seen from the experience of an outright ban in Australia that there are positives and negatives, and that the ban there is clearly not working as comprehensively as the lawmakers might have hoped when they came up with it. Do you think that a slightly more nuanced approach, along the lines of what Rani was sayi…”

“We have seen from the experience of an outright ban in Australia that there are positives and negatives, and that the ban there is clearly not working as comprehensively as the lawmakers might have hoped when they came up with it. Do you think that a slightly more nuanced approach, along the lines of what Rani was sayi…”

“Many people in my constituency are very nervous about how local government reorganisation will impact them, and they worry that it could lead to a top-down style of devolution, which entirely misses the point of making decisions locally. The Government’s backing down on Lords amendment 2 will provide some reassurance t…”

“Apprenticeships offer young people a great pathway into rewarding careers, so I very much welcome the Government’s ambition to create more of them, but a report published last week by the Social Security Advisory Committee highlighted the so-called apprenticeship penalty, whereby low-income families can lose up to £330…”

“The hon. Member is being very generous with her time. Dogs have noticeable physiological differences from humans—different enzymes, different gastric pH—which leads to the vast majority of drugs that are tested on them failing to translate to humans. Does she agree, therefore, that the Government should commit to endin…”

“Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“I was going to ask you about the benefits of having a legislative ban on phones in schools. The Government moved on that yesterday. Do you think a statutory ban in legislation will have a positive effect on children’s health and wellbeing?”

“And Laura?”

“Would you like to add anything, Professor Goodyear?”

“I will come back to you on something you said in a minute, but let’s go to Professor Etchells.”

“Can you tell the Committee whether any of your engineering or product teams are rewarded, either financially or professionally, for increasing time spent or session length among users, including children?”

“But you settled that case out of court, so you did not actually go into the courtroom.”

“I will come back to something Professor Goodyear said about children using their phone out of school more when it is banned in school. That is interesting, because I have spoken to lots of schools that have pretty strict phone bans in place and a couple where they are not even allowed to bring their phones into school—…”

“Looking at addiction, Rebecca, Meta was recently found guilty in a Los Angeles court to have deliberately designed addictive products that harmed a young user. We know she is not alone because there are thousands of other court cases now in the pipeline. Research shows that reward schedules are especially potent for yo…”

“Laura, I would like to turn briefly to Roblox, because I know that you have not been covered by the ban in Australia. There has been criticism that the Australian ban does not go far enough, and that the harms of sites such as Roblox are comparable with social media. I appreciate you say that you are not a social media…”

“If a ban were to be based on features and functionality, rather than a platform, which is the way Australia chose to do it, then it could well include Roblox—for example, banning anything that would allow anyone under 16 to be direct messaged by a bad actor.”