Liz Kendall has been lambasted for Labour’s “inability to deport illegal migrants” as she announced the Government’s latest tech crackdown in the House of Commons.
Speaking to MPs, Julia Lopez took aim the Technology Secretary’s vow to “protect women and girls” by criminalising the creation of non-consensual intimate images.
Amid threats to ban Elon Musk’s X app over its Grok controversy, Ms Kendall announced a major crackdown on AI-generated sexual images, making it a criminal offence from “this week”.
However, she added that “platforms that host such material must be held accountable, including X”.
Ms Kendall said: “This new criminal offence will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual, intimate images, targeting the problem at its source.
“And in addition to all of these actions, we expect technology companies to introduce the steps recommended by Ofcom’s guidance on how to make platforms safer for women and girls without delay. If they do not, I am prepared to go further.”
She added: “It’s about upholding basic British values of decency and respect and ensuring the standards we expect offline are upheld online.
“And it is about exercising our sovereign power and responsibility to uphold the laws of this land.”
Shadow Technology Secretary Julia Lopez challenged Liz Kendall’s crackdown on AI-generated sexual images
|
PARLIAMENT TV
Challenging Ms Kendall’s statement, Ms Lopez hit back: “The Tech Secretary has said this Government is as determined to ensure women and girls are safe online as we are to ensure they are safe in the real world.
“To this end, will she be ensuring the Government enforces against itself for its failure to advance the rape gang inquiry, its failure to stop puberty blocking trials, its failure to implement guidance on single sex spaces, and its inability to deport illegal migrants who have committed sex offences?”
She continued: “For while this Government rightly worries about the online sphere and we support them, there is plenty to be getting on with in the real world.”
Criticising the ability to generate such AI images, Ms Lopez declared that it is “disturbing” and “wrong”.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall was setting out her statement in the House of Commons
|
PARLIAMENT TV
She told MPs: “For a law to deter. I accept the enforcement threat must be credible, but its use must also be proportionate. Notwithstanding the soft backpedaling of the Secretary of State today, the Government’s appendage swinging over the weekend was extremely serious.
“Ministers mooted as an urgent remedy the banning of a site of 21 million monthly users in this country, despite another minister guffawing that banning X was conspiracy theory number 3627. Since its invention, the internet and social media have been misused, often criminally, by people traffickers, paedophiles, fraudsters, the gutter dwellers of our society. Nobody is on their side.
“But Government has never before proposed a wholesale block TikTok, Google or Facebook for the frequent and often flagrant misuse of their sites. It is an extraordinarily serious move against a platform that can be used for good, for uncovering scandals, sparking democratic revolution and allowing day to day the free exchange of ideas, including ideas we don’t like.”
She added: “This episode poses legitimate questions about who holds power in the internet age. Many worry about the accrued influence, the accrued influence of big tech titans, myself included. But they worry too about the power of Government to divert hide and duck accountability. They worry about this Government.
Ms Lopez told the House of Commons that there could be ‘geopolitical consequences’
|
PARLIAMENT TV
“The uncomfortable truth for all of us is that some of this imagery sits in a legal grey area. What Grok produced at scale in 2026 is a modern day iteration of an old problem. From crude drawings to Photoshop, Grok is not the only tool capable of generating false or offensive imagery, and not all of this content will cross the threshold into illegality.”
Directly calling out Ms Kendall, Ms Lopez asked: “Plenty of it is sick, degrading, morally repugnant, but it does not cross the criminal threshold. What, then, is the Secretary of State proposing to do about the difficult enforcement choices that a regulator or police force must make?
“Because the risk is that with finite resource in a highly politically sensitive environment, regulators could be diverted from pursuing the most abhorrent and dangerous crimes. Further, if we wish to mitigate the risk to children, one simple intervention may help stop from sharing their own image too freely. That’s raising the digital age of consent for social media to 16.”
Noting there are possible consequences for Labour based in America, she argued: “Does the Secretary of State know that there are geopolitical consequences to her rhetoric? Figures close to President Trump have already threatened sanctions.
“Has the Secretary of State engaged with the US Government? Has she been advised on the nature of any retaliation were the UK Government to block X? The US-UK tech deal has already been paused. We need clarity on what else is at stake.”
