Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when his Department expects to publish the review of pornography regulation announced in the House of Lords on 10 December 2025.

On 9 December 2025, during the House of Lords Committee Stage debate on the Crime and Policing Bill, the Government announced that it would accept, in part, one of the recommendations from Baroness Bertin’s Independent Review on Pornography, namely recommendation 24 which says:

‘The current criminal justice response is ineffective in tackling illegal pornography online. Government should conduct its own legislative review of this regime to ensure that legislation and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance is fit-for-purpose in tackling illegal pornography in the online world.’

The Government will be reviewing the criminal law relating to pornography, which will give an opportunity to look at the criminal law in this area holistically and consider whether it is fit for purpose in an ever-developing online world. We have accepted in part because the Government cannot accept the recommendation to review CPS guidance. As the CPS is independent, whether to conduct a review of guidance would be a matter for them to decide.

The review will be conducted by the Ministry of Justice. As the review is focused on the criminal law on pornography, it will not appraise the effectiveness of age-verification, age-assurance methods or regulation, which are outside of the scope of the criminal legislation the Ministry of Justice will be reviewing. A Joint Team has been set up, across the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to rigorously examine the evidence to address the issues from the Pornography Review. It will examine the evidence to inform the Government’s approach to pornography policy.