Ministers and Electoral Commission discuss digital challenges to UK

The House of Lords Committee on Political Polling and Digital Media hears 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.

Witnesses

Tuesday 12 December in Committee Room 4, Palace of Westminster

At 10.45

Jane Frost, Chief Executive, Market Research Society

At 11.45am

Claire Bassett, Chief Executive, Electoral Commission
Bob Posner, Director of Political Finance and Regulation & Legal Counsel, Electoral Commission

At 2.00pm

Sir Patrick McLoughlin, MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Matt Hancock MP, the Minister for Digital
Peter Lee, Director of the Constitution Group

Areas of discussion

The Committee asks 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.

Also, witnesses are questioned 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.

Further information

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