LONDON — Baroness Gabrielle Bertin, the Conservative member of Parliament who recently convened a new anti-pornography task force, is calling for the appointment of a “minister for porn,” according to British news outlet The Guardian.
Bertin told The Guardian that the government “needs urgently to appoint a minister for porn” in order to make sure the issue “gets the attention it deserves.”
While she did not nominate any particular person to fill that role, Bertin did repeatedly make it clear that she considers herself to be the only member of Parliament willing to focus on and discuss issues related to pornography.
As XBIZ reported last week, Bertin — a member of the unelected House of Lords — served as architect of the influential pornography review that recommended banning adult content deemed “degrading, violent and misogynistic.” That report has already begun to shape legislation and government policy in the U.K. As XBIZ reported earlier in June, Bertin’s call for the criminalization of content featuring “choking” has now made its way into legislative proposals, with the government announcing its plan to enact such a ban.
Bertin’s new “Independent Pornography Review task force” reportedly includes politicians, law enforcement and nonprofits in its deliberations on how to regulate online content — but The Guardian article noted that she has not invited any adult industry representatives to join the group, as she is “wary of anything that might let the industry ‘mark their own homework.’”
In February 2024, representatives of the Free Speech Coalition, along with sex workers, producers and industry advocates, pressed for ongoing discussions with industry stakeholders during a meeting with Bertin that FSC Executive Director Alison Boden called an “opportunity to contest misinformation and bad policy.”
According to FSC Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile, the trade organization's involvement in the consulting process was "often contentious."
"From the beginning of the process, it was clear that the review had a specific goal — a broad crackdown on adult content," Stabile told XBIZ earlier this year, when the recommendations of the pornography review were announced.