Dame Chi Onwurah
MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West · Labour · United Kingdom
“An extraordinary debate is going on right now inside and outside AI companies about whether the possibility of AI destroying humanity is more or less than 10%. The European Union is moving ahead with a comprehensive AI regulatory framework, but the UK continues to rely on existing regulation.”
“The Pope also highlighted how the billions of online digital twins constitute an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of a small number of men. Among the many consequences of the 40 years of neoliberalism repeatedly called out by the Prime Minister is a libertarian attitude to technology.”
“But this stealth digital twinning violates the integrity, uniqueness and very personhood of our constituents and of all of us. Digital twins can take many forms, from content creation algorithms and deepfakes to chatbots that reflect aspects of our personalities back at us. It is particularly worrying when children are the target.”
“The automated version of our kids will grow with them, using the power of AI to target advertising and products at them, and worse. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has heard about some of the tragic consequences of online grooming by algorithms and chatbots—a vulnerable boy persuaded to kill himself; a vulnerable girl fed…”
“In the arts, entertainment and tech industries, many performers are agreeing to the creation and use of digital replicas as part of their work—think of ABBA Voyage. But performers increasingly encounter unauthorised digital replicas of themselves, which pose a threat to their career, livelihood and reputation.”
“Since then, deepfakes have proliferated. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) was shown crossing the Floor in Parliament to join Reform, to his constituents’ consternation and his own—it was a fake. Then there were the horrendous photos of naked women and girls that Elon Musk’s AI created on demand.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,139 lines we hold for Dame Chi Onwurah, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 103.
“The Highways Agency has finally accepted responsibility, but now says that it may or may not fix it next year—at the earliest. Can we have a debate in Government time on how we can ensure a culture of taking responsibility among Government agencies, rather than passing the buck?”
“I join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to the young Northumbria police officer who so sadly and tragically died last week while protecting and serving our region. The A1 motorway forms the boundary of my constituency at Etal Lane. There is an open play area next to cars racing past at 60 mph or more. For a decade now, my constituents have been raising concerns about the unsightly and—more importantly—unsafe fencing there. For the past five years, led by former Labour councillor Alex Hay, they have been passed from Newcastle city council to the Highways Agency. In the meantime, the fencing has fallen into total disrepair; in some places, it no longer exists, forming a clear and present danger to a whole generation of Geordie children.”
“Under Mayor Andy Burnham’s leadership, we have seen 3.1% annual growth sustained over 10 years, which is faster than London and twice that in the UK as a whole. That shows the power of regional leadership and investment. The current Government deserve credit for backing our national research and development ecosystem, but without a clearer picture of what works for different regions and a greater engagement with local leaders on what support their local innovation ecosystems need, we will continue to be flying blind.”
“That leaves us with only a Minister with responsibility for Cambridge and Oxford innovation—the Minister for Science. The Government have argued that they should not be supporting the establishment of a Midlands Mindforge or a Northern Gritstone, and they have not accepted our recommendation to establish regional branches of the British Business Bank. By failing to accept these recommendations, the Government are depending too heavily on an industrial strategy that does not have appropriate regional data. We chose to call our report “Flying Blind” because that was the best summary of the approach of successive Governments to innovation policy. Regional growth and development can transform a region and rebalance our nation’s economy, helping to address the inequalities that drive division. Greater Manchester is an example.”
“More specifically, the promise of “a more robust and joined-up approach to monitoring the development of innovation clusters over time” is a step in the right direction. The Government also committed to doing more to help innovators access public funding and, crucially, to prioritise the procurement of innovation, which is the best way for the Government to support the development of sovereign UK alternatives to global technology providers. I note and welcome the Chancellor’s recent directions to Ministers on this topic. However, I am disappointed by the Government’s rejection of our call to establish a framework for monitoring cluster development, and by the fact that they will not designate a Minister responsible for championing innovation in each region of the UK.”
