Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Justin Madders and Peter Swallow

2nd reading
Monday 2nd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)]

While new technologies can often be a force for good and, when used correctly, can enhance political debate, accountability and trust, in practice they are too often having the opposite effect. Social media, in particular, has helped to fuel further division and facilitated levels of distrust, threats and intimidation towards elected representatives that have never been seen before. It has also opened our political system and discourse to the wider world, with other countries able to use platforms to influence and interfere in our domestic political debate in ways that were previously not possible.

Political discourse has become murky, and legitimate political debate has become distorted by misinformation, with people no longer even able to agree on basic facts. This represents an existential threat to liberal democracy. When misinformation spreads unchecked, abuse is normalised and accountability is lacking, confidence in our democratic institutions is significantly weakened. That is what our foes want.

[Peter Swallow]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s argument. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and a representative from Meta spoke to the Committee just last week. I was very concerned about their answers when probed on the work that needs to be done to protect social media sites from foreign interference. Does he share my concerns that social media companies are not doing enough to tackle this issue on their platforms?

[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.

Royal Mail Takeover

Debate between Justin Madders and Peter Swallow

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. Is he now the rebellious Back Bencher, I wonder? We all share those concerns about the universal service obligation. This deal is not contingent on the universal service obligation. We have had discussions on how we improve the current state of affairs, because it is clearly not good enough. I hope that his constituents will see an improvement in service as a result of this deal.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

Barely a week goes by without a constituent reaching out to me to express frustration at the quality of service they receive from our local Royal Mail delivery services. What will the announcement mean for them and for the quality of service that they receive?

[Justin Madders]

We hope that the deal will lead to an improvement in service. Specific investment commitments are being made as part of the deal, which we hope will be used to drive up standards. I think that everyone is committed to seeing an improvement on where we are at the moment.