Vetting Social Media Accounts

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The HR people group within the Cabinet Office produces different guidance on different things. It has a network in which people regularly discuss how things are operating. The guidance I referred to was considered as part of that process in February. It is available in the Library of the House, if noble Lords want to look at it, as the noble Baroness has obviously done. It is a good thing that it is publicly available.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, the House will know that I am a little slow on certain things, particularly things such as “cross-departmental diversity networks”, which is a strange phrase. Let me ask a simple question. Is it not a fact that all freedoms require counterbalancing responsibilities if they are to mean anything, particularly in the Civil Service, which has an overriding responsibility to act impartially as part of a government system headed by an elected Government? Does my noble friend agree that a balance is absolutely necessary in this? As my noble friend Lord Cormack pointed out, is it not timely for the Civil Service to be reminded of that fundamental responsibility?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. The balance between free speech and Civil Service impartiality is exactly what we are trying to strike.