The Politics of Polling (Political Polling and Digital Media Committee Report)

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to our chair, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and our locum chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, both of whom were really exceptional and showed their vast experience in politics and Parliament. I also thank the staff, who were exceptional, and the witnesses, without whom we would not have had a report.

Like most, if not all, the Select Committee reports that we see, the report is a compromise. As the chair alluded to earlier, I argued very strongly for strong statutory oversight and regulation of political polling. But even the mild compromise that we put forward in the report has been rejected in the disappointing government response, which says:

“The Government believes that regulation is a matter for the polling companies”.


That was complacent when it was published but after the Bloomberg revelations it now appears criminally irresponsible. My noble friend Lord Rooker asked an Oral Question last Thursday in response to which the noble Lord, Lord Young—who is in his place—gave a hospital pass to the Minister who is here today and said that he would answer all the points, so I am looking forward to his answer to the point I am going to raise. It is just one, very serious issue. I hope it will convince the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, that there is at least one matter of real concern that needs to be dealt with.

The revelations by Bloomberg, after seven months of detailed investigation by a team led by Cam Simpson, which interviewed people involved in the polling companies and the hedge funds, show that there was a secret conspiracy between the polling companies and the hedge funds to manipulate currency levels in order to make billions of pounds, in which Nigel Farage appears to have been one of the conspirators. His recent denials on social media, if anyone has seen them, have become even more desperate, which convinced me that he was involved.

So how did all this start? During the Scottish referendum, the pound fluctuated with the rogue polls. There were two: YouGov and another one. As we discuss in our report, we were all concerned about the accuracy of polls as a result of that. But the hedge funds were looking rather differently. They saw the chance of making money out of these kinds of fluctuations when referenda take place. They thought, quite rightly, that the European Union referendum would be even more influential than the Scottish referendum in causing currency fluctuations. On the night of the European Union referendum poll, in the run-up to the result, a lot of us were astonished when Nigel Farage appeared on national television—and it was broadcast throughout the world—conceding defeat in that referendum. He was backed up by Joe Twynam from YouGov, who also predicted a remain victory. The headlines went nationwide and the pound went up to $1.50, which the hedge funds wanted, of course.

However, both Farage and YouGov apparently knew from their secret polling—purchased at substantial expense from four other polling companies: Survation, ICM, ComRes and BMG—that the actual result was entirely the opposite and it was going to be leave. So when the actual result was announced, the pound dropped and the hedge funds made a huge killing—billions of pounds—because they had this inside information that they had paid all that money for. So the hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of pounds that they paid to the polling companies for these secret polls was in fact a real bargain investment for them.

The law on this is quite clear. It says that if,

“any section of the public”,

is given information which is not publicly available, it is a criminal offence. So action needs to be taken in relation to that. Farage had inside information of the polls and he needs investigation. The polling companies were party to this and they need investigation. The hedge funds were party to this and they need investigation.

The Bloomberg report has been spread widely over social media but very little of it has received coverage in the mainstream media. I wonder why. Could the vested interests be twisting arms in relation to this? It is just a suggestion. Why has the Metropolitan Police not taken action? Does it need someone to draw its attention to it? Has it not heard of the Bloomberg report? It has been available to it. Why has it not taken action?

This brings me particularly to Nigel Farage. We seem to have become inured to Farage and some of his outrageous activities. This is one of many. There are also his connections with Russia and his misuse of European Parliament funds. Why is he being protected— indeed, projected—by the media? Why do his views receive so much coverage but some of his actions do not? I hope the Minister can deal with this in his reply, although I know it will not be easy and I would be happy to look forward to a detailed response in writing.

I also hope that the Select Committee might be reconvened to look at this—I say this to the chair and I have written to the Senior Deputy Speaker about it—because we did not know about it at the time so we could not ask questions about it, and of course the polling companies were not going to volunteer that kind of information. I am a member of the Liaison Committee, which is looking at the future structure of committees and is going to recommend, I think, that there should be the opportunity for committees to be reconvened if they need to look further at a matter into which they carried out an investigation.

This is a scandal, which can no longer be swept under the carpet. If it is, Parliament will be seen to be impotent and we will not have been carrying out our duty and our responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for chairing the committee and to the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for stepping into the breach when needed. I further thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for taking the time to meet me yesterday to discuss his report. I also thank members of the committee for their timely inquiry and detailed work in examining such a complex set of issues. Lastly, I thank those who have contributed to this debate for highlighting a critical area of concern to the House and indeed to our democratic system of government.

With regard to the committee’s recommendations, as the Government said in our response to the committee, many of its initial recommendations are for the British Polling Council. The council is an independent body, so we feel that it is not for the Government to comment on the detail of the recommendations. What I might say, though, is that after the 2015 general election no one was more interested in addressing polling inaccuracies than the polling industry itself—because there are clear reputational and financial repercussions for the industry from inaccurate or poor-quality polling. We continue to support the independent self-regulation of polling by the BPC and judge that this model is most effective at addressing the risks, rather than additional regulation at the moment. I am sure that the BPC will look carefully at the committee’s recommendations.

