Lauren Sullivan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Apr 2026 · Neuroscience and Digital Childhoods · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I welcome this new inquiry looking at children and young people’s device use. There is a growing feeling that there is a causation between screen use and poor mental health outcomes, and we are now having to drill into brain science and neuroscience to provide evidence back to tech companies to justify why we need regulation. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although it has come too late, fundamentally, we need to find that evidence? Does my hon. Friend also agree that we need to encourage all our young people and parents to respond to the Government’s consultation on a social media ban? We need to go further than a ban at age 16. The voices of young people and parents will contribute to evidence on this and make an informed and better policy.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Online Harms · Hansard source

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  I welcome that intervention. Initially, action needs to be taken, but I am not sure whether a ban would be clearcut enough, because there are so many ways to get around it. How do we verify if a person is 16? The emphasis is being put on the young person—the user—who is trying to access that service. As long as the tech company can say, “We have done facial recognition—we have done all that is reasonably possible”, the liability is on the young person. It should be the other way around, with the responsibility being on the tech company. The hon. Member may well agree that the tech companies need to be doing more, and that is where the Government consultation on strengthening the regulations needs to come in. These online harms are not isolated occurrences; they are being designed into platforms, they are being amplified at scale and they are shaping the real world. We must be serious about protecting our young people. We must address the systems and the incentives that are driving this harm, and hold the tech companies to account. The question is, should we be banning children from social media or should we be banning social media from exploiting our children?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Online Harms · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Bedfordshire for securing this important debate. Online harms are systemic, they are scaled, and they are producing real-world consequences, as we have seen. Social media is now the environment in which young people grow up—it is almost universal when children enter secondary school. According to a consultation by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, 81% of 10 to 12-year-olds are on social media, and 86% have accounts. The Youth Select Committee also did a study on youth violence and social media back in 2024, and found that 97% of 13 to 17-year-olds were online and that 70% of them see real-world violence online. That is a huge number of statistics, but they demonstrate the fact that social media is now in every young person’s bedroom, in their hand and in their pocket. Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore from the University of Cambridge told me that adolescent brains are highly sensitive to the social environment, and the social media companies are probably aware of this. Adolescents’ brains have heightened neuroplasticity, and this will continue until their mid or late 20s. During adolescence, young people are trying to find identity and belonging, and I fear that the tech companies are exploiting this. Where can we see evidence of harm? The National Education Union did a study called “Big Tech’s Little Victims”, in which researchers created fictional accounts and spent half an hour each day on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. They found that harmful content appeared within three minutes, and often immediately. Young people in my constituency say, “I do not want to see this harmful content anymore,” yet they are still shown it, so what is going on? The hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Bedfordshire mentioned the “Inside the Rage Machine” documentary, which I have seen a number of times. I am absolutely horrified at what the whistleblowers have revealed.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Online Harms · Hansard source

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  My apologies to the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). I was speaking about “Inside the Rage Machine”. What people have witnessed is remarkable. The documentary makers found that serious exploitation cases were not being prioritised by TikTok, and that algorithms were repeatedly pushing harmful content. It is not as simple as saying that we must ban children from social media; we need a suite of measures. The core issue is that young people, who are forming their identities, are vulnerable. Addictive algorithms are designed to maximise time and engagement, and they prioritise provocation instead of the truth. Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary on the manosphere is an incredibly powerful and timely contribution to the debate, and he shows us that the online world is like a gold rush in the wild west. The approach of “hook, identity, monetise” drives profits, with streaming platforms like YouTube rewarding people who spout abominable things. There is a business model behind this, and I think we are all very much aware that we need to do something about it. Harmful content spreads across platforms, so we need to be very clear about any ban on social media. Last week, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee looked at the ban in Australia. We learned that because Australia defined which social media companies were to be included, other companies took their place. We can learn from that and it can feed into the Government’s consultation. We have to make the legislation stronger. Bans have limits, because they can be bypassed, as we see in Australia. They also shift the responsibility to the user. Why can we not shift the responsibility to the companies? We should not be banning children from social media; we should be banning the companies from exploiting our children.

• 4 Dec 2025 · Seafarers’ Welfare · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this incredibly important debate and raising awareness of the plight of seafarers. She spoke with heart about the unseen strain and pressure on seafarers. I hope that, in some small way, this debate can help to shine a light on those issues. The UK’s history can be viewed through the lens of the river and the sea. A main artery of the lifeblood of this island nation flows through my constituency of Gravesham: the Thames. Trade, travel, tourism and troops have flowed up and down the Thames since pre-Roman times and the river still shapes Gravesham today. Many of us have personal connections with the sea, and my household is no different. My late father-in-law worked for long periods of time on the sea laying underwater cables, which put a strain on his family. Aside from the River Thames’s history, and all the people who have sailed and worked on it, it provides job opportunities for local businesses, employment, leisure and tourism. The Port of London Authority in Gravesham works safely around the clock so that one of the UK’s busiest ports flows without becoming gridlocked. It has a vision of the future where a trading Thames is the key commercial hub for the UK; of a destination that people can enjoy and where they can play and live; and of a natural Thames. All those things require the support of seafarers—those highly skilled professional men and women. I have also seen the immense work that goes on, day in, day out, to keep the river moving and keep it safe. At this point I wish to pause and pay tribute to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. My local branch in Gravesham, despite some recent criticisms, is essential and has helped so many who have fallen into the water. The RNLI’s mission is simple: to save lives at sea. My heartfelt thanks go to it. This debate is for all those who work, sail and live on the sea and the river. I am hopeful for the future of the Thames and for the agenda to modernise it, invest in it and prepare it. We must ensure that the people working to deliver the growth that our country desperately needs are supported. I recently met a group of young apprentices who have started their working-age life with the sea and the river. There is pressure to ensure that the seafarer job is well protected so that as the ambitions of those apprentices grow, our country matches that ambition with the job that they look to flow into. Our country desperately needs that. My plea to the Minister is to hear the concerns that have been raised. I hope that we can help protect and support seafarers in the future.