BBC Pay

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the Minister on assuming his new job, but I did not like the tone he adopted when he said that he was delighted that this issue was going to be “aired”. There is no point in airing it, because we have been airing it for decades now. The point is actually to bring about change. Perhaps Carrie Gracie should be made chair of the BBC; perhaps she should be given a role specifically to bring about change in the organisation. In the end though, are not some of the men, such as John Humphrys, going to have to say, “You know what? I am paid too much. I should take a 50% pay cut.”?

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting suggestion. It is not true that this issue has been aired for decades. This information has been in the public domain only since last July, because of the actions that we took to insist on transparency, so while the broader issue may have been discussed, we have not had the details to hand in the public debate. That is very important, because it is only once something is measured that it can be managed.

Russian Interference in UK Politics

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I admire the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and he said some good things, but ultimately I found his speech to be utterly naive and complacent. He cannot just say “Russia is a kleptocracy and there we are; that’s fine.” It is also a ruthless security state: it prevents elections; it prevents journalists from doing their proper jobs; it murders journalists; and it makes sure that journalists elsewhere in the world are put out of their jobs and are unable to scrutinise Russia properly.

Even the Russian embassy in the UK flouts every single one of the normal rules of an embassy. It wrote to Mr Speaker on a previous occasion to try to prevent a debate on Russia taking place. On other occasions, it has tweeted aggressively against several Members. It even tried to rig the election of the chair of the all-party group on Russia. One would think it had more important things to do. I am the present chair, and the former chair, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), is in his place on the Government Benches. He departed because he was so fed up with the way the Russian embassy was dealing with us.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) may say something about this later—he is more of an expert than I am—but the Russians are engaged in a form of hybrid warfare. It does not involve military weapons so much, although they are keen to continuously flex those muscles and we know, from Georgia and Ukraine and what has happened in Crimea, that they are territorially ambitious. I just want to explain one element of this hybrid warfare.

I asked a man called Ben Nimmo, who runs digital forensic research at the Atlantic Council, to look at MPs’ Twitter accounts, including those of the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, me and others and analyse the attacks we had received. I and others—the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington referred to this earlier—believe that some anonymous troll accounts are centrally organised from St Petersburg.

The pattern is that the accounts often pretend to be British, even though they might originally have been tweeting in Russian. They tend to tweet in bad English and at Russian times of day. They infiltrate the hard right to propagate and amplify views held by others—that relates to the point about Goebbels that was made earlier—and they ostentatiously, aggressively and with foul language attack critics of Putin. They support the Kremlin line on Syria, George Soros, the Olympic ban, Ukraine, the M17 flight and Senator McCain.

The accounts tag other factory troll accounts. For instance, @iatetwit attacked Lucy Fisher, the journalist at The Times who has written about this, and me. It looks like a normal account, but the profile picture is of a Russian skater. It is not her account at all. It used to tweet in Russian, but now tweets very aggressive anti-immigration stuff in the UK. “I” effing “hate Irish”, for instance, was one of the more expressive recent tweets, and @iamjohnsmith called on the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington to resign. [Interruption.] Well, that of itself does not prove it is a bad person. But seriously, he was only being attacked because of his political views. This is why it is dangerous for us to be complacent: there is a specific body of work attacking Twitter accounts to intimidate British MPs.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Digital (Matt Hancock)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak today, and I thank the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for bringing forward this topic for debate.

It is of course the first role of Government to protect the nation and its people and to safeguard our democracy, and we recognise and acknowledge the concern expressed by the House today about the threat posed to our politics and society by the exploitation of digital technology and platforms. We are happy to work with Members across the House on this. Of course, digital technology brings huge benefits and we celebrate the freedom that they bestow, but they also allow malign actors new means by which to communicate. We are committed to defending the UK from all forms of malign state interference, whether from Russia or anywhere else. When there is any suggestion that the Kremlin has sought to interfere in the political process, we treat such allegations seriously and carefully. The position is that, to date, we have not yet seen evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes by a foreign Government.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because there is an interesting divergence between the three Ministers who have spoken on this topic. The first response was, “I have seen no evidence that the Russians were trying to do anything”, and then the version that we have heard today is, “I have not seen any successful interventions.” What would success be? How is he defining success? I presume he means that there have been attempts.

[Matt Hancock]

We have seen no evidence of interference that has successfully affected democratic outcomes in the UK by a foreign Government. That has been the UK Government position for some time.

[Chris Bryant]

What would success be?

[Matt Hancock]

In a political process, success would potentially involve changing the result of that political process, and we have not seen evidence of successful attempts.

Sky/Fox Merger

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). Those emails have filled up inboxes and distracted colleagues from important constituency casework. I have made this decision in spite of the lobbying, not because of it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Good corporate governance in a construction company means that the directors of the company make sure that its building sites, for instance, are safe to work on. Good corporate governance in a supermarket company means that the directors make sure, for instance, that their staff do not sell alcohol to underage kids. One would think that good corporate governance in a broadcasting organisation would mean that the directors of the company would make sure that their organisation abides by good broadcasting standards, which is why I wholeheartedly support what the Secretary is State is doing today. Rupert Murdoch’s defence over phone hacking was, in the end, that his company was far too big for him to possibly know what was going on across the whole of it. That was not good corporate governance, and it could not possibly lead to good broadcasting standards.

[Karen Bradley]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the comments on corporate governance that I made in my statement: “I have outstanding non-fanciful concerns about these matters, and I am of the view that they should be considered further by the CMA.”