Category: Technology

The statement made by Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on 15 June 2026.

Madam Deputy Speaker, today marks a defining moment for our children, and future generations.

As we lay the foundations for a new settlement for the online world.

To ensure children have the best start in life.

To give them freedom to be children again.

And so we put power back into parents’ hands.

Up and down the country parents are grappling with social media.

What their children are seeing. How much screen time they should have. Who they are communicating with. And if they are safe.

Many children love connecting and interacting on social media. But others struggle with their mental health, concentration and self-esteem.

And the police, children’s charities and far too many tragically bereaved families have seen for themselves the serious risks and harm social media brings.

While these concerns are widely shared, there are different, often strongly held views about the best way forward.

That is why we launched our consultation on growing up in the online world, to make sure everyone’s voices were heard.

The response has been overwhelming.

We’ve had 116,000 replies. Including 54,000 from parents and 14,000 from children.

We’ve heard from charities, teachers’ organisations, the police and medical professionals.

And from countless members of Parliament too.

Not only the Science and Technology and Education Select Committees, but individual Members including the Hon Members for Plymouth Moor View, Croydon East, Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline and Dollar and so, so many more besides.

The progress report we publish today sets out lots of different perspectives.

But overwhelmingly our consultation showed parents and children are concerned about what they’re being exposed to online.

Harmful content. Content that is completely inappropriate for their age. Abuse and exploitation. They are worried about the impact on sleep, school, children’s physical health, and their emotional wellbeing too. 

Above all, parents are crying out for change.

9 out of 10 who responded to the consultation told us they want an outright ban on social media.

As did three quarters in our large-scale representative survey and 113,000 parents who signed Daisy and Joe’s Smartphone Free Childhood petition.

Keeping children safe online has been my top priority since day one in this job.

I’ve listened to calls, especially from bereaved families, that we need to act as quickly as possible.

So today I can announce our first steps, with more to come next month.

And I can confirm, we will ban social media companies providing their services to under 16s.

And we are doing this to give greater protections to children.

Greater clarity for parents and carers.

And to set a new social norm for future generations.

My intention is to lay regulations on a ban, and have a vote on it, by the end of this year.

With the ban coming into effect early 2027.

We plan to use the same model as Australia, covering:

User-to-user platforms that allow users to post material, alongside algorithms.

So our ban will include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.

Because we want to make sure we don’t include educational services, e-commerce platforms or music streaming, there will be a narrowly defined list of exemptions. Which we will of course keep under review.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I have also listened to parents to civil society and to many MPs in this House, including the Members for Putney, Lowestoft, Congleton, and Newcastle upon Tyne about the need to go further.

So I can today announce our first steps in restricting a wider range of features and functions that create risks for young people.

Because it can open the door to vile child abuse, we will ban livestreaming for under 16s across all platforms.

And we will ban communication with strangers, including in gaming, to stop paedophiles meeting and grooming children.

And Madam Deputy Speaker we are not stopping there.

AI chatbots are a top concern of parents who responded to our consultation, particularly those that mimic intimate relationships and exploit vulnerabilities.

The Children’s Commissioner, and my Hon Friends the Members for Aylesbury and Milton Keynes Central, have also raised this issue.

So today Britain is becoming the first country in the world to ban chatbots that offer sexualised content to under 18s.

And we will restrict this functionality on general purpose chatbots too.

We know there are also really serious concerns about other AI chatbots, like therapy apps.

But I recognise that some of these may have benefits, so I am working closely with the Department of Health, and others, to assess the evidence.

And I will come back to the House on this issue – and wider measures on AI chatbots – in a further statement next month.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we also want to address concerns about a “cliff edge” when you turn 16 – an age when many young people should be especially focused on their futures, and on exams.

So I can today announce live streaming, and stranger communication including in gaming, will be switched off by default for 16- and 17-year-olds.

I am also strongly minded to bring in default overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for 16- and 17-year-olds.

And I will set out further details once our pilot schemes are finished in my next statement in July.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that not everybody supports a ban.

I have listened carefully to these concerns and want to take each in turn.

First, we’ve seen in Australia that many children will try and succeed in getting around a ban. That is inevitable when social media has been such an integral part of their lives.

So we will introduce more highly effective age assurance measures to better support compliance, and I have asked Ofcom to share proposals on these within months.

However, I want to be clear to parents, and to members of this House, that our ban is as much about helping future generations and resetting social norms in future, as it is about young people today.

Second, people worry that a ban would push children onto riskier, less regulated sites.

This is something I really take extremely seriously.

So I have had a long conversation with and written to Ofcom and the new chair to stress, once again, that enforcement of both the Online Safety Act and our new ban must be a top priority.