“The Secretary of State rightly told us of her desire to leverage public funds to unlock private investment in innovation- led activity across the country, but without clear and transparent measures of what is being done and its impact, it is impossible to assess existing policies or identify improvements. I thank the Government for their response, which was published on Tuesday. There is much to welcome in it, particularly the Government’s joined-up contribution from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Education, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. I welcome the Government’s agreement with the key thematic areas highlighted in our report, and their acceptance of the need for better data.”
“There is no system that brings together the data on all research and innovation spending across the public sector. The Public Accounts Committee noted in July last year that UKRI aimed to link up all such data across Government but had not given a target date, and that “significant limitations” in its data systems make it hard to manage its budget strategically. We concluded that the UK is flying blind when it comes to public and private R&D spending, and it is unacceptable that we cannot measure and map R&D spending and private sector investment.”
“We have said that the Government should take a data-driven approach and comprehensively monitor, map and support the growth of innovation-led clusters across the regions. We have also said that the Government should publish annual data covering the performance and impact of innovation clusters. The data should set out any gaps in infrastructure, skills, and commercialisation outcomes, and detail how public investment is being used across different parts of the country. Throughout our inquiry, we heard of major shortfalls in gathering and sharing data relating to innovation policy, meaning that there is currently no clear way to track the pipeline from R&D research to capital investment, company growth and wider economic benefit.”
“The golden triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and London receives significant public R&D funding and private investment, absorbing 46% of non-business R&D despite having only 36% of the population. The Minister for Science has asserted that cutting-edge research is best carried out in centres of excellence, and we found such centres in Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Newcastle, among many others. Geographic clusters can drive productivity, foster concentrated networks of expertise, infrastructure and collaboration, and support regional growth. Their success relies on sustained investment, established infrastructure and skills concentration. We have said that the Government should establish a national framework for cluster development that embeds regional key performance indicators.”
“My Committee’s report found that if the £86 billion of public funds is accompanied by unlocking private investment across the country to commercialise innovation, it could deliver regional economic growth and therefore better living standards and quality of life for all our constituents. Although we welcome the Government’s commitments, including a £500 million fund for regional innovation clusters, that is less than 1% of our public research spend. The work of our Committee member and former Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), rightly emphasised the power of clusters. Our report found that there is still untapped potential for innovation-driven activity across the regions, with an increase in the number of innovation-led clusters. Regional inequalities continue to persist in R&D funding.”
“By doing so, they helped us to shape our report, and we are very grateful. Our report, entitled “Flying Blind: Innovation, Growth and the Regions”, was published in March. Profound policy mistakes have led to a multi-decade failure to foster even economic growth geographically. From a productivity and GDP per head perspective, we are two nations: Greater London and the south-east, and everywhere else. Last year, GDP per head in the UK averaged just over £39,000. Every region in the country is below that figure, apart from the south-east, at £41,000, and London, at a whopping £69,000.”
“Indeed, the importance of the innovation ecosystem is reflected in the Government’s pledge to spend £86 billion of public money on R&D by 2030, and to leverage at least £3 of private investment for every £1 of public investment. The Committee launched its inquiry in December 2024 to assess the role of our innovation ecosystem in achieving this Government’s wider economic growth mission across the UK. Our call for evidence assessed the role of structural factors in influencing the success of start-ups, spin-outs and other innovation-focused enterprises; these included the tax system, regulatory requirements and standards. Across six sessions, we heard from innovators, investors, local and regional leaders, universities, Ministers, UK Research and Innovation, and Innovate UK. I place on the record my thanks to those who gave evidence.”
“I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement. On behalf of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, I put on the record our thanks to the Committee Clerks and specialists who supported this inquiry. We are told on a daily, if not hourly, basis that the source of all our political, public service and economic woes is the lack of economic growth. The Labour Government were elected on a platform of delivering economic growth across the country through their “unashamedly place-based” modern industrial strategy. Across the UK, we have world-class scientific research institutions and universities, two of which are in my constituency: Newcastle University and Northumbria University.”
