Non-Consensual Sexually Explicit Images and Videos (Offences) Bill [HL]

Baroness Grender Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on bringing forward this Bill. It is timely, essential and urgent.

This new Government have committed to delivering this exact change to the law—

“banning the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes”—

as set out in their manifesto. I urge the Government to grab this opportunity and use this Bill as a vehicle for doing just that, because women cannot suffer a delay on this. A 2023 Security Hero study revealed that 98% of deepfakes are pornographic and that 99% of those deepfakes target women. This underscores the need for swift and urgent action. To fail to use this opportunity means more drivers of violence against women, greater legitimisation of the misogyny so rife today, and the horror of a whole generation growing up to be either victims, or perpetrators, without the full protection or understanding of the law.

I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for making this her first significant piece of work. As a newbie in the Lords in 2014, one of the first changes in the law that I, along with colleagues such as my noble friend Lord Marks, achieved was to make revenge porn an offence in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. At the time, the lawyers and advisers to Ministers urged caution, but we persisted. With many survivors of revenge porn watching from the Gallery, the Minister accepted our amendment. I regret our failure at that time to anticipate the inadequacy of the enforcement and delivery of that change in the law, which required further adjustment—for instance, in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

I ask that, as this Bill progresses, we pay particular attention to ensuring that enforcement plays a significant part in the Bill. This Bill attempts to proof against future changes in technology and abilities to find loopholes by using appropriate wording to capture the scope of issues, such as semen images, and the use of wording such as “otherwise capturing”, to anticipate what in this area is the greatest challenge: the time lag in lawmaking versus the breathtaking advance of technology.

I welcome and wholeheartedly support the new Government’s aims regarding the epidemic proportions of violence against women. With Jess Phillips in her role, as a powerful advocate in this area, I hope we can see this violence reduced. We have to take every opportunity presented to us, and work across Parliaments and across parties. I hope the Minister will examine this gift horse, put his department to work and make backing the passage of the Bill a Christmas gift to this House and to all women.