Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the Government's commitment in March 2026 to achieve regulatory parity for pornography, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the role of a statutory auditor to help ensure online platforms proactively remove violent and abusive content that fails to meet British Board of Film Classification offline standards.

The Government announced the joint pornography team as part of the VAWG strategy in December. In March, it committed to produce a delivery plan setting out how the government can most effectively close the gap between the regulation of online and offline pornographic content. This will test audit and reporting functions and will consider which regulatory frameworks can best address the issue, noting the interactions with the BBFC’s existing remit and that of Ofcom under the Online Safety Act.