“First, I thank the hon. Member for his contribution to the Select Committee while he served on it. He is absolutely right to trace the link between research funding and key issues such as health inequalities, from which we also suffer in the north-east of England. He is right to identify the need to address the differences in health research funding, but without the appropriate data and information, it is hard to do so. He is also right to look for that to be addressed by the Government, and we shall be looking at the actions of both DSIT and the Department of Health and Social Care in this area.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I join him in paying tribute to Frasers Group. Innovation and its benefits are for everyone across our country, and that is particularly important in towns that may traditionally not have seen those benefits, or may have done so in centuries past but not recently. Having a local employer and business drive innovation and innovation-sustained jobs in his town is of particular benefit to his constituents, not just now but in the future.”
“The hon. Member is always a champion of Northern Ireland, and I congratulate him on the examples of innovation and its contribution to economic growth that the Committee found in Northern Ireland. We did not have a specific discussion about that when the Minister for Science came before the Committee, but the hon. Member raises very good points, and I am very happy to take them up with the Minister.”
“I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her question, and she is absolutely right. As I highlighted in my concluding remarks, we have seen how in Greater Manchester, where the mayor has had over 10 years to make such a difference—we see this in Liverpool as well—having local leadership that values innovation and knows the local economy’s needs, skills and strengths can really drive regional growth. I know that the mayor f the North East combined authority, Kim McGuinness, is fully seized of the importance of innovation in driving great jobs and a sustainable economy in the north-east, particularly on Tyneside.”
“We looked at innovation in the ecosystems around Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and we found fantastic examples of world leadership in scientific research and innovation in Scotland. Official Report , 06 July 2026; Vol. 789, c. 2WC. (Correction). However, we did not find the collection of regional data at a level that would have enabled us to measure effectively what works best. There were some concerns about the funding of research, particularly high-intensity research, across Scotland, but I would be willing to discuss that in more detail with my hon. Friend.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the north-east, our great history of industrial innovation and growth was based around towns as well as cities, and that is what we must aspire to again. The focus on clusters and data would enable us—through the industrial strategy, which has so much to be welcomed and supported—to ensure we can drive innovation across a region and in particular look at hubs that are based around towns, as well as cities. We found that there is much good work done by universities. Having hubs in towns and around the region can drive innovation and therefore, with the right support, growth.”
“One can never bang on too much about towns and innovation and growth. That is what all our constituents across our country deserve, because it is only by having growth in every town across the country that we will address the cost of living crisis and the economic conditions that we need to improve. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to understand, in concert with local leaders, what innovation is happening around Redditch and what works best to ensure that Redditch and the towns in his area get the innovation support they deserve and which they can put to the best use for his constituents and all our constituents.”
“Finally, my new clause 19 calls on the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the risks posed by foreign state ownership or control of providers of cellular internet-of-things modules. I always like to mention that I was the first Member of Parliament to speak about the internet of things, in my debate back in 2011. Having worked in technology as an engineer, the threat posed by cyber-attacks on the internet of things was very real to me from the start of my parliamentary career. Indeed, in 2017 I wrote an article highlighting the threat of cyber-attacks on sex toys, in a vain attempt to raise the profile of the issue.”
“I am aware that the Minister might reference our sovereign hosting capability, Crown Hosting, but it hosts only 4% of Government legacy services. Will he please outline how the Government intend to ensure protection so that the public sector makes better use of the services provided by Crown Hosting? Could he also set out how he will ensure that the Government’s digital transformation ambitions cannot be derailed at any time by decisions based on the narrow interests of a foreign, commercial or state actor? He might choose to argue that this is highly unlikely, but I would point him to the recent decision of the US Government to withdraw foreign nationals’ access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 model.”
“The Government are rightly seeking to co-ordinate cloud contracting, but I believe that this should be done in a way that would ensure more, not less, competition. We would like to see the detail of how the all-of-Government cloud contract will prevent vendor lock-in, and I would like the Minister to outline his engagement with the CMA on the contract’s development. Not only does our reliance on these two cloud services raise practical issues—as seen with the AWS outage in October—but there are questions around data protection. Under the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act and the Patriot Act, the US Government can compel US companies, including AWS and Microsoft, to hand over data if held overseas—that is, in the UK.”
