A bill which campaigners hoped would ban addictive smartphone algorithms aimed at young teenagers has been watered down after opposition to tougher measures from the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, and the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson.
The safer phones bill, a private member’s bill from Labour MP Josh MacAlister, will come to the Commons on Friday. It had heavyweight cross-party backing from MPs and a string of child protection charities but will now commit the government to researching the issue further rather than immediate change.
The government will accept the new proposal, the Guardian understands. Government sources suggested that MacAlister’s original bill would not have received ministers’ backing – and would probably have been talked out or whipped against.
They said more time was needed to research the impact of phones on teenagers and assess the evolving technologies that could restrict content developed by the phone companies themselves.
Kyle is understood to be opposed to any major bill which would be the equivalent of a second Online Safety Act, which some campaigners want.
A source close to Kyle said he was not in principle opposed to further government intervention on this specific issue but that work was at an early stage.
The original proposal would have forced social media companies to exclude young teens from algorithms to make content less addictive for under-16s – raising the age of internet adulthood from 13 to 16.
It would also have committed the government to a review of the sale of phones to teens and whether additional technological safeguards should be on phones sold to under-16s. Both measures have been removed from the final bill.
Another measure to ban mobile phones in schools had already been dropped after opposition by Phillipson, who is understood to believe schools should police themselves. One government source said they did not believe there should be criminal or civil penalties for phones being brought into school and it was unclear who would be liable for any breaches.
One MP who had backed MacAlister’s bill said there was frustration at the lack of government will on the issue. “It’s effectively seen as a side issue,” the MP said.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, is seen as an outlier in cabinet on the need to do more on addictive smartphone use – and had publicly backed MacAlister’s bill.
The new version of the private member’s bill will instruct the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, to look at the health impact of smartphone use – giving Streeting’s department some new oversight on the issue. Last year the then US surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, said social media should have smoking-style health warning labels.
MacAlister, the MP for Whitehaven and Workington, told the Guardian the bill was a first step in government taking the issue of addictive smartphone use seriously, rather than focusing just on harmful or illegal content.
“It will be the first meaningful step from a UK government to engage with the widespread impacts of excessive smartphone and social media use by children,” he said.
MacAlister will present his bill to the Commons on Friday, where MPs will debate it. If ministers then commit to take the new measures forward, as expected, MacAlister will not push the bill to a vote.
It will now say that the government must “publish a plan for research into the impact of use of social media on children” and ask the UK’s chief medical officers to prepare advice for parents on the use of smartphones and social media by children.
Polling suggests measures to limit their use by young people are extremely popular. More in Common found last month 74% wanted social media banned for under-16s.
