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Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Friday the 7th of March, some MPs felt a bill expected to protect children from smartphone harms

wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

The Public Gallery of the Commons was full of campaigners who want to ban on smartphones

in schools and to outlaw the algorithms that make social media addictive. But if they hope the

bill they'd come to hear debated would do that, they were about to be disappointed, as was

the Conservative Kit Malt House. I'm afraid, sadly today, I will be speaking not to celebrate progress,

but to lament the gutting of what could have been a landmark bill.

When the Labour MP and former teacher Josh McAllister first proposed the bill last autumn,

he championed the ban and raising the age of digital consent from 13 to 16.

But the bill is now revealed to contain none of that and calls for more research and guidance

instead. But he was clear there was a real problem to tackle.

Children's excessive screen time and unhealthy social media use is fueling family disputes, childhood unhappiness

and parental concern the length and breadth of our country. He said it was now time to act. A conservative

Rebecca Paul declared an interest as the mother of three children. No longer are our children clamouring to go out and play or see their friends.

Instead, they want to do everything through a screen.

They want to watch endless YouTube videos.

Yes.

I never realise the unpacking of a toy or a slime-making video could hold such interest.

It seems they take their joy in watching others do things

online instead of actually doing them in the real world. Another conservative Sir Ashley Fox feared

...