Hansard

My priority is to ensure that our school environments support pupils to thrive and to reach their full potential. There is no doubt that new and evolving technologies can provide opportunities for learning and communication. However, they also bring the risk of a spectrum of harm. We need to recognise the negative impact of mobile phones and screen time and, frankly, to protect our children and young people from that.

That is why now is the time for phone-free learning environments. I am pleased that there is cross-party consensus on the issue and that we can work together on it. We owe it to our pupils and teachers to do so, and to create an environment that is conducive to learning and teaching. This Government has already been clear that any school or education authority that wishes to introduce restrictions on mobile phones in its classrooms or across the school estate will have ministers’ full support. That is the position set out in our national guidance, which we introduced in 2024 in response to the 2023 report on behaviour in Scottish schools that highlighted the disruption caused by mobile phones in our classrooms.

Since we introduced that guidance, many schools and education authorities have acted to restrict the use of mobile phones, and I welcome that. However, there is too much variability. We have listened carefully to calls from parents, carers and teachers to ensure greater consistency across the country so as to support children’s learning and development.

We continue to hear concerns about classroom disruption where restrictions are absent and about the wider impacts on pupils’ wellbeing of excessive screen time, exposure to harmful online content and the effects of online bullying. That is why we will shortly publish a consultation on legislation to make our learning environments phone free, thereby meeting our commitment to do so within the first 100 days of this Government’s being in office.

Last week, in one of my first school visits as Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic, I went to James Gillespie’s high school, where I met staff and young people to discuss the school’s mobile phone policy. It is clear about allowing no phones during school hours on school grounds, which include the campus, the classrooms, the corridors and the cafeteria. The rules for the school’s young people are clear: see it, hear it, lose it.

When I spoke to the staff and the young people, which I did separately, they highlighted the benefits of that policy, including fewer distractions during class, reduced conflict among pupils and between staff and pupils, and more interaction among peers. The young people reflected on how much they welcomed the break from otherwise addictive apps and content.

I want to hear from more pupils through our consultation. Scotland has been a pioneer in the advancement of rights for children and young people, and it is vital that their views be front and centre in the decisions that we take. We also want to understand the range of views from parents and carers, school staff, education authorities and interested organisations, which will help to shape our legislation and allow us to deal with multiple complex issues.

For example, as our current guidance makes clear, there will be occasions when exemptions are required, such as where young people use their phones to monitor medical conditions or where young carers need to maintain contact with home. Schools that have already implemented phone-free policies per our guidance are managing exemptions well. We will fully explore and understand all those issues to inform sensible legislation.

Legislation is the only way in which we can mandate learning environments to be phone free. Until then, existing guidance allows all schools to introduce such a policy now. Therefore, to signal our intent that schools should move to introduce restrictions while we prepare legislation, we are working with education authorities to refresh our current guidance to support and encourage more schools to introduce restrictions ahead of a change in the law.

We are working with the Scottish advisory group on relationships and behaviour in schools so that the updated guidance will be informed by the views of organisations including the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the main teaching unions and representatives of parents and carers. As will be crucial, it will also be informed by the views of young people.

The guidance will set out expectations for key areas, including the engagement with the whole school community—pupils, staff and families—that will be required if we are to build support for such policies. I am pleased to inform members that the updated guidance will be published by the end of this month to support schools in considering their approach from the beginning of the next term.

This issue rests within the wider public health approach to online harm that the Government is committed to taking. We recognise the spectrum of harm that is associated with the significant intensification that we have seen in children’s and young people’s use of online platforms and smartphones. That spectrum includes—but is not limited to—loss of concentration and the waste of precious childhood years, at one end, and it goes right through to the absorption of harmful and often violent, misogynistic or radicalising content, incitement to self-harm, extreme bullying and, in some cases, grooming.

Taking a public health approach means being clear about such harms and taking a holistic approach to addressing them. Therefore, when considering the impact of mobile phones in schools, we must think not only about distraction in the classroom or bullying during the school day but about the higher risk of depression, anxiety, poor sleep and poor health in adolescence that can arise from smartphone use in general. Taking such an approach means engaging the whole school community so that schools can create the conditions to get things right for school wellbeing, learning outcomes and long-term health.

Schools are only one part of the solution, and I will highlight action that we are taking to support parents and young people to ensure that social media companies are held to account. Although the main policy and legislative levers, such as measures that can be taken under the Online Safety Act 2023, are held by the United Kingdom Government, in Scotland we are taking all available steps to act here and now while we wait for the UK Government to step up.

Let me be clear: we support the UK Government’s consultation on the banning of social media for under-16s. However, we do not think that that will solve the problem of online harms. We need more concerted action to force social media and tech giants to do more to protect our children. That is a fight that I will not shy away from.

We have also already taken action to provide guidance for parents of younger children and babies by publishing advice on screen time on our Parent Club website for parents of children aged under 5. That advice is in line with the World Health Organization’s guidance. We also continue to fund resources such as the Mind Yer Time website, which gives children and young people advice on social media use, screen time and sleep, and on the impact of all those factors on their body image and mental wellbeing.

We will now build on that work by funding a national public health campaign to make young people and their families aware of how to use social media, screen time and online time in a safe and healthy manner, which might mean not using it at all. We need families to be aware of the harmful consequences and the risks to mental health, sleep and body image of online time, as well as the benefits of spending time with friends and family in real life. Parents must be supported in that effort and never shamed.

We will also use the example of Ireland’s successful pause before you post campaign to make parents and carers aware of the potential harms of what is called sharenting—sharing images and details of their children on social media that can be pieced together and so inadvertently create a digital footprint for young people.

We can take that action—and are taking it now—but Scotland does not have the powers to act in areas such as the regulation of internet services. We will take steps to push the UK Government to take more action, including ensuring that Ofcom uses its powers to hold technology companies and social media providers to account. Regulation has fallen substantially behind where it needs to be. We will advocate for a social media levy on companies, to be invested in programmes to support safer online engagement for young people, thereby improving mental health and supporting online literacy.

I was very interested in the comments of the former UK safeguarding minister, who, in her resignation letter to the Prime Minister, said that she knew of solutions that could end the ability of children in the UK to take naked pictures of themselves

“on every phone and device in the country.”

If that technology exists, it must be rolled out without delay. The Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, Siobhian Brown, has written to the new safeguarding minister to ask about that technology, to confirm our support for such a move and to reiterate our desire to work closely with the UK Government on the important issue of safeguarding.

Our children and young people are growing up in an online world that was unimaginable 20 years ago when I was at school. I recall the first smartphones emerging then. The rapid evolution of technology means that our thinking must also adapt. The Government is clear that a public health approach is appropriate to respond to those changes. Creating phone-free learning environments is an important part of that holistic approach. Our schools should be safe and nurturing environments for our children and young people, where they can learn free from the distractions of mobile phones. Teachers will benefit from that, too.

I look forward to working constructively with members on that issue and the wider issue of freeing our children from intensifying online harm.