Vaccine Misinformation Online

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, may I thank you and Mr Speaker for granting this debate? It is great to see Members from across the House in attendance this evening, and I hope that the issue that I am going to talk about will have widespread cross-party support.

I will cut straight to the chase: I have no time whatsoever for so-called anti-vaxxers, but I am afraid that the swelling evidence we have seen over the past few months of the pernicious impact of misinformation about vaccines now demands our attention, and it demands action.

Day after day, week after week in this place, we rightly come together to debate and discuss the best ways we can get on top of this virus and, ultimately, defeat it. Each one of us in this place knows that there is no silver-bullet solution to this public health and economic crisis, but we also know that identifying a clinically safe and effective vaccine is the damned nearest we are likely to get. However, I am afraid that the rapid and incessant corrosion of public confidence in vaccines propagated by the anti-vax movement risks threatening the success of the most powerful future tool we could have in our armoury.

Let me say at the outset that I am not against scrutiny of vaccines or people raising legitimate questions that may need answering. The public have a right to scrutinise vaccination policy as much as any other Government policy, but that must be done in an informed and measured way, based on facts rather than nonsensical conspiracy theories involving Bill Gates, or anyone else for that matter. Part of that process has to involve the Government being much more proactive about countering some of the scare stories and falsehoods peddled by the anti-vax movement, which play on people’s understandable fears.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making great progress, and he is talking about an issue that is of severe importance to my constituency, which has a 10% lower than average vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella. The misinformation that is being spread is palpable, and it is dangerous not only to schoolchildren but to adults. Will he therefore expand a little on the role of education in ensuring that we can inform people and re-energise their understanding and confidence that they are taking vaccines that will help them?

[Chris Elmore]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for that intervention, for two reasons. First, it is very worrying that the UK no longer has measles-free status. That is a real worry for us all. Secondly, on education, there is a huge piece of work to be done where people are rightly questioning vaccine development processes. We are taught that it takes many years to develop vaccines. However, what people are not acknowledging through their legitimate questions is that the whole world is now looking for a vaccine. There is more funding and more availability of scientists working towards trying to solve this problem, so I agree with the hon. Gentleman entirely.

In private, I think even Ministers would agree that far too much of the Government’s response to the crisis has been typified by being too slow: too slow to lockdown, too slow to support business, too slow to test and trace effectively—but possibly too fast to Barnard Castle. But when all is said and done, I genuinely appreciate the huge pressure Ministers have been under over the past seven months. Mistakes are inevitable and hindsight is all too often a wonderful thing. The message I want to send to those on the Government Benches is that when it comes to the anti-vax movement, we do not need the benefit of hindsight. We simply cannot afford to be too slow yet again. We know that dangerous misinformation is eroding public trust in a potential future vaccine. We know that a lot of misinformation is being spread online and we know that the social media giants are systematically failing to act.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We do all have to be singing from the same hymn sheet and giving out the same information.

We are taking a very proactive whole-of-Government approach to this. My Department—the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—has the responsibility for monitoring and analysing anti-vaccine narratives. My officials are working very closely with the vaccine taskforce, which comes out of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, while the Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for delivering effective communications around the vaccine. I meet my ministerial colleagues very frequently on this.

First and foremost, we are working with partners in the NHS, including GPs and nurses, to explain to patients the importance of vaccines. I am pleased that many organisations in the media and social media are acting very responsibly in providing accurate information. We are also working at pace to ensure that accurate information is available and accessible online, but we also have to address the swathes of inaccurate and misleading content alongside it. That is why we stood up the cross-Whitehall counter-disinformation unit in March as part of the Government response to covid-19.

[Anthony Mangnall]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. I am sorry to have two bites at the cherry, but the point is that there is a knock-on impact from what people read online and then spread within their communities. Those who do not have access to online services are, in certain cases, hearing information first-hand from people they know, respect and are likely to believe. What direction might the Government be going in to try to counter that as a source of information?

[Caroline Dinenage]

As I say, we are working with a whole range of other Government Departments. The Department of Health is very much leading on the communication of this, and my Department is leading on the liaison with the platforms to ensure that tackling anti-vaccination messaging remains one of the key priorities of the cross-Whitehall counter-disinformation unit that we lead. We have been working with partners across Government to tackle this.

As the hon. Member for Ogmore said, we have seen some of the major social media companies update their terms of service and introduce new measures. Most recently, YouTube extended its policies to address false information. These are steps in the right direction. However, this year the Secretary of State for DCMS asked the major platforms to explore how they need to go further to stop the spread of this content. More needs to be done, more must be done, and we will continue to put pressure on these companies to take the necessary action against misinformation in all its guises.

It is really key that users are empowered with the knowledge and skills they need to keep themselves safe online as well. This includes how we recognise and report false and misleading content. We can all do our bit, whether it is fact-checking something before we share it or reporting something that is potentially harmful. Importantly, the Government are committed to publishing an online media literacy strategy that will set out our plans to ensure a co-ordinated and strategic approach to online media literacy, education and awareness for all users. That is due to be published next spring.

While covid has demonstrated the positive power of the internet, we have all seen that the increased amount of time spent online provides an opportunity for the spread of falsehood. The Government remain absolutely steadfast in our determination to tackle misinformation and disinformation in all its forms.

Question put and agreed to.