Cyber Democratic Influence

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the Russian intelligence service effort to target Members of the Commons and this House, civil servants, journalists and NGOs is an attack not just on individuals but on British democracy, and I am sure Members across the House will join me in condemning it in the strongest possible terms. My right honourable friend David Lammy reminded the other place that next year will see elections not only in Britain but in the United States, India and the European Union, with more than 70 elections scheduled in 40 countries across the world.

Trust and confidence in our system of democracy will be undermined if we are unable to ensure it is free from such interference. Leo Doherty, the Minister, said that the Statement was made now

“to ensure that its full deterrent effect is properly timed”,

and he reminded the House that

“our duty is to remain ever vigilant”.

Can the Minister tell us how the Government are working with other countries that share our democratic values to monitor interference and co-ordinate a response to any attempts to influence our democratic processes?

In response to Labour’s call for a joint cell between the Home Office and the Foreign Office to speed up decision-making, the Minister in the other place said that he was confident that the Defending Democracy Taskforce, led by the Security Minister, represented a robust and cross-departmental response. However, he did acknowledge that on the wider picture of disinformation, we needed to

“up our game to counter disinformation, call Russia out and better resource and energise our own security posture in the cyber domain”.

The use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes to seed false narratives, spread lies and foment divisions through mainstream and social media is an increasing threat, as identified in the other place. Leo Doherty talked of

“an enhanced degree of resource, organisation and political will”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/12/23; cols. 491-2.]

Can the Minster give us a little more detail on how this will be done?

Parliament has been united against Putin’s imperial aggression in Ukraine. The Opposition and the Government have been as one, and unity is a source of strength and pride. In the face of these threats, this House must remain united. Let me assure the House tonight that the Labour Party will work in partnership and full co-operation with the Government and all relevant authorities to take the necessary steps to address this threat and protect the integrity of our political process from hostile interference.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I share the sentiment that we all need to work together in defending democracy. I thank the Government for the Statement, but this is not a surprise, as we have known for some years that people in Russia—in previous years in Ukraine—and Belarus have been doing their best to hack into British politics to spread disinformation and to influence what is going on. We also know about the Chinese attempts to do the same.

This is all part of the transformation of election campaigning since the digital revolution and social media have become so important. I look back to the first election in which I took part, in 1966, when achieving an article by my party leader in the News of the World was by far the most important thing I did in four weeks. We are now in an utterly different world. Perhaps I should add that this was partly because the article appeared against a half-page picture of the President of Indonesia’s fourth wife, who was extremely attractive. At least people will have read “Jo Grimond” in the headline.

I emphasise here wider issues about shared interests and how the Government and other parties should be encouraged to work together. At present, there is, if you look at all the opinion polls, a very low level of public trust in Westminster politics and the lowest level of trust in government as such. That suggests that the Government and other parties should be as transparent as possible about what is being done and as cross-party and non-partisan as possible.

I note that the Electoral Integrity Programme is part of DLUHC. That seems to me odd. It ought to be part of a stronger Electoral Commission. I regret that the Bill—now an Act—last year weakened the Electoral Commission, because this is central to our democracy. We need to have integrity which is guaranteed by a cross-party and non-party institution. Similarly, on a slightly different collection of issues, the Defending Democracy Taskforce was introduced very much as a government initiative without engaging much with the opposition parties. I suggest that, in reassuring the wider public and civil society and rebuilding the public trust which has been lost, some mechanism involving other parties and cross-party organisations with government activity in this field would be useful. It is not for the Executive to defend integrity and democracy—after all, sometimes it is the Executive who undermine democracy; it is for Parliament, the courts and other independent agencies.

I want to make a second wider point. We should not ignore attempts at foreign interference in our democratic processes by non-state actors, as well as state actors. The Minister in the other place, in replying to one of the questions, said:

“I am pleased that in our domestic legislation we have the ability to ensure that countries with malign intent do not use think-tanks or other fronts to influence domestic political discourse in a way that is contrary to the health of our democracy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/12/23; col. 492.]

