Ministers and Electoral Commission to face Lords polling committee on challenges to UK democracy from digital media
The House of Lords Committee on Political Polling and Digital Media will next week hear from Ministers Sir Patrick McLoughlin and Matt Hancock, as well as the Electoral Commission and the Market Research Society, as it continues its inquiry into the influence of political polling and digital media on politics and democracy in the UK.
The Committee will ask the witnesses about the Electoral Commission's recent statement that British elections face a ‘perfect storm' of threats to their integrity from developments in social media and political advertising and third party state actors. The Committee will ask the Ministers how the Government will respond to this threat.
The Committee will also ask the witnesses about the effectiveness of current regulation around political polling and for their response to concerns the Committee have heard about the impartiality of polling commissioned by advocacy groups and misleading reporting of opinion poll results by the media.
The evidence sessions will be held on Tuesday 12 December. The full witness details are:
10:45
- Jane Frost, Chief Executive, Market Research Society (Committee Room 2)
11:45
- Claire Bassett, Chief Executive, Electoral Commission
- Bob Posner, Director of Political Finance and Regulation & Legal Counsel, Electoral Commission (Committee Room 2)
14:00
- Sir Patrick McLoughlin MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Matt Hancock MP, Minister for Digital
- Peter Lee, Director of the Constitution Group (Committee Room 4)
