Parents today face an unenviable dilemma: trying to protect their children from the harms of the online world, whilst also wanting them to benefit from tech’s possibilities, and conscious that much of friendship groups’ interaction is online.

I hear from many local parents concerned about this area, and it is now getting a lot more attention in parliament too.

The landmark legislation is the Online Safety Act which we passed in 2023. Some of that is already in force, some not yet. Last week, a new set of ‘Children’s Codes’ – which come out of the Act – should force more filtering out of more the very most harmful material for children. That is an important step, but we need more.

Unfortunately, a much anticipated private member’s bill, the Safer Phones Bill, got watered down to little more than a recommendation to the chief medical officer to publish guidance on children’s smartphone and social media use at some point in the future.

Conservative colleagues and I have also sought to see off mobile phone use during the school day (but not to and from school, for safety, or where needed for medical reasons), but our proposed amendment was blocked by the Government. Meanwhile local schools in East Hampshire are themselves taking positive steps on this.

This week, I have tabled two amendments to the Data Use and Access Bill – about what the minimum age for potentially-risky social media should be, and how that gets enforced.

The nominal minimum age here to have a social media account without needing parental consent is 13. The origin of that age threshold was a well-meaning piece of US legislation – the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Originally the age was to be 16, but it got changed to13.

Later when the key data rules – GDPR (general data protection regulation) – came in in Europe, different countries opted for different ages. We went for 13 while others, including Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland, went for 16.

When it has been suggested in the past that we might move our age minimum upwards, a reasonable argument has been made that that might have unintended consequences, or prevent children seeking help.

So, my first amendment this week sets out to show how you could do it without suffering those consequences, with very broad exemptions, including for child protection, education, health and more.

The second amendment aims to ensure that, whatever the minimum age is (whether 13 as now, or any other age) it is actually upheld, holding tech companies to account for that.

The Government is unlikely to accept my amendments right now, but I will continue to argue for reform.