Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Sarah Jones and Rachel Taylor

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I agree with her. This is the culmination of a lot of good work in the Lords and the Commons, from Members of all parties. MPs have pushed as hard as we can on this emerging technology, which is so dangerous and so high risk, and we have a Government who are committed to acting and doing the right thing. Everybody has worked really hard, together, to get us to a much stronger place. The power allowing courts to require the deletion of intimate images will also be available for the offence of breastfeeding voyeurism recording, and the new offence of sharing semen-defaced images.

Online platforms need to do more to ensure that non-consensual intimate images are removed quickly, as my hon. Friend said, and not after the 24-hour timeframe envisioned by Lords amendment 256. To that end, amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendments 256 and 257 strengthens platform and senior executive accountability by making it a criminal offence for a service to breach an enforcement decision by Ofcom on duties to deal with and remove reported non-consensual intimate images. That means that senior executives of the service could be criminally liable for the breach. As well as taking this enforcement approach, the Government are also strengthening safeguards against malicious reporting. We will also bring forward regulations under existing powers in the Online Safety Act to amend schedule 8, so that Ofcom can require providers to be fully transparent about both the speed of intimate image removals, and how clearly and effectively platforms enable users to report such content.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

These provisions are so important. The main thing that witnesses who came before the Women and Equalities Committee said, when talking about the impact of non-consensual intimate image abuse, was that the harm grew and grew, the longer the images stayed online. This measure is vital, and I thank the Government for listening to the Committee’s important work.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend, and pay tribute to the Women and Equalities Committee and its work. As I said, this has been a journey, and a lot of Members from both Houses have played a really important role. Ministers in the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Home Office have been listening very carefully to what MPs have been advising. I am very pleased that we were able to respond.

In addition to bringing in the take-down duty, we will give statutory backing to a register of non-consensual intimate images. Amendments (a) and (d) in lieu of Lords amendments 259 and 260 will enable the Government to designate a trusted flagger, most likely the revenge porn helpline. That will give Government backing to a trusted source of NCII content that can be used by platforms and internet service providers to identify those images. The amendments will also enable the Government to make further provisions, by regulations, on the operation of the register, following a scoping exercise. Those provisions include provision for the Secretary of State to impose requirements on providers to share hashes, and other information deemed necessary, with the register. Hashes, for the benefit of the House, are unique codes used to mark non-consensual intimate images. The scoping exercise will allow us to evaluate the technical requirements, so that we can ensure that the register can be used by victims, platforms and internet service providers to remove or block NCII content. As Lords amendment 260 recognised, proceeding by regulations will enable us to properly evaluate the requirements necessary to ensure that the register operates as effectively as possible.

Turning to two more amendments from Baroness Bertin, Lords amendments 263 and 265, I think we in this place all share her determination to stop the spread of dangerous, demeaning and illegal pornographic content online. On Lords amendment 263, I completely agree that there is a need to curtail the depiction of step-incest pornography, in cases where what it portrays is illegal. The Government’s amendment in lieu will extend the new offence of possession and publication of incest porn to include depictions of step-incest where one of the persons is portrayed as being under 18. Additionally, amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendment 265 addresses the concerns raised by Lords amendment 265 by criminalising the possession or publication of pornography that depicts an adult credibly role-playing as a child. That makes it clear that content that mimics and risks normalising child sexual abuse will not be tolerated. But we will not stop there. As well as introducing those offences, the Government have committed to producing a delivery plan for how we can close the gap between the regulation of online and offline pornographic content. What is illegal offline should be illegal online.

Lords amendment 264 rightly raises concerns about how we best strengthen safeguards against the sexual exploitation of persons appearing on pornographic websites, an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft on Report. We agree with the principle and the need to address this issue, but further work is required across Government on considering what the most effective approach would be to strengthening arrangements to ensure that persons appearing in pornographic material are aged 18 and over, and consent to the material being shared online. Government amendments (a) to (f) in lieu of Lords amendment 264 place a duty on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the outcome of this work within 12 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, and introduce a power to make regulations giving effect to that outcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Jones and Rachel Taylor

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to support the automotive industry.

[The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)]

As we have already discussed, the automotive sector is absolutely vital to the Government’s plans for green economic growth, and for growing the economy more widely. That is why, at the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor committed to ensuring over £2 billion of capital and research and development funding before 2030 for zero emission vehicle manufacturing and its supply chains. We are also consulting the industry to make sure that the zero emissions transition works for the UK’s car industry, and working with the automotive transformation fund and the Advanced Propulsion Centre to make sure that we carry on innovating and seeing the growth of the automotive sector in the UK.

[Rachel Taylor]

Around 3,000 of my constituents in North Warwickshire and Bedworth work in the automotive sector. I have met representatives of many small and medium-sized businesses that provide engineering and manufacturing services for the sector, as well as Jaguar Land Rover, which has a battery assembly centre in my constituency. A career in the automotive industry should be an attractive prospect to many young people in my constituency. What is the Minister doing to support the sector in upskilling its workforce and providing apprenticeship schemes, so that companies are not left relying on immigration to fill skills gaps?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. There is a lot of work under way to look at skills across the board, because thus far no Government have had a proper strategy on the skills that we need, and on how we make sure that we train our own people, so that we do not have to rely on immigration. There are examples in the automotive sector of absolutely brilliant apprenticeship schemes that other industries can learn from, and we are working with Skills England. I have regular meetings with colleagues in the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that we crack this nut and encourage people to go into good, well-paid jobs.