Queen’s Speech

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, the designated subjects for today range widely. Other noble Lords have focused on home affairs and justice. I could have talked of the 20,000 new police officers we are promised by 2023, or the £2.5 billion to be spent on new prisons, but that would have taken me into economic territory. I listened to the gracious Speech, and I marvelled as the monarch read out that the Government’s,

“new economic plan will be underpinned by a responsible fiscal strategy, investing in economic growth while maintaining the sustainability of the public finances”.

If the barrage of spending policies that have been made by this Government amount to a responsible fiscal strategy, then Henry VIII had a responsible attitude towards marriage. We should all be alarmed when a former head of the Treasury says, as the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court, did in this Chamber last week, that the Government are pursuing,

“a policy of fiscal incontinence”.—[Official Report, 14/10/19; col. 183.]

So I will not dwell on the plans for more police and more prisons. Instead, I will talk about constitutional matters, particularly how we run our elections and the danger that poses to our constitution.

As other noble Lords have said, our unwritten constitution feels to be in a precarious position. Last week in a very powerful speech the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, spoke of her concerns about how disinformation campaigning is influencing elections and referenda. Here, I must declare my interest as a director of the People’s Vote media hub. I believe that it is only right that the public should be asked to give their informed consent to the outcome of the Brexit process. I want that referendum, when it comes, to be fought fairly, without the intervention of what she referred to as “cyber troops”. The gracious Speech promised an electoral law Bill, but this seems to be a relatively narrow piece of legislation, dealing with the identification and direct intimidation of voters. This would not impact on the efforts of those organisations that are prepared to put significant resources into secretly influencing the results of votes. These may be wealthy individuals, special interest groups or foreign Governments. While the Government have voiced their commitment to protecting our electoral process from interference from abroad, nothing has been done to temper that. It cannot be right that those with access to large sums of money can buy the services of cyber troops to influence the outcomes of our elections. What steps will the Government undertake to protect the integrity of our electoral processes?

I would go further than dealing with the cyber effects of so much money. We have seen how our politicians have been subject to online abuse, particularly for the stance many of them have taken over Brexit. In the worst cases, the police have taken action but online comments do not have to be death threats to be very intimidating and, perhaps, to influence what politicians dare to say and how they behave. Many of us will have been on the receiving end of online abuse, which very often is anonymous. Not so long ago, an anonymous letter was considered an outrage. The recipient would have headed straight to the police. Any such missive would have had the inhabitants of St Mary Mead heading immediately for the service of Miss Marple. Now, anonymous communications are normal. Anonymity online does not equate to freedom of speech—often, it is a direct deterrent to it—and I believe it should be curtailed. In June last year the then Digital Minister, Margot James, said that freedom to be anonymous online has been abused,

“in such a substantial way, with such damaging effects”,

that curbs are being considered. Earlier this year, the DCMS published a White Paper on online harms, but it did not confront the basic issue of anonymity. In countries with extreme regimes and vicious censorship, there can be a genuine need for anonymity, but not in a healthy democracy. As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said earlier,

“the public discourse has been dangerously coarsened, and I believe has now become so intimidating that it poses a genuine threat to democracy”.

Anonymity online has to be curbed.