LONDON — The House of Lords, the U.K.’s upper chamber of Parliament, approved amendments to the proposed Crime and Policing Bill that would ban the depiction of “choking” in pornography and classify it as a “priority offense” under the Online Safety Act.

On Dec. 9, members of the House of Lords voted in favor of Amendments 294 and 295, which would make it a criminal offense to possess or publish “pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation.”

If lawmakers pass the Crime and Policing Bill with these amendments unchanged, people who possess “choking” material could face up to two years in prison, while those who publish such material could receive sentences of up to five years.

Baroness Alison Levitt, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State speaking for the government, told fellow Lords that the law would apply only if the strangulation or suffocation shown is “explicit and realistic,” even if it is not real.

“For example, it can be acted or posed,” she said. “The image may also be AI-generated, as long as a reasonable person would believe the people shown are real.”

Levitt added that classifying choking content as a priority offense “will require platforms to take the necessary steps to prevent this harmful material from appearing online.”

At present, the priority offense category includes material such as child sexual abuse content and terrorist material.

Support for banning depictions of nonfatal strangulation, often referred to as “choking,” increased after the publication in February of a pornography review that called for banning adult content considered “degrading, violent and misogynistic.” On June 19, the U.K. government issued a statement confirming plans to outlaw content involving strangulation.

Baroness Gabrielle Bertin, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and the independent lead reviewer of the pornography review, welcomed the approval of the amendments.

“This is not just another amendment,” Bertin said. “It is a light-bulb moment and an acknowledgment that what has been normalized for too long is neither safe nor acceptable.”

At the same time, the government turned down other proposed amendments that sought to criminalize certain forms of adult content, including one that would have banned depictions of sex between family members such as stepparents and stepsiblings.

After the House of Lords completes its review of the Crime and Policing Bill, the legislation will return to the House of Commons, where lawmakers will consider the new amendments.