Justice – in the House of Commons at on 22 April 2025.
Matt Turmaine
Labour, Watford
What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle intimate image abuse.
Alex Davies-Jones
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
We are introducing new offences of taking intimate images without consent and installing equipment with intent to commit such offences. We are also criminalising creating deepfake intimate images without consent. I proudly co-chair the violence against women and girls ministerial group, which oversees a cross-Government approach to tackling VAWG, including online abuse.
Matt Turmaine
Labour, Watford
I thank the Minister for her answer. Sexually explicit deepfakes are a scourge on our society, whether it is young boys in their bedrooms making them of their fellow pupils and teachers, or those who create explicit images of celebrities to order. How will the legislation the Government intend to bring forward on this help victims of this disgusting abuse and punish those who perpetrate it?
Alex Davies-Jones
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. This Government are committed to halving violence against women and girls over a decade, and that includes the horrendous, degrading and humiliating crime of taking intimate images without consent, as well as creating deepfake images without consent. For far too long, these crimes have gone unpunished, with perpetrators allowed to carry this out at will and to cover their sick behaviour under the rules of banter. We will not stand for it: we are legislating, and we are protecting women and girls.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
