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YouTube: Safety

Asked by Charlie DewhirstConservativeDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled Answered 15 June 2026UIN 8761

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer to Question 745 on YouTube: Safety, whether her Department sought advice from (a) the expert panel for Growing up in an Online World and (b) other experts before excluding YouTube from the s online safety and age assurance pilot programmes.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan

In February, to assist in designing the Growing up in an Online World pilots, the Department sought advice from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. To provide advice, Dame Angela Mclean convened a roundtable of experts from both inside and outside government to offer guidance on the study of policy interventions on social media. That roundtable did not, however, offer advice on precisely which platforms to include in the pilots. The Expert Panel set up alongside the consultation had not, at that time, been established.

The exclusion of a platform from the pilot should not be taken as that platform being excluded from a future policy intervention.

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