Like so many of you, I’ve long been concerned about the impact of smartphones on children’s wellbeing, concentration, and mental health. I see too many of our children glued to their screens on their way to school, rather than talking to one another. We must change this.
Last year, as some of you will remember, I surveyed local parents about their experience with children and smartphones - and the results were overwhelming. 65% of you believe your child spends too much time on social media, and 74% think smartphones make bullying in schools worse.
When we were in government, we published very strong guidance for schools to ask them to remove phones from the school day. But, we were always clear that we wanted to monitor how schools responded to this guidance before we went further, and that we would legislate at the earliest opportunity, if schools continued to raise this as an issue. Sadly, that is exactly what they have done – and it is clear an age restriction is now needed.
Evidence suggests that only 11% of schools are genuinely smartphone-free, and children at smartphone-free schools get GCSE results 1-2 grades higher than their counterparts.
Polling from Parentkind also found that 1 in 5 children say lessons are disturbed by smartphone use ‘everyday.’ That will have huge ramifications on our children’s futures, and it is obvious that government must now listen to parents and professionals in schools, and act.
As the Shadow Education Secretary, I this month forced a vote in the House of Commons that would ban smartphones in schools for under-16s. Despite securing cross party support, it was deeply disappointing that the Government vote against it. And in fact, last week at PMQs the Prime Minister described it as 'completely unnecessary'
Parents, teachers and children are crying out for government to do more to protect them, and by accepting our amendment they could have done just that.
We are very lucky here in Sevenoaks that many of our schools are already stepping up to protect children from the negative effects of smartphones. Several schools have made the decision to restrict or ban smartphone use altogether, our excellent Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott has been a strong advocate for improving children’s safety in this area, and many parents are actively engaged with groups such Smartphone Free Childhood to educate on the dangers of smart phones.
I hope that together, we can make a real difference in protecting future generations from the dangers of smartphones in schools, and ensure the Government protect our children.
If you would like to get involved with our campaign, please do consider signing our petition, which can be found here: https://www.whatlaboursaid.com/get-phones-out-of-schools.
Laura Trott
MP for Sevenoaks and Swanley
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