Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (Crossbench). It was answered on Monday, 7 October 2019.

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Elections and Referenda: Protection Against Corruption

Question

My Lords, time is moving on. During May, the Government replied to a number of questions from various Benches about preventing online corruption of future elections and referenda. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, always gave careful and considered answers and assured the House that the Government were already taking steps to ensure that there was no such corruption. He talked about ensuring that we have,

“a robust framework for our election process, which is resistant to corruption and enhances public confidence”.—[Official Report, 1/5/19; cols. 962-63.]

Since then, the evidence of online disinformation campaigning has grown very greatly. Some of it is anonymous and some is traceable to hostile states. It has been documented in some part by a very recent report from the Oxford Internet Institute. What steps have Her Majesty’s Government taken since May to ensure that future elections and referenda are not corrupted at source, and that the electorate can have confidence that results are not being secured by foul means?

Answer

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some very good points. I have read with interest past exchanges between her and my noble friend Lord Young—who I wish was here at the moment. I know that I am repeating to a certain extent what my noble friend said. We do take the situation very seriously and realise the urgency of it. It is very important that we do something about this, act correctly and get it right. In my initial Answer, I brought up the Defending Democracy programme. This was announced in July and its whole point is to pull together existing work and expertise from a number of departments, to protect and secure UK democratic processes, strengthen the integrity of UK elections and encourage respect for open, fair and safe democratic participation.

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Secondary information

Type

Oral question

Reference

799 c1900 

Session

2017-19

Oral question type

1st Supplementary

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Subjects

Elections Internet Referendums Disinformation

Link

View this Oral question on hansard.parliament.uk