That they must focus rigorously on this, including riskier sites.

And to ask for an urgent review of whether Ofcom has the right capabilities in place.

I have also asked them to publish a clear enforcement strategy and an annual report to Parliament on how this strategy is progressing.

Third, we must prepare children for the online world, which will inevitably be part of their lives.

Now many schools are already doing this.

But from September this year, every pupil across England will learn about social media in the classroom, including about AI and how to spot deepfakes.

My department has also produced new advice for parents on how to talk to children about the online world called “you won’t know if you don’t ask”.  So schools and parents together, preparing children for the future.

And last but by no means least, the NSPCC – and the Hon Members for Kettering, Hertford and Stortford and North West Cambridgeshire – have rightly raised the importance of ensuring all young people can access information, trusted support and exciting activities, especially if they’re no longer spending so much time online.

And we are delivering on this too.

The Education Secretary and Culture Secretary are expanding what’s on offer in every school and beyond the classroom, including in after school clubs, in the holidays and at weekends by support for a wide range of enrichment activities like art, music, sport, cooking, camping and museum visits.

Things that were once only available for those who could afford them. Now for every pupil in England.

And in stark contrast to Members opposite, who cut youth services by 75% we are investing £500m in our National Youth Strategy – “Youth Matters” – so children from all walks of life, wherever they live, can access youth services, sport and the arts.

Madam Deputy speaker, my driving force, the reason I came into politics, has always been, and will always be, to give every child, from every background, the best possible start in life.

Because that’s how they and our country succeed.

Today we take a decisive step towards creating a safer, healthier life for our children and future generations.

Giving children their childhood back.

I am clear eyed about all the challenges social media brings – for adults as well as for children – and that technology constantly changes.

So today’s announcement is not “one and done”, or the end of the story.

There is still much more to do.

But this is a landmark day.

A day when we stand with parents, charities, bereaved families and all those who have campaigned for change.

This is your moment.

It is a day when we take power away from the tech giants – who have had countless opportunities to keep children safe and put it in back in parents’ hands.

A day when we give our children the freedom to be children again.

So they have the best possible start in life.

And I commend this statement to the House.

The comments made by Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, on 15 June 2026.

Today we take a bold and significant step, towards creating a safer, healthier life online, for our children and future generations. 

Tech companies have had countless opportunities to keep children safe, yet they have failed to act. That is why we are a taking power away from the tech giants and putting it back in parents’ hands. 

My driving force has always been to give every child, from every background, the best possible start in life. That is what these regulations will deliver.

The speech made by Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on 9 June 2026.

I want to talk about a great British success story.  

It’s a story of British talent, British ingenuity, British enterprise, and ambition.  

A story with one central theme: that this country is uniquely placed to thrive and prosper in the age of AI, to seize the incredible opportunities, and face the challenges that this powerful technology brings. 

And today, together, we are writing Britain’s next chapter on winning the race for our future.  

Winning for Britain and the British people.

With the talent in this room and with a Labour Government that knows our best days lie ahead. 

I don’t need to tell you about the huge opportunities AI brings. 

Faster research, new treatments, and even cures for diseases. A transformation in our productivity, breakthroughs in clean energy, and so much more besides.  

And the speed of change is dizzying. 

In the last seven years AI models have gone from completing tasks toddlers can do to surpassing PhD level intelligence, with some model capabilities now doubling every four months.

The potential for discovery, innovation and wealth creation can be intoxicating. But we also know AI brings real challenges and risks.  

For our defence and national security, for people’s jobs and livelihoods, and inequality. 

And, through the power of social media and the spread of mis- and disinformation, risks for our democracy too. 

Dealing with these risks can seem daunting, even overwhelming, leading to some to say: enough – pull up the drawbridge. Stop AI. 

But my view – from my time in politics and the lessons we learn from history – is that we are not powerless in the face of technological change.  

We have agency.  We can act.  After all, that is what politics and government are for. 

We cannot – and must not – retreat from progress as other political parties and politicians argue. 

Doing so would be a betrayal of British talent, and British interests.  

And it wouldn’t work even if we tried. 

Because the choice isn’t between having AI or not.  

The choice is between shaping AI according to our interests and values, so it works for everyone in this country, or being left at its mercy and whim.     

This government’s choice is clear.   

We will seize the opportunities and tackle the challenges AI inevitably brings, so we shape this powerful technology to work for all.  

I believe Britain is in a better position than almost any other country to reap the rewards of AI and make it work for our people. 

Because our huge strengths give us vital skin in the game.  

Our universities are the envy of the world.  We have won more Nobel prizes per capita than any other major economy. A superb talent pool – much of which is right here in this room today. 

