The government is to introduce a statutory ban on phones in schools in England, after the issue held up the passage of its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told the House of Lords on Monday that the government would introduce an amendment to the bill creating a “clear legal requirement” around phones.

The move will give “legal force to what schools are already doing in practice”, the Department for Education said.

The DfE currently advises headteachers to disallow students’ phone use on school grounds, and a recent survey of 15,000 schools found that the vast majority already had restrictions in place.

The study commissioned by children’s commissioner for England Rachel de Souza found that 99.8 percent of primary schools and 90 percent of secondary schools had some form of ban.

On Monday evening, peers approved a Conservative amendment to the bill to ban students’ mobile phones throughout the school day, by a majority of 107.

MPs are to vote on the government amendment on Wednesday.

“We’ve listened to concerns about how we support headteachers in delivering on this policy and we have listened to Parliament,” said skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT headteachers’ union, said statutory guidance would “give school leaders the clarity they need to implement a ban, and will remove any ambiguity or differences between how schools approach smartphone policies”.

Peers have also supported an amendment to the bill that would ban social media for young people, but the government has opted instead to carry out a consultation on the question.