Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, like everyone else, I am in favour of all the amendments in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, set out very powerfully and alarmingly the reality of what is happening online. I do not think that I need to go through all the amendments in detail—other noble Lords have done that very well—but I was very struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said about asking ourselves if this is the normal that we want to live in.

Do we want to allow content that makes child abuse appear acceptable? Surely not. Do we want to see websites trivialise and, indeed, promote incest as some form of entertainment? Surely not. Should we allow tools that enable the nudification of images, which are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls, and which, as we have heard, are being used in schools? Surely not. Instead, do we want to ensure that age and consent are clearly verified, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time? Yes, we do. Do we want to see a parity between what is prohibited offline and what is prohibited online? Surely yes.

That is what this group sets out to do. I hope that the Minister will accept all the amendments in this group to ensure that we have a new normal that we all want to see.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments. I will make two points that are additional to the powerful factors that have been addressed so far. First, I am very concerned to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, that the Government have not yet responded in full to her review. Can the Minister tell us why that is, given the importance of the subject, and when there will be a full response?

Secondly, although I support the objective of Amendment 314 to apply the same principles to material online as to material offline, I am very doubtful that the way the amendment seeks to achieve this is sensible. The amendment seeks to incorporate into the Bill the definition of “harmful material” found in Section 368E(3)(a) and Section 368E(3)(b) of the Communications Act 2003. However, those provisions refer simply to the decisions and criteria of the British Board of Film Classification without specifying the criteria applied by that body. The criteria that that body applies, as set out in its guidelines, are helpful, but they are not categorical. For example, the guidelines say:

“Exceptions are most likely in the following areas”,


and the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, helpfully set out the factors that they have regard to.

This is perfectly appropriate in the context of the BBFC, from whose decisions appeals are possible, because the context is the licensing of an R18 video, which, of course, can only be sold in a licensed sex shop. However, we are concerned here with criminal law, which needs to be defined with precision so that people know exactly what cannot be published online. Therefore, we need a revised Amendment 314, which I hope the Government will accept in principle, to set out in specific terms what Parliament is prohibiting online, such as material that depicts conduct in breach of the criminal law and material that depicts or appears to suggest non-consensual sexual conduct. There may well be other categories; let us set them out so that everybody knows what is prohibited online.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I was unable to speak at Second Reading about the amendments to which I have added my name. I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for her persistence in pursuing the issues that she raised about a year ago. I highlighted the problem of sexually explicit audio recordings during the debate on her Non-Consensual Sexually Explicit Images and Videos (Offences) Bill. I am therefore thankful that she has brought forward amendments to this Bill to address audio abuse. I too admire her tenacity. I fully support everything that she has said today.

I will speak specifically about audio abuse and those amendments. Although I commend the Government on strengthening the law relating to non-consensual recording of intimate images and film, I cannot understand why audio has been excluded. It appears as though the Government wish to wait for there to be a significant number of cases before taking action, but why wait? How many cases do we need? It should surely be enough to recognise that this abuse is already occurring and that it can easily escalate further. Intimate audio can easily be captured on mobile phones. We can clearly foresee the consequences of sharing such recordings and how they can be used to humiliate and intimidate, and cause alarm and distress, because voices are recognisable. As I indicated last year, the helpline that my charity, Muslim Women’s Network, runs has had cases, and the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, gave examples of cases, so how many more do we need?

We are perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to responding to new forms of abuse. Perhaps for once we can get ahead of the problem before audio abuse becomes widespread. I want to borrow a phrase from my noble friend Lady Kidron, who said we should lay the tracks ahead of the train—or something like that. Today, time and again we have heard that the Government need to be one step ahead. The question is why they do not want to be one step ahead on so many of the amendments we are talking about today. As legislation around image abuse tightens, perpetrators will inevitably look for other avenues through which they can control, threaten and shame victims. I therefore urge the Minister to address intimate audio recordings in this Bill.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Owen, which have been signed by noble Lords across the Committee. I welcome the Government’s Amendment 300 to extend the time limit for the sharing offence, which my noble friend’s amendments also seek to do.

My noble friend’s amendments on deletion, audio abuse, doxing, semen images and the definition of “taking” already aim to deal with activity that is, sadly, on the rise, and to recognise the real trauma that these activities cause the victims—trauma that sadly continues long after the initial offence. The technology around non-consensual images is very complicated, but we have some precedents where solutions have been found elsewhere. I am particularly interested to hear from the Minister on two issues: the 48-hour takedown, which we seen happen in the US, and the hash registry and hash sharing—I was grateful to my noble friend for setting out so clearly what they do. It strikes me as a bit chicken and egg here. The tech is there, but we need to demand progress in order to see progress.

Extending pre-existing domestic abuse protection orders would recognise another development that we are sadly witnessing, with perpetrators using the online world to further their abuse. Taking this opportunity to extend the scope of domestic protection orders will help stop this form of abuse and reflect the reality of the digital age that we are living in.

Technology is rapidly evolving, as we have heard in the example of audio abuse. It is a challenge to ensure that our legislation continues to be fit for purpose, but that is what these amendments seek to do, and in some cases to future-proof it as well. Non-consensual intimate images are an escalating harm. These amendments address critical operational gaps and work towards the systemic protection that we should have in this area.