The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 22nd May 2025:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the 5Rights Children and AI Design Code, and what steps they are taking to assess the impact of AI on children.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab, DSIT): The Government recognises the importance of this issue and welcomes proposals on how to ensure technology keeps children safe. The Government engages with a range of stakeholders on the impact of AI, including child safety organisations and experts.
Regarding the impact of AI, the majority of AI systems are regulated by existing regulators, a range of which have specific measures for protecting children. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are for children, who will be protected from both illegal content, and legal content which is nonetheless harmful to children, including where that content is AI generated.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the advice to parents from primary schools in St Albans to ban smartphones for children under 14 years old; and whether they plan to ban smartphones for children under 14 years old nationwide.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: The government is committed to keeping children safe online. The Department for Education’s ‘Mobile Phones in Schools’ guidance is clear that schools should prohibit the use of devices with smart technology throughout the school day, including during lessons, transitions and breaks. We expect all schools to take steps in line with this guidance to ensure mobile phones do not disrupt pupils’ learning.
We are focused on implementing the Online Safety Act which will protect children from both illegal and legal but nonetheless harmful content, including pornography and violent content. We continue to keep under review all evidence of options to protect children online.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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