Elections: Fraud

(asked on 7th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of efforts to secure UK elections from outside interference in each year since 2010.


Answered by
Chloe Smith Portrait
Chloe Smith
This question was answered on 12th March 2019

Whilst we have no seen evidence of successful interference, we are not complacent: this Government takes the security and integrity of our electoral processes extremely seriously. The Government is committed to working together with a full range of partners: academia, businesses, charities, regulators and civil society to respect, protect, and promote our democracy.

Protecting the UK’s electoral mechanics from foreign cyber interference is one of the National Cyber Security Centre’s key priorities. The NCSC offers political parties access to the best cyber security guidance and support, and will provide cyber security guidance to the range of bodies – notably local authorities – involved in an election.

It is also the responsibility of organisations and individuals to do what they can to reduce the vulnerability of data, which is the most effective method to deny states and others the opportunity to do harm or interfere. This is why we have spent £1.9 billion on cyber security, including establishing the NCSC since 2016.

There is also ongoing work with local authorities and electoral administrators to ensure our elections remain secure. Within these broad programmes of work to secure our democratic processes, costs specifically to secure elections from outside interference are not recorded separately.

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