EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Norman Lamb

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this emergency debate. As Members will know, I have been raising this issue and concern in the House for almost 18 months now, and when I first did so I was treated as a bit of a crank. Subsequently, however, almost every single allegation that I have used parliamentary privilege to put on the record in this place has proven to be correct.

This debate needs to be taken extremely seriously. It is not about who won or lost the referendum; it is about the integrity and security of our democracy and electoral system. Any of the sceptics who have cast doubt on the nature and quality of the evidence of the whistleblower, Chris Wylie, should watch the four hours of testimony that I watched today before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee: it was absolutely shocking and astonishing, and it should go to the heart of anybody who cares about our democracy.

Mr Wylie laid out clear evidence of serious lawbreaking by the leave campaign: not only collusion between Vote Leave and BeLeave, which is the one that has got most publicity, but collusion between Vote Leave and some of the other leave organisations, including Veterans for Britain, and indeed the DUP. Each of those organisations used either Cambridge Analytica—we know all about that, having heard the revelations last week about how it illegally harvested the Facebook data of tens of millions of people—or Aggregate IQ, a supposedly separate company based in Canada. It is not separate at all; it is all part of the same organisation. We know that 40% of Vote Leave’s budget was spent on Aggregate IQ and the work that it did. We still do not know how AIQ got that data, where the data came from or whether it was legally obtained and used. These are serious questions, and I am very pleased that the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who is a Conservative, is clearly taking the allegations seriously. He will be putting them to the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee later this afternoon.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, given the scale of the spending on digital campaigning now, that along with the investigation into what happened during the referendum there is an urgent need for a complete overhaul of the electoral rules to ensure that they are fit for the digital age?

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, I entirely agree. I shall go on to say something about that a little later.

Mr Wylie provided compelling and credible evidence not only of the collusion but of the effectiveness of the targeted advertising campaigns that these data companies conduct, based on the data that they have. In the case of the referendum, the campaigns were targeted on 7 million voters whom the companies had carefully profiled as people whose opinions they could shift. In his evidence to the Committee today, Mr Wylie produced a staggering statistic. He said that, in his experience, the methods used by Cambridge Analytica and AIQ in this case would have had the potential to shift between 7% and 10% of the people targeted. Let us not forget that he was and remains a leaver. He wants Brexit to happen, but he does not want it to happen based on a fraud on the British electorate. He said that

“it is completely reasonable to say that there could have been a different outcome in the referendum if there hadn’t been, in my view, cheating”.

There have been attempts to discredit Mr Wylie. There was even a disgraceful attempt from Downing Street to discredit one of his co-whistleblowers by, among other things, outing him as gay. I am amazed that the man who did that is still in his job, because that was totally unacceptable. Let me tell those people who are trying to discredit Mr Wylie that he is one of 200 people who have been allowed into this country because of their brilliance. He has been allowed a special visa because of the amount he knows about how all this stuff works. I do not have a clue how it all works, but he is one of the world’s leading experts, and he is a very serious whistleblower. Not all Conservative Members dismiss his evidence, but those who do do so at their peril. Let us just wait and see where all this ends. Mr Wylie also made a very worrying statement, and I think that this is the first time that a connection has been made between Cambridge Analytica and the Russian FSB—although I had heard about it privately—via the work that it did for the Russian oil company, Lukoil.

It must be clear to everyone in the House, whatever their view on Brexit, that the powers and resources of the Information Commissioner and the Electoral Commission are wholly inadequate. If the Government were serious about getting to the truth by letting the commissioners do their job, we would have less of this “what-aboutery” and more action and support for the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, in terms of their powers and—critically and more immediately—their resources. Mr Wylie has been working for many hours with the Information Commissioner, and one of the worrying things he told the Committee was that he had had to explain to the officials in that office what all this was about. They do not have enough technical experts. They do not have people who actually understand how all this works and what has been going on. In my view, this guy should be employed by all the global regulators, because he seems to be one of the few people who knows how this electoral corruption works, not only in our country but elsewhere. There was loads of evidence, for example, about what has been going on in Nigeria and in parts the Caribbean. This is not just a problem for this country.