“As set out in my Committee’s report entitled “Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government”, our national resilience is put at risk by the strategic lock-in that these companies have in many of our public services and Administrations. Major Departments, including His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the NHS, are under multi-year agreements that further entrench these cloud infrastructures within the Whitehall ecosystem. Included in my Committee’s report was evidence we heard from the Open Cloud Coalition, who suggested that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology should consider a period of over-correction, including the mandatory re-competition of high-risk or large-scale contracts, to break cycles of vendor lock-in.”
“Turning to my new clause 18, we have already heard that the concentration of the UK’s public sector data within a small number of US-owned providers—Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure specifically—presents a structural risk to national resilience. Combined, AWS and Microsoft account for 70% to 80% of the public cloud market, according to the Competition and Markets Authority. Part of the issue is that that figure is an estimate. I have put down a series of written parliamentary questions over the last seven years to find out just how dependent the Government are on AWS and Microsoft. This data is not tracked across Government. Can the Minister say how he intends to assess a threat that the Government are not measuring?”
“I welcome the Opposition amendments that would bring retail businesses within the Bill’s scope, but I am concerned that they might be too extensive in bringing small and medium-sized businesses into its remit and placing a disproportionate burden on them. The revenue threshold of £12 billion in my new clause 20 provides the necessary specificity to ensure that only large retail businesses, including Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover, would fall under the expanded Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018. This would lead to faster incident-reporting responses and customer notification, alongside stronger powers, including those to deal with non-compliance.”
“The Government’s plan to promote the new cyber governance code of practice to improve pre-operative preparedness in sectors such as retail is welcome, but voluntary measures alone will not deliver the consistent adoption of good cyber governance across economically significant sectors such as retail. According to the Government’s figures, only 9,680 Cyber Essentials Plus certificates were issued to small and medium-sized businesses between November 2023 and October 2024. There are an estimated 6 million small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK, so this is not going to address that challenge at the rate at which it needs to be addressed.”
“This brings me to my first amendment, new clause 20, which seeks to designate retail businesses as an essential activity, bringing them within scope of part 3 of the Bill. Retail is the UK’s largest private sector employer. It holds large amounts of consumer data but often relies on dated IT systems. Yet, as I noted on Second Reading, the existing scope of the Bill would not have prevented or even had an impact on the attacks on Marks & Spencer or Jaguar Land Rover, despite the significant disruption they caused to our constituents and our economic activity. Indeed, in November, the Bank of England cited the cyber-attack on JLR as a factor in its decision to hold interest rates.”
“Cyber-attacks are having a real financial impact on the UK and are happening at an increasing rate. According to the Institution of Engineering and Technology, cyber-attacks cost UK businesses an estimated £64 billion annually, with £37 billion in direct costs and £26 billion in indirect costs. Last year we also saw the well-documented cyber-attack that hit Marks & Spencer, leaving shoppers unable to buy online from the company for months. The company’s profits were almost wiped out, down from £390 million to £3 million for the first half of 2025. As a Sparks card holder myself, I was unable to use my card for six months and I fear I may have contributed to those figures.”
“I welcome the increasing role of technology in all our constituents’ lives, but this must go hand in hand with rigorous cyber-security to protect against threats from state and non-state actors. As I highlighted in my speech on Second Reading, the UK’s only cross-cutting cyber-security legislation is currently that inherited from the European Union. The previous Conservative Government failed to update these regulations, leaving us working under an outdated framework. I therefore really welcome this Bill, which seeks to expand the scope of existing cyber-security regulations to new sectors, strengthen the role of regulators and grant the Government new powers to respond to the threats posed by cyber-security breaches. We are only as secure as our weakest link, but I am afraid we still have a number of weak links left.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins). I would like to start by making two relevant declarations of interest. I worked for the Office of Communications before entering Parliament and I am currently a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Madam Deputy Speaker, you might have heard me mention on occasion that I was an engineer before coming into Parliament. As such, in 2010, I was desperate for issues around technology to come up in Parliament, as it was a subject I actually knew something about, but they rarely did. In the intervening 16 years, however, things have changed, and technology issues such as online safety, wi-fi on trains, sovereign technology and infowars are now raised regularly.”
