Bill Progress

On April 28, 2026, the UK’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill passed the House of Commons by 272 votes to 64, granting ministers the power to introduce sweeping restrictions on social media usage. The bill now returns to the House of Lords for what appears to be its final consideration before receiving royal assent and becoming law.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told the BBC that the government is committed to implementing social media restrictions for under-16s, but ministers must “make sure it works” before introducing changes.

Government Position

Junior education minister Olivia Bailey said the government would “impose some form of age or functionality restrictions” even if it stopped short of a full ban. She told the Commons: “Let us be clear: the status quo cannot continue. We are consulting on the mechanism and that is the right thing to do. But we are clear that under any outcome we will impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16.”

Bailey also confirmed that the government is considering restrictions such as digital curfews, which would be “in addition not instead of” the core age or functionality limits.

Consultation and Specific Measures

The government is conducting a public consultation on various options, including whether children should have unrestricted access to AI chatbots and whether age verification rules should be strengthened. The consultation closes on May 26.

While it remains unclear exactly what restrictions the government may implement, the questions raised in the consultation may provide some clues. Design features used by social media platforms to keep users engaged — such as allowing endless scrolling and content refreshing — are facing increased scrutiny.

Industry Context

Such design features were recently highlighted in a landmark US social media addiction trial, which found Instagram owner Meta and YouTube liable for building addictive platforms that harmed a young woman’s mental health.

Under the UK’s Online Safety Act, social platforms operating in the country are already required to demonstrate their efforts to make children’s experiences safer. Platforms must assess whether and how safety risks to children appear on their sites, including through features such as content recommendations or predictive search functions, and mitigate these risks.

Social media giants like Meta have rushed to implement these requirements, among many other controls, to comply with similar regulations worldwide and stave off a potential under-16 ban.

Debate and Criticism

However, many campaigners argue that existing rules and actions have fallen short of delivering the protections children need for safer, healthier online experiences. Peers in the House of Lords have repeatedly pushed the government to press ahead with a ban, voting in favour of opposition amendments on four occasions.

The government proposed further amendments on Monday in an effort to end the deadlock, including one that would give ministers the power to implement a ban in the future but stops short of introducing it as quickly as the Lords had called for.

Source: BBC