Jess Phillips has resigned from the government, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to act on proposals to stop children sending and receiving nude images on their phones. In her resignation letter, Phillips said she was tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”.
Phillips, one of four ministers who quit on Tuesday, joined over 80 MPs calling for Starmer to go. She focused on a lack of urgency in tackling child abuse images, stating that over a year ago she presented solutions to end the ability for children to take naked images of themselves. She said it took a year to get Starmer to agree to even threaten to legislate, calling it “incremental change”.
Hannah Swirsky of the Internet Watch Foundation said campaigners had pushed for the government to force tech companies to block the sending and receiving of naked images on children’s devices. She noted the technology exists and could stop a significant number of images being produced at source. In 2024, 91% of criminal child sexual abuse images reported to the IWF were “self-generated”.
Sources said measures had support in the Home Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology but faced inertia in Downing Street. They questioned whether No 10 had prioritised trade deals over online safety, adding that some advisers were “too close to the tech companies”. Andy Burrow of the Molly Rose Foundation described a “logjam” at the top of government, with proposals “stuck in treacle”.