“I welcome the Bill, but I have real concerns about the need to bring retail businesses such as M&S within its scope, the concentration of the UK’s public sector data in a small number of US-owned providers, the implications for technology sovereignty that that raises, and the risks posed by foreign state ownership of providers of cellular internet-of-things modules. I hope that the Minister will address those concerns and deliver the cyber-security and resilience that our constituents deserve.”
“I am concerned about the ability of our domestic British businesses to export into the US given those restrictions, as well as the impact on our security. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could set out whether he is looking into that concern. As was eloquently emphasised in the personal statements made by the recently resigned Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), and Armed Forces Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), the first duty of Government is the security of their citizens. That is true when it comes to our armed forces and our defence in the real world, and it is also true when it comes to our security in the virtual world. Those two overlap so much more than in the past.”
“Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), whose amendment I also support, and hearing our concerns about the supply of IOT devices. It was unfortunate that the Minister did not see the need for action, particularly given that the US has taken action against Chinese-made goods and that, during a trip of the British-American Parliamentary Group to the US just last week, we heard that further action is likely to be taken against cellular IOT modules specifically. That could mean UK products being banned from import into the US if they contain such CIMs. We have seen a rapid growth of those devices across transport, as we have mentioned, as well as energy and, importantly, water and health.”
“The right hon. Member does well to remind us that the impact of hostile action using CIMs, such as by turning on a kill switch, would be devastating across multiple sectors, including potentially the consumer sector, as well as security, automotive, transport and finance. That is why it is so important to consider this. I particularly draw the Minister’s attention to the list provided by the US Federal Communications Commission—the equivalent of Ofcom—of equipment and services covered by section 2 of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act. The list dictates what technology is legally permitted to be authorised for import and sale in the US, and many companies on the list are owned or controlled by the Chinese state. I thank the Minister in the other place for meeting me and my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is right to say in his eloquent speech that raising awareness and having a debate about this issue is important, but the problems may not necessarily be the result of hostile actors. If the providers of the modules were to stop providing software updates, the modules would be more likely to fail and then become the subject of hostile attacks. So not only could the technology be killed by a hostile actor, but an increased dependency on software updates puts us at risk.”
“Let me take the Minister back to the question of bringing the retail sector into the provisions of the Bill. He seems to be saying that cyber-security and resilience require Government intervention only when there is an immediate threat to life. Will he clarify whether that is what he is saying? My understanding is that we need to keep our economy and citizens secure in all circumstances. On the question of proportionality, my new clause 20 seeks to bring in only very large businesses, so that the requirements of cyber-security on them are proportionate. We know that such businesses are not taking the measures to keep cyber-secure, as we have seen recently with Marks & Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover and others.”
“I thank the Minister for generously giving way again. I have no desire to test the House by pushing my amendments to a vote, and I will be happy if I can receive his assurance. I take his points on not having technology-specific regulation where possible, but can I have an assurance that the Minister will work with me, my Committee and other hon. Members to look at the need to safeguard where there are technology-specific risks?”
“It does nothing to address the organised acceleration of misinformation, which harms our children and whose consequences we saw on the streets of Belfast. As such, can I urge the Secretary of State to revisit my Committee’s 2025 report and to go after the advertising-driven business model that incentivises these harms and is largely unregulated, and also to impose transparency requirements so that we understand the challenge we face?”
“As so many parents know, and as my Committee’s ongoing inquiry into digital childhood has highlighted, British children have been the subjects of a malign mass experiment designed purely to optimise corporate profits, resulting in horrifying—though largely unmeasured—harms at an individual and population level. Successive Governments have been too ignorant, too ideological, or too in hock to big tech to act, so the Secretary of State is to be congratulated on taking action. However, my right hon. Friend knows that a ban is riddled with problems, including workarounds such as virtual private networks and services such as generative AI and WhatsApp not being included, with new ones popping up regularly.”
