Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Clark Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment and welcome him to the Dispatch Box.

GCHQ this week says that it expects hostile disruption of the next election through deepfakes using AI. Is my hon. Friend absolutely confident that the Electoral Commission has all the powers it needs to prevent that, and why are the Government not implementing their suggestion in the White Paper to introduce the legislation to empower regulators?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind remarks. As I said, the Government will take this issue incredibly seriously, and I am confident that, through the defending democracy taskforce and election cell, we will be able to do the utmost to protect ourselves from election interference. I offer to meet him to discuss this further and see what else can be done.