Prince Harry says that all children "deserve to feel safe".

The Duke of Sussex made a heartfelt plea to tech firms to prioritise the safety of children in an address at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday (10.11.26.)

Harry had been expected to deliver a joint speech alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, but she elected not to speak as she didn't feel "strong enough" to do so in the wake of her father Thomas Markle's arrest in Florida last week for the possession of child sex abuse images.

Referring to parents who had lost their kids to online harm, Harry - who has children Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, with Meghan - said: "I'm not here as an expert or a politician. I'm here as a father. My wife, as a mother.

"And together, as a couple who stand alongside parents like Sandra, Megan and Sewell - in New York, Los Angeles, Geneva and now Brussels. Parents who never imagined they would have a reason to be in rooms like this."

Harry hailed technology's problem-solving capabilities but questioned why matters become "complicated" when children's safety is at stake.

The 42-year-old royal, whose mother Princess Diana passed away in a Paris car crash in 1997 when he was just 12 years of age, said: "All children deserve to feel safe wherever they are. In a classroom. On a playground. At any time, no matter where they are.

"My approach to life, and to the value of it, has perhaps unsurprisingly always been about... preventing harm before it happens, rather than waiting for tragedy before deciding something must change."

Harry later took part in a panel discussion, where he described the addictive nature of social media as "brainwashing on an extraordinary scale".

He said: "Every time you look at your phone, just remember that there's a child out there that is looking at that phone 20, 30 times more, probably considering taking their life because they don't know how to escape."

In an emotional plea to social media bosses, the royal added: "Don't put anything in front of our children that you wouldn't put in front of your own children.

"I use that because the majority of these companies, they don't let their children on social media because they know the dangers. So why would you create something that you know is going to harm someone else's child?"

Harry concluded: "I will finish by saying that this whole mission has to be about safety by design. By the time that it's on the phone, in an app, in a kid's hands, it's already too late. We all know that."