Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled the proposals, which would be in place by next spring and ban platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X. It follows a similar ban in Australia last year, which became the first country in the world to do so.

“It is clear action is needed to address the increasingly harmful and addictive nature of social media platforms,” said Ms Guy, Chair of the Assembly’s All-Party Group on Online Safety.

“Too many young people are being exposed to dangerous content online and a proper conversation about addressing that is long overdue. Alliance therefore welcomes that action is being taken. But it is important to recognise important questions remain unanswered at this stage.

“Campaigners have been clear social media restrictions that aren’t or can’t be properly enforced may do more harm than good, and so vague promises about a future enforcement strategy does little to inspire confidence.

“There is a risk blanket bans may push young people to other, even more dangerous parts of the internet, as well as cutting them off from important sources of learning, information and peer support.

“What steps has the UK Government planned to mitigate against those unintended consequences? Has consideration been given to a tiered package of restrictions, rather than the much blunter instrument of a blanket ban?

“Our focus should be on holding social media giants to account for their failure to stamp out the harmful content. If tech moguls aren’t meeting their obligations to keep users safe, nothing should be off the table in terms of the sanctions levied against them, including a total block on their operations in the UK.”