At first glance, the House of Commons vote on March 9 seemed to send a clear political message. MPs have decided against an amendment from the House of Lords to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would have introduced an outright ban on social media use for under-16s.
The reality is more complicated. Rather than rejecting the idea, MPs have effectively postponed the decision. They’ve also proposed powers that could allow a ban to be introduced later.
The vote was less about the merits of a ban and more about timing. A key reason for the government’s position is that it launched a major consultation on children’s digital wellbeing at the start of March 2025. That consultation is due to run until May. It is asking whether stronger restrictions on children’s access to social media and related technologies are needed.
Because the consultation is still underway, ministers argued that it would be premature to write a specific policy, such as a ban for under-16s, directly into law or, more specifically, directly into primary legislation.
Instead, the government has created a compromise that could potentially be more far reaching. MPs rejected the amendment proposed by the House of Lords that would have created an immediate statutory ban. But they supported an alternative approach that would give the secretary of state the power to introduce new restrictions later through secondary legislation.
The powers in the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill supported by the commons would allow ministers to impose restrictions on children’s access to certain digital services. These powers would be introduced as part of the bill, and would allow the government to alter any other existing legislation.
In practical terms, this would create the power to regulate, but not the actual rules themselves at this stage.
If the consultation concludes that the public are calling for stronger protections, and the government agrees, these powers could be far reaching. They could potentially include restricting access to social media platforms for certain age groups, limiting features considered harmful or “addictive”, such as autoplay or endless scroll for young people, strengthening age-verification requirements and potentially addressing access to tools such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that could be used to bypass age controls.
Crucially, these measures would not require a new future act of parliament.
While parliament would still have oversight of such regulations, they typically receive far less parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation and cannot be amended in the same way. MPs usually have to accept or reject them as they are written, rather than change specific parts.
Building evidence
The current consultation on children’s digital wellbeing is unusually broad. It has a cautiously hands on tone, framing young people’s digital lives as an emerging public-policy problem that may require stronger regulation. Although it formally invites views, the consultation documents largely assume that some form of action is necessary and asks respondents to comment on a range of potential interventions.
It covers a diverse range of digital topics currently in the public eye, such as social media, gaming platforms and AI chatbots. It asks for opinions on whether there is concern and where stronger age-based restrictions should be introduced. It is not simply asking whether action should be taken, but how.
Therefore, should the consultation responses support stricter controls, this raises the possibility that it may ultimately pave the way for a ban or similar restrictions, and the government needs the framework to be able to do this.
Regulatory strategy
Governments can pass framework legislation that gives ministers flexible powers, rather than specifying detailed rules immediately. There is a view that this makes the legislation more flexible in the emergence of new technologies and allows policymakers to respond to technological and political developments without needing to pass new laws each time the regulatory landscape changes.
In this case, the commons has effectively created the legal infrastructure for future restrictions while avoiding committing to them immediately.
Introducing a ban in primary legislation while the consultation is still gathering evidence would have risked undermining the process or making the consultation something of a lame duck. By granting ministers regulatory powers instead, MPs have ensured that the issue can be revisited once the consultation concludes.
Whether those powers are ultimately used to introduce a ban remains to be seen. And at the present time the changes will have to be passed back to the Lords for agreement (sometimes called “parliamentary ping pong”). There is a chance the Lords will ask for further amendments, but it is likely that this will not take long and the bill could reach assent by Easter. However, whether these measures will be effective in their goals will require long term analysis. But the political and legal groundwork is now been laid.
The debate about children, social media and regulation is far from over. If anything, the commons vote signals that the next phase of that debate is only just beginning.
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