Valproate and Foetal Anticonvulsant Syndrome

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Norman Lamb

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Issues such as this are of enormous concern and this raises the question whether there needs to be some sort of inquiry or Hillsborough-style panel to look at exactly how it has happened. However, it is important that we focus on the top priority, which is ensuring that women get told, that this drug is not used inappropriately and that a compensation package of some sort is put in place.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Given what the right hon. Gentleman has said, is it not even more extraordinary that, even now, this information and these warnings are not getting through effectively to pregnant women and their families? My constituent David Tout’s son has been affected by this, as have 20,000 children across the country in every one of our constituencies. There is no sense of urgency from the MHRA—Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency—or from the Government.

[Norman Lamb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, and he is right in what he says; I, too, feel that there is a sense of inertia. For goodness’ sake, for as long as women are not getting told about this, more such babies are being born. That is the awful horror of this.

Care Homes

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Norman Lamb

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that question and I very much share his view. In my own county of Norfolk, a brilliant third sector organisation is doing precisely that. It is arranging for ordinary people to go into care homes, judge the sense of kindness of compassion there and give a much richer view than statutory agencies might be able to provide. I would also point to the role of Healthwatch England, which has been established through the health reforms. Those organisations have the power in every local area to go into care homes—they cannot be blocked from going into them or any other health or care setting—to make their own judgments on where things are going wrong. Through that much greater transparency and openness, we will not only expose poor care but drive up standards.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Do not terrible events such as those revealed by the brilliant “Panorama” team show that the Government were wrong to reject one of the central recommendations of the Francis report, namely that care assistants should be regulated?

[Norman Lamb]

First, I share the right hon. Gentleman’s recognition of the work that “Panorama” has done. It is interesting that two examples of appalling abuse—namely this case and that at Winterbourne View—have been exposed as a result of hidden cameras. We must acknowledge that and recognise that there might be a role for the use of hidden cameras in the CQC’s work where there is potential evidence of abuse and where we need to establish that evidence in order to take effective action.



On the right hon. Gentleman’s question about registration, my concern is that the registration of nurses did not stop awful things happening at Mid Staffordshire. It is not in itself a panacea that ensures good-quality care. For me, the most important element is proper training to ensure that everyone is trained to an acceptable standard before undertaking unsupervised care work. If we can establish that standard across the country, we can drive up standards.

In-patient Mental Health Services (Children and Adolescents)

Debate between Ben Bradshaw and Norman Lamb

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

. The right hon. Gentleman raises the tariff, and that is what I want to get to the bottom of. I genuinely want to understand the issue and reach a conclusion on it, and I hope that by meeting we will be able to do that.

We want to ensure excellent child and adolescent mental health services facilities across the country. That is why we are investing £54 million over four years in the children’s and young people’s IAPT—improving access to psychological therapies—programme. That will drive service transformation in CAMHS, giving children and young people improved access to the best mental health care by embedding evidence-based practice which has been absent in these services until now and making sure that they use session-by-session outcome monitoring. The IAPT programme is fundamental to the success of our mental health programme. Our children’s IAPT programme is ambitious in its objectives. Its aim is service transformation with an emphasis on evidence-based practice and a rigorous focus on frequent session-by-session outcome monitoring. It differs from the adult IAPT programme in working across existing community-based CAMHS rather than creating new services.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I am sorry to have to say this, but the Minister’s speech is just waffle. Will he accept that the Government’s reorganisation of the national health service has led to confusion as to who is responsible for the interface between tier 3 and tier 4 mental health services for young people? Will he look at the cases I have raised with the Secretary of State of young people from my constituency being sent to Newcastle—the north-east of England—and all over the country, and being sent to adult wards, in breach of the law?

[Norman Lamb]

I do not think it has been waffle at all. I have tried to answer very directly the concerns that have been expressed. I will absolutely look into the cases that the right hon. Gentleman raises. When I hear reference to children being placed in adult services, I find that as unacceptable as he does. I want to understand how it has happened and bring it to an end. NHS England is carrying out a review over a three-month period to assess the facilities for tier 4 services to ensure that sufficient services are available in all parts of the country. Because of the nature of the specialism, they cannot be in every town and city, but they must be within reasonable reach. That is exactly what the review is seeking to undertake.