Social Media: Use of X by Government Departments

Lord Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord has been campaigning on this issue for many years, including before he entered your Lordships’ House. A level of pragmatism needs to be adopted. We need to talk to the electorate and to our citizens where they are, and not necessarily on which platforms we wish they were on. When 19.2 million British citizens use X, it is an important place, which I guess is why the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, is still on X.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

Does anyone in government have the job of reading all the incoming messages, following the Government’s submission, and do they ever take any of them seriously?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, on a personal level I tend to look at X as little as possible, which is why I was a little out of the loop yesterday given all the news that was breaking on X. But, having said that, there is a genuine thing here about how we communicate with people. There is a reason why we use these tools. In fact, given the extreme heat that we are currently experiencing, both the Met Office and UKHSA are using X, among other platforms, for engagement. It is making sure that it is about engagement and not just one-way, although on a personal level, when I was an MP, I found Meta platforms much easier to engage with the electorate on.