An amazing, thriving tech ecosystem. 

Our pragmatic, not dogmatic, approach to regulation.    

A deep well of high-quality data, and our world-leading organisations like the AI Security Institute.  

All of these alongside Britain’s long-held strengths – the world’s language, the rule of law, our stability and unwavering belief in Parliamentary democracy.   

I’m clearly not the only one who sees this incredible potential. 

Last year, Britain attracted more venture capital than France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland combined.   

And already this year, almost half of all VC funding in Europe has been invested in Britain – a 16-year high.  

Just look at the incredible companies backing Britain and growing in Britain.   

DeepMind, Anthropic, Open AI – all expanding or opening offices here. Isomorphic Labs: using AI to completely reshape medical research, cutting years off the development of new drugs – bringing hope to families everywhere.  

Ineffable: the new AI superintelligence company, founded by David Silver, which has just raised $1.1 billion in funding – the largest seed round in European history.   

And Wayve: a home-grown British success story that, in under a decade, has gone from two PhD students, driving around Cambridge with a camera on the roof, to a global tech titan, valued at £6.6 billion.  

Well done, Mr Kendall. 

And our strengths aren’t just here in London. Far from it.  

They’re in Liverpool, where I visited last week to see how AI is transforming materials chemistry; taking months off testing times for new consumer products used in millions of homes across the country.   

Newcastle – the home of Sage, one of the largest tech firms in the country. 

In Cardiff, where Space Forge is revolutionising in-space manufacturing. 

Edinburgh – home of one of the UK’s largest semiconductor clusters and the Edinburgh Parallel Computer Centre. 

And they are in Bristol, home of semiconductor innovator Graphcore and our Isambard supercomputer. 

Great British AI enterprise and skill, driving innovation and growth right across the land. 

Britmaxxing AI industrial policy.

But I’m not resting on our laurels. And I bet you aren’t either. 

The white heat of fierce AI competition combined with the lightning speed of change means we must go further and faster to turbo charge our existing strengths and reap the benefits throughout our economy. 

Yesterday, at our AI adoption summit, I set out the government’s plans to make Britain the fastest AI adopting country in the G7 through a partnership with businesses and workers, backed by an initial government investment of over £200m. 

Today I want to talk about how we double down on our AI strengths and win the race for Britain, with the next generation of Brit boosting, Brit maxxing, modern industrial policy. 

When I describe this government’s approach, I often make the comparison with the Olympics.  

For those of you old enough to remember, we went from a shameful 36th place in the medals table in Atlanta, in 1992, to second, behind only the US, two decades later. 

We took what some call a ‘no compromise’ approach. Giving the most resources to our best performing sports, building the best teams, backing our best chances.  

I think there is a lot we can learn from this for UK innovation. 

If we want gold medal AI, we have to be strategic and lean into our priorities where we have a competitive edge.   

That’s why earlier this year, I announced we will make a decisive shift towards backing more British AI companies, especially in the areas where we have real strengths – like life sciences, AI hardware and new approaches to foundational models.  

This shift is critical for two main reasons. 

First, we must reap more of the economic benefits AI brings right here in the UK.   

So we demonstrate AI isn’t just for a powerful few but brings real, tangible improvements for British jobs, livelihoods and opportunities. 

And second, when AI is the engine of economic power and hard power, and when 70% of global AI compute is now controlled by just 5 companies, we must gain greater sovereign control over this increasingly powerful technology. 

For Britain, AI sovereignty isn’t about isolationism or attempting to go it alone.  

It’s about building the best as well as using the best.   

So we increase Britain’s leverage by being a keystone in the global tech architecture. An indispensable partner.  

At the heart of our plans is Sovereign AI, which we launched in April – a major step which I believe will be one of the single most important things this government does to build a better future for our country. 

SovAI is different from anything government has done before: harnessing the speed of venture, backed by the weight of the nation. 

It will invest £500m in British AI companies to start up, scale up and win globally 

And – crucially – it will offer the key to unlocking much wider government support where it can make a real difference. 

Providing fully funded access to the UK’s largest super computers, fast tracking global talent, with super priority visa decisions and free visas for R&D.

Working seamlessly with the British Business Bank and its £2bn annual investment to take companies to the next stage. 

And mobilising the huge power and potential of government procurement to back the best of Britain.  

The interest in SovAI has been overwhelming and they’ve already made direct investments in brilliant companies like Callosum, Ineffable and Isomophic labs.  

I want to thank James, Suzanne, Josephine and the entire team for all their amazing work. I have no doubt this is just the start of what they will achieve – and they’ll have my full backing every step of the way. 

And we are not stopping there. 

