Monday 19th March 2018

(6 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The question raised by the Electoral Commission is a priority that we are considering, and we will have answers in due course.

Stephen Kinnock Portrait Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

Andy Wigmore, who was director of communications for Leave.EU has described the services provided by Cambridge Analytica as “our most potent weapon” in the referendum. They are calculated to be worth in the region of hundreds of thousands of pounds. They were a donation-in-kind, not a penny of which was reported to the Electoral Commission. I wrote to the Electoral Commission about this last year, and I am pleased to say that it has launched an investigation. Does the Secretary of State agree that if it turns out that Cambridge Analytica has been in flagrant breach of our electoral rules, that would place a pretty huge question mark over the referendum result?

Matt Hancock Portrait Matt Hancock
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

We have not seen any evidence of the impact of these things calling into question the outcome of any electoral event, whether an election or the referendum. What we need to do is make sure that these investigations take their course.