EU Referendum: Conduct

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government followed the precedent of earlier referendums, including those from the 1970s and 1990s, in distributing a leaflet setting out the Government’s view.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, the DCMS Committee in the other place has just published alarming evidence of a so-called “Mainstream Network”, which appears to have spent £250,000 to reach 10 million Facebook users, urging them to lobby their MPs to “chuck Chequers”. Could the Minister ask the Electoral Commission to investigate this because it could fall into a pre-election period, or get his own department to consider whether, if this is not against the law, some regulation is needed if we are not to have just millionaires putting money into our political system?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand the concern expressed by the noble Baroness and, indeed, by DCMS. It might be a matter for the Information Commissioner, who has been given new powers under the Data Protection Act, which has recently been passed. She is already investigating the possible misuse of data held by Facebook and used by Cambridge Analytica. We will shortly publish a White Paper on online harm setting out our objective to make the UK the safest place in which to be online.