The petition of residents of the constituency of Gower,
Declares that pornography use is fuelling sexual violence; violence against women is prolific in mainstream pornography; and sexual coercion is inherent to the commercial production of pornography.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to extend safeguards applied to pornography offline to pornography distributed online; and to legally require all pornography websites accessed from the UK to verify the age and permission of every individual featured on their platform – and give performers the right to withdraw their consent at any time to the continued publication of pornography in which they appear.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Tonia Antoniazzi, Official Report, 25 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 354.]
[P003135]
Petitions in the same terms were presented by the hon. Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) [P003138], the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) [P003139], the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) [P003142], the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) [P003144], the hon. Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid) [P003145], and the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) [P003147].
Observations from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips): The Government fully understand and share the public concerns about pornography and its potential impacts on crime and society. We are grateful to Baroness Bertin for carrying forward the independent pornography review, and for her report, which was published last year.
The IPR found that violent pornography is widely available and easily accessible online. Recommendations in the IPR suggest that Government should explore regulating certain pornographic content online, just as it is regulated in the offline world, as well as ensuring that companies that host pornographic content have processes in place to ensure that all performers are of age (18 plus) and are consenting adults.
The issues raised in the report are complex and challenging, and may be best dealt with alongside wider work to ensure we live in a safe and secure digital world, and to tackle violence, abuse and misogyny more generally.
There are already a wide range of laws in this area, from the Obscene Publications Act 1959 onwards, and specifically the Protection of Children Act 1978, which deals with indecent images and videos involving children and young people under the age of 18. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 introduced a new offence making it illegal to possess extreme pornographic images. The Online Safety Act 2023 created new offences of sharing and threatening to share intimate images, including deepfake pornography, without consent.
The Online Safety Act 2023 has strengthened the law in a number of areas—for example, in the area of age verification for access to adult content. This puts a range of new duties on companies in scope of the Act, making them responsible for users’ safety on their platforms. Under their illegal content safety duties, companies must put in place safety measures that mitigate and manage the risks identified in their illegal content risk assessment. This ensures that providers implement “safety by design” measures to mitigate a broad spectrum of factors that enable illegal activity on their platforms, reducing the risk of users carrying out illegal activity. They also need to take illegal content down when it does appear. These duties cover illegal pornographic content.
Companies in scope of the Act that provide user-to-user services must take action to prevent access to the most harmful content. This includes pornography. Companies have a duty to use highly effective age assurance to prevent all children under 18 from accessing this content. Additionally, services are required to protect children from other harmful content including violence and abuse, providing age-appropriate experiences for this. The Government are committed to implementing the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to ensure that UK users, particularly children, benefit from its wide-ranging protections.
The Government are already committed to strengthening the law still further around specific issues—specifically, to banning nudification apps and other tools principally designed to create synthetic non-consensual intimate images. Through this legislation, we will target the individuals and companies who design and supply these tools, who can make vast profits from the distress and victimisation of others, often women and girls. We will legislate to ban nudification apps and related tools as soon as parliamentary time allows. Beyond the nudification offence, Government have legislated to create a new offence that criminalises the creation of non-consensual intimate images of adults, and will urgently be bringing the offence into force. The Government have also announced that this offence will be a priority offence under the Online Safety Act.
Beyond this, the Government will need to consider carefully whether further changes may be needed to address any potential gaps and weaknesses in our laws. We are grateful to the petitioners for raising a number of potentially valuable proposals. We will need to consider carefully the legal and practical implications of these, including around enforcement and practical impacts.
“Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-Government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls” was published on 18 December last year, and sets out the Government’s overall approach to these wider issues.
We must stop violence before it starts, by focusing on prevention and tackling the root causes of radicalisation of perpetrators. We will focus on boys and young men, working with schools to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships. We will also support parents and teachers to intervene early, and we will make Britain the hardest place for children to access harmful content online. We will relentlessly pursue perpetrators of violence and abuse, using the best cutting-edge technology at our disposal to improve the police response to these crimes, and we will provide support for victims and survivors to recover, and to live free from abuse, through a whole-of-Government approach, so that victims can access housing, health, justice and the support that they need.
Within this, the Government intend to create a joint team, across the Home Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Ministry of Justice and Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to inform the Government response to the IPR recommendations. As part of this, the Government will consider carefully the specific issues raised by these petitions.