Meeting of the Parliament 02 June 2026 [Draft]
It is not at all daunting to have one former teacher sitting next to me and one over my shoulder, but that helps to stress how much I hope that we can deliver the change in the law in a way that takes on board the views of the teaching profession, parliamentarians across the chamber, parents and carers and, of course, our teaching unions and local authorities. I recognise that each school will have to seek to overcome different aspects of the issue, whether there is a classroom ban or a campus ban, and I have alluded to some of them already.
Personally, I saw a campus ban working really well at James Gillespie’s high school. The teachers and young people reflected to me that that not only helps to remove distractions in the classroom but frees the young people from what we know can be the malign influence of the online world throughout their day. Some of the young people reflected to me that, because their phone had been off in their bag, increasingly, when they were going home, they were not turning it back on as quickly as they might have done before. That is breaking the addictiveness that we know tech companies build into many of their platforms.
In response to Patricia Gibson, I would say that flexibility will be built in and we will consult carefully on what everybody involved thinks needs to be reflected in the eventual law change. However, I am keen to ensure that what we finally pass in the chamber reflects the gravity of the potential harm that could impact our young people and operates as a bit of a line in the sand for how we see the correct use of smartphones in the online world for our young people.