Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Easton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kanishka Narayan]

May I first pay tribute to my hon. Friend—and indeed her cats Clement Cattlee and Mo Meowlam—for being right at the vanguard of campaigning on this serious issue. Animal cruelty is a priority offence in the law, as I mentioned, and Ofcom must enforce it and platforms must act on it. The Government will keep the pressure on, as we have done in our engagements with the platforms, to ensure that our cats—our animals—are safe from cruelty.

[Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)]

Can the Government do more to ensure proactive detection of this vile material, such as by using artificial intelligence tools and human moderators with specialist training in animal cruelty, so that such content is swiftly identified and removed, and put robust measures in place to prevent it from reappearing online?

[Kanishka Narayan]

I thank the hon. Member for an apt question on this theme. As I mentioned, animal cruelty is a priority offence under the law. Platforms must take proactive steps, including to assess risk before it pertains and to remove content where it clearly falls foul of the law. The Government will keep making sure that enforcement through the regulator and via platforms continues at pace.