“In the local elections, Reform told my constituents, who are worried about rising fuel bills, that drilling new wells in the North sea would bring down energy prices. Will the Secretary of State explain how long it would take for the oil to flow if we permitted drilling new wells tomorrow, who would benefit the most from that oil, and how that would bring down prices at the pumps or energy bills in Newcastle? Given that, I suspect, big oil companies would benefit the most, is he surprised that 70% of Reform’s funding comes from fuel investors?”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his new position. On Wednesday, my Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will publish our report on the Government’s digital ambitions. My right hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that we will be raising serious concerns about data management, data hygiene and vendor lock-in. Many projects such as the single patient record have failed over the last 20 years. Will he confirm to me that he will ensure that patients can control when and how their data is seen, that he will be building on existing records such as the great north care record, and that this will be treated as critical national and sovereign infrastructure, not subject to capture by a single provider such as Palantir?”
“The original sin underpinning many of today’s digital harms is engagement-driven digital advertising. That is what incentivised the platforms to hook young people on infinite scrolling, as members of FlippGen explained to me when I met them on Monday. It is also what drives the “London is broken” misinformation that Sadiq Khan highlighted, and what rewards the fabricated clickbait AI Auschwitz images called out by the Auschwitz Museum. Will the Secretary of State take steps to regulate digital advertising, as the Committee called for in its report published almost a year ago?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition, who is no longer in her place, said that 1.5 million extra people were on universal credit. She will know that this is a deeply misleading number, because it is largely a consequence of the transition from legacy systems to universal credit—her background is in IT, so she should know how it works. In fact, more people are in work now than under the Tories, so given—”
“I applaud the Government’s move to use the £400 billion of public procurement—almost one eighth of British GDP—in the interests of the British people and the British economy. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has often heard that a Government contract is worth more than a Government grant to the start-ups and spin-outs that are so important to our economy. Will the Minister confirm that this approach will be joined up with our strategy for sovereign capability, so that we do not find ourselves once again in the position where the Ministry of Defence awards a contract without competition to a large US artificial intelligence company, as happened with Palantir, when there are UK companies that are desperate for that kind of investment?”
“The failure was time consuming for Members, but more importantly it reduced confidence in the democratic process.”
“Then we can decide as parents and policymakers where we want to erect barriers, mitigate harmful impacts or extend beneficial impacts in order to optimise the physical and mental wellbeing of our children. We must ensure that the digital childhood supports development rather than undermines it. I look forward to hearing the evidence and the questions from Members today.”
“A key focus of our inquiry is the short, medium and long-term effects on brain and eye development. We will explore neurological and hormonal processes, including the role of dopamine releases and potential links to behavioural conditions. We will also look at the indirect effects on sleep and vision and the impact on eye development. We want to hear from those at the heart of this—the children and adolescents themselves. Their views on their own digital lives are vital to our understanding. We also want to hear from experts, particularly experts in every stage of brain development. The ultimate goal of the Committee is to ensure that policymakers and parents have a better understanding of the evidence on the impact of digital devices on childhood.”
“Our aim is to understand how digital devices influence brain development in children and adolescents. We will examine the resulting impact on physical health and mental wellbeing, behaviour and educational attainment. We will assess how the impacts vary based on individual characteristics, including age, sex, socioeconomic background and ethnicity. In our inquiry we will distinguish between active and passive engagement. Is there a neurological difference between a child playing a game and a child passively scrolling through an algorithmically driven auto-playing video infinite feed? We will look across activities—gaming, social media, television and messaging—and across various devices, whether they are hand-held, wearable or fixed technologies.”
“Governments worldwide are currently debating social media and phone bans for children. In December last year Australia banned social media for under-16s. France looks likely to follow suit with votes for an under-15s ban clearing the French Senate in March. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Canada all have similar proposals under way, and the UK Government are consulting on various protective measures, yet there is a gap in our collective knowledge. Although there is lots of evidence on how much time young people spend on digital devices, we have far too little evidence on how the devices affect children’s development. We also lack clarity on the different impacts of different types of exposure, from social media apps to screen time more generally. Our objective is to map the existing evidence and, crucially, identify where the gaps lie.”