I agree with that, and I am concerned that there are now a number of extremely well-funded, very right-wing American organisations, on the edge of being anti-democratic, which are doing their best to interfere in British politics and which are putting funds into party factions, into conferences that take place in London and into think tanks. This is non-transparent and, I suggest, ought to be included in the integrity issue of foreign money flowing into British politics.

We have all witnessed the deterioration of American political campaigning and debate in recent years. We have a shared interest in preventing the UK following down that road. That needs to be part of how we prevent that happening, with conspiracy theories creeping into this country and so on. Free and fair elections depend on free and open debate, in which respect for facts and evidence is shared on all sides—a quality that has now been almost entirely lost in American campaigning. We need to make sure it is not lost here.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for the unified front we are all showing against this appalling attack, recognising that this is just part of a world of increasing insecurity and increasing threats to us.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred to the need to up our game. A few years ago, we all heard about these bot farms that were targeting people in a broad and uncomplicated kind of way. What we have identified with this attack is how highly targeted it is and how it is targeted towards the very heart of our democracy—the values that we all espouse in a free and open society. It is not just parliamentarians who have been attacked; it is the whole variety of different sections of our society, which are at the heart of what makes us a free and open society. They targeted political figures, civil servants, journalists and NGOs, all with the intent to meddle in British political and democratic processes.

We need to understand that Centre 18, a unit within Russia’s FSB, has been involved in a range of cyber-espionage operations targeting the UK and that the so-called Star Blizzard, a cyber group that is almost certainly subordinate to Centre 18, is responsible for a range of malign activities targeting British parliamentarians from multiple parties. It is worth noting that that group has selectively leaked and amplified the release of sensitive information in the service of Russia’s confrontative goals, and that these cyber actors used a combination of targeting, tailoring their operations in a far more sophisticated way than is usually the case. This targeting is not limited to politicians but includes public-facing figures from all parts of society.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about how we are working with our international partners. We engage international partners on issues of mutual concern. We are grateful for the support of very many international partners that have provided information, but we obviously will not go into detail on any specific contributions or types of engagement. Noble Lords will have seen the sheer breadth and depth in unity from our like-minded partners and allies who have joined us in calling out this malicious activity. The US is a long-standing ally, as are other Five Eyes members, and we will continue to engage with it on issues of mutual concern. We are grateful for the support the US has provided and will continue to work with it and all partners which seek to protect our democracy.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, said that, in order to up our game, we have to make sure that we have the resources necessary for our institutions and organisations to protect us. This was a complex operation and we have been working hand in glove with our partners to identify those responsible and hold them to account. The activity announced last week is part of a broader pattern of malign cyberactivity conducted by the Russian intelligence services across the globe. The United Kingdom has been continuing to bolster its resilience since 2018 against both the Russian and wider cyber threats. We continue to invest to bolster our cyber defences in support of our national cyber strategy. His Majesty’s Government are investing £2.6 billion in cyber and legacy IT until 2024-25, including a £140 million increase in the national cybersecurity programme.

The noble Lord raised a very important point about the number of elections taking place in those 40 countries—that will be 4 billion people exercising their right to self-determination about who governs them. There is no more fundamental basis for a free society than that, and we want to assist all those countries in any way we can. The level of technical expertise in this country, and our strategy, have been widely acclaimed and have the support of all political parties in this country. We want to make sure that we are sharing that expertise with other countries.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned other countries, and of course we are acute to threats of this type of activity from other countries. He is right to point out how they are reaching the electorate. In elections past, it was a simple matter of the media as the most basic way in which people got information that informed their political views, but now, through social media and the malign intent of certain individuals, people can be led to a false conclusion. We want to make sure that we are transparent and open.

Elections in this country are run by local authorities, and we are doing everything we can to assist them to make sure that their defences are robust, recognising that next year there is an important election. We are supporting them. DLUHC, the department that interfaces with local government, is working with local authorities, but it is a cross-government activity.

The final point the noble Lord made was about non-state actors, and he is absolutely right. We need to have measures in place to fact-check when people are using malign and false content in order to influence people. In certain constituencies, there will be a very few people who can sway that constituency one way or another. If they are being approached in the kind of way that this kind of attack has proved, we want to make sure that we have defences that can be deployed and that we can inform people that they have been the subject of this kind of attack.