Yesterday we published our new AI Hardware Plan – which I promised just a month ago. 

One of the areas where we have a genuine advantage on the world stage is in semiconductors, and chip design.   

Right now the global AI chips market is growing at an annual rate of 30% and expected to reach $1 trillion in the early 2030s.   

If Britain could secure just 5% of this market it would bring $50 billion in revenue to the UK with tens of thousands of high paid jobs in tech.   

There are those who say this race is already lost. That it is too late to challenge the dominance of the established players.   

I don’t know if it’s due to my inherent competitiveness, but I do not accept such defeatism.   

We have a rich history of excelling at hardware.   

The first programmable computer. The first electronic memory.  

The first commercial computer, first parallel computer and the first widely used chip IP model all happened right here in the UK.   

Today, a single British company – Arm – is behind the most widely used processor design on Earth.   

In almost every smartphone, tablet and in more and more AI servers all over the world.    

It has also just become the UK’s most valuable company, by market cap.  

And AI compute is rapidly diversifying, with different hardware needed for different tasks.  

This shift provides real openings for new entrants and specialist hardware that couldn’t have been predicted, even a few years ago.   

And it is already happening. 

Just weeks ago, British chip company Fractile announced their latest $220 million dollar funding round.   

Following Olix – another brilliant UK chip start-up – with their own $220 million dollar round. 

That’s nearly half a billion dollars flowing into UK chip companies in the space of just a few months.  

The next generation of AI hardware is being built here in Britain.    

So yes, this a competitive market. But we are a competitive nation.   

And winning this race is what our new hardware plan is all about.   

 The plan brings together £1.1 billion of government support for companies in four key areas.  

First: invention and early-stage chip development.  

That is why our new £120m AI Hardware Innovation Programme, delivered by UKRI, will back teams at every stage – helping them move from initial concept to a full, validated prototype, and then on to contracts.  

This includes an additional £20m for our Scaling Inference Lab, near Cambridge, run by ARIA and Common AI, so companies can test new chip designs in a real‑world setting. That’s £70m in total. 

Just yesterday, Oriole – a brilliant British AI company – announced it is working with the lab to deploy pioneering photonics technology to supercharge the speed of AI data centres, together with one of the largest chip companies in the world – AMD.  

A fantastic project. And proof of why this matters. 

Second, we are investing £80m in the skills the semiconductor industry needs including more funding for PhD-level studies and bursaries for students in fields like electronic engineering and materials science.      

We’re funding 300 this year, rising to 400 next year and 500 the year after, to give our top companies the talent pipeline they need.   

Third, our new plan on procurement. 

We will build a £750m mixed chip supercomputer.  

Over half of this funding will be earmarked for inference chips. 

£150m in an expanded Advanced Market Commitment to give start-ups the confidence they will have a buyer, with the government acting as a “first customer”.  

A further £250 million will buy additional novel inference chips once the most successful versions have reached the market. 

A total of £400m for the chip champions of tomorrow: a fantastic opportunity for all the brilliant AI hardware companies right here in the UK.  

And last, but by no means least, I’m absolutely delighted that one of the best AI hardware investors in the world – Playground Global – is launching a new fund that will invest in British AI hardware companies. 

And that the British Business Bank is contributing £150m – the biggest commitment it has ever made.    

The team at Playground are setting up a new office here in the UK – their first outside the US.   

Pat Gelsinger – one of their partners, the former CEO of Intel, and author of the US government’s CHIPS ACT – knows a thing or two about hardware investing … and his backing is further testament to the incredible talent and potential in the UK.       

This is what we mean by winning for Britain on AI. 

Capitalising on our strengths. Backing the best of Britain. 

Combining the talent, innovation and ambition in this room with the power of an active, more muscular state. 

I want to finish by saying this. 

Back in the 70s, when Britain’s old industrial base was crumbling, the Callaghan government invested £50m in a high risk semi conductor start-up, Inmos.  

Headquartered in Bristol, and manufactured in Newport, South Wales.  

That bold move sparked not just a company but an industry, and it has led to many of our strengths today. To Graphcore and Isambard in Bristol, to Wales’s amazing semiconductor cluster.  

And lest we forget, one team of Inmos alumni went on to help build what is now Britain’s most valuable company … ARM. 

So for the all the doubters, doom-mongers and naysayers out there … let me say this loud and clear.  

Labour governments have done this before and we will do it again. 

We will seize the opportunities and tackle the challenges AI inevitably brings. 

By shaping the future, not retreating from it. 

And by securing the benefits of AI for all, not just a powerful few. 

This is the story of national success we can and will write together.    

Building a modern Britain for a modern age.    

And a future that works for all.    

Thank you.