Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Justin Madders and Emily Darlington

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

In my experience, Meta does not care about the truth. We heard from the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) about what he experienced, and I have had the same experiences: stuff goes up, it does not meet the threshold, it carries on and the lies continue to be propagated. Meta’s indifference is a danger to our democracy and that absolutely needs tackling.

There are long-standing rules on how political parties can use paid-for advertising in the offline world, but we have effectively gone from a situation where we have banal party political broadcasts on terrestrial channels to a virtual free-for-all online. That leads to deliberate distortions, misleading claims and half-truths being pushed into social media feeds with absolutely no checks on their accuracy and little recourse, as we have heard, to challenge their spread.

[Emily Darlington]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that although the Representation of People Act 1983 makes it illegal to misrepresent a candidate in an election, that offence is yet to be tested in relation to online misrepresentation? In fact, Ofcom and many platforms do not see themselves as being bound by that legislation.

[Justin Madders]

The truth is that we have analogue laws for a digital age, and they are simply not fit for purpose. That is exacerbated by the fact that social media companies and their entire business models rely on outrageous comments to incentivise clicks. That amplifies the distortion of our political process and encourages the controversial, so we absolutely need to go further to tackle this issue.

The Bill already has provisions to tighten up rules on digital imprints on campaign material, but we need greater transparency for online political adverts. Some straightforward changes, some of which have already been supported by the Government, could improve transparency and fairness, and increase trust in our political system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) has already said, the first of these is an advert library. We need an accessible database to act as a repository for all election advertising across all advertising platforms on the internet. This should include the content of the advert, the money put behind it to promote the content, the paying entity and who the content is targeted at. At present, those are all opaque, with the only libraries available being controlled by the media companies, which can choose to stop sharing access. As we have already heard, they are not really interested in ensuring that things are accurate or truthful when they are published. Similar models have been implemented in Canada and New Zealand already, and the EU will introduce its own later this month.

Secondly, the Government should introduce an amendment requiring candidates to follow a statutory code of conduct at elections, as well as including provisions to stop the intimidation and harassment of candidates, as was suggested in the Government’s White Paper last year. That should extend to commitments to telling the truth and not knowingly including misinformation in campaign material. Putting all that on a statutory footing and including steps on tackling misinformation will give it the teeth that it needs, because we cannot defend democracy if our financial frameworks remain as they are and our online spaces are unregulated. I welcome the proposals for “know your donor” checks. I recognise and encourage the enforcement mechanisms that will be introduced by the Electoral Commission, but we absolutely need to go further.

This Bill is a positive step. Votes at 16, greater enfranchisement and registration, checking cracks in our democracy and better protecting candidates are all really welcome things, but I fear that the experiences of the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk are where we will be in 2029 if we do not crack down on this now. I look forward to working with the Minister to explore ways in which we can make this Bill even better to protect our democracy and allow it to flourish not just now, but in the future.

Our democracy is fragile and cannot be taken for granted, and it has to retain the public’s trust if it is to endure. Many around the world are working very hard to try to erode that trust, so we must be equal to the challenge and ensure that we have the best legislation possible to meet that challenge.