I welcome that fact that during its investigation stage the committee took evidence from the Electoral Commission as the independent regulator of elections. While fully respecting its independence, the Government work closely with the commission on a wide range of election issues. We share a concern to ensure that our electoral systems are safe and secure. We do not believe that there is a case for extending the remit of the Electoral Commission to cover polling standards or to create a register of political polling. As I have already argued, self-regulation is the right way to ensure high-quality and transparent polling, with companies responding to existing market incentives rather than bureaucratic ones to improve the standard of their activities.

However, the committee also recommended ensuring that political advertising was clearly advertised, with “digital imprints” for online election materials. As we heard in the debate, imprints are familiar in relation to printed election leaflets and so on. I agree with the committee and several noble Lords who have spoken today that more work needs to be done in the digital world on this issue. So I am pleased to confirm that the Government will soon launch a consultation to consider how digital imprinting might be taken forward.

In their speeches, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and my noble friend Lord Norton also referred to an expanded role for the Electoral Commission, including the commission’s own report of 26 June. I have already spoken about some of the commission’s recommendations—for example, digital imprinting—and how we are addressing them. In reply to my noble friend, other recommendations, including greater transparency in digital campaign spending and greater sanctioning powers for breaches of electoral law, will be considered carefully by the Cabinet Office. We believe that these issues are important. However, we believe it is right to consider these together once we have the recommendations and lessons from the commission’s ongoing investigations and the current court case is completed.

The committee also made a series of recommendations for tackling the recent spread of online disinformation, including so-called “fake news”, and my noble friend Lord Smith addressed this in his speech. The Government take the issue of online manipulation and disinformation seriously, particularly where it may influence political debate. Our democracy is built on trust in electoral processes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, reminded us, and on confidence in public institutions. Disinformation can undermine that trust. It is absolutely unacceptable for any nation to interfere in the democratic elections of another country. To date, we have seen no evidence of successful foreign interference in our democratic processes. However, we are not complacent, and the Government would take robust action should any evidence emerge that this has happened in the UK or that it is being attempted.

I agree with the committee that more work is needed, especially in the online space, to address the negative effects of disinformation and manipulation. As part of our digital charter, the Government have already taken steps to tackle the areas identified in the committee’s report and more besides. The first challenge is to understand more fully the scale and impact of disinformation. As part of this, we look forward to the DCMS Select Committee’s report this summer into fake news. Further, the Government are undertaking research over the summer, working with academics, media and representatives from the tech sector, better to understand the problem. Combined, this will inform the Government’s ongoing policy response, focused on education, technology, communications and ensuring that the right regulation is in place.

As part of our work on internet safety, on which we will publish a White Paper by the end of the year, we are looking at online advertising and microtargeting, and ways to increase transparency. This is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that people have the information they need to make informed choices. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, neatly outlined in her speech why the committee decided that the digital space was beyond its abilities in the time available. We will take her points to heart. We agree that we will not be able to leave everything as it is for ever.

The noble Baroness talked about content on social media. The internet safety strategy that I mentioned just now is looking at exactly those issues, including anonymity. We agree with the need to tackle anonymous abuse and illegal content. As the noble Baroness said, this is a complex issue given the need also to protect human rights.

Targeted advertising is not just for elections. DCMS is looking at advertising in the round. Where does targeting become manipulation? Transparency is important, but not a full solution. The scale, source and impact are hard to assess. That is why, as I said, we look forward to the report of the DCMS Select Committee in the other place and, as I also said, we will be looking at a lot of these issues over the summer.

As part of this, as the report rightly notes, the Government want to help citizens, both young and old, to build their digital literacy skills, because it is important that everyone can spot the dangers, think critically in an informed way about the content that they are consuming and understand that actions have consequences online, just as they do offline. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, highlighted the consequences of failure correctly to understand the significance of the margin of error. There is already a range of initiatives across the school curriculum to help with this. DCMS is working with the Department for Education and others to look at how we might build on them, as well as working with other institutions and organisations to reach a wider audience.

In partial answer, at least, to my noble friend Lord Norton, in the citizenship curriculum, pupils are today taught critical media literacy so that they can be helped to distinguish fact from opinion, as well as explore freedom of speech and the role and responsibility of the media in informing and shaping public opinion. I will, however, take his remarks about qualifications and pass them to the Department for Education. We are working on this over the summer in our digital charter. One of the five key areas is education and guidance to ensure that citizens have the skills to tell fact from fiction. That was in the response to the report.

Emerging technologies also have great potential in helping the Government to tackle online manipulation and disinformation. We welcome steps taken so far by the industry—for example, removing the bots that disseminate this information—but more needs to be done to tackle the problem and to support other, smaller companies to address the issue. To do this, we need companies proactively to engage with us on emerging tech solutions.

Another way that the Government will safeguard citizens from online manipulation is by addressing the issue of personal data misuse by technology companies and platforms. As the Prime Minister said, the allegations related to Cambridge Analytica are very concerning, and it is absolutely right that the Information Commissioner is investigating this matter. She is committed to producing a report about the wider implications of her investigation, and we look forward to reviewing the findings.

I cannot avoid it—eventually, I have to come to the issue of Bloomberg. I was aware of what my noble friend said last Thursday as he handed the issue over to me. He is obviously a politician of great experience, and when he gives a hospital pass, you can be sure that you are hospitalised. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I am back. My noble friend was right to say that private polls are not illegal. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, the law on exit polls is clear. The Representation of the People Act 1983 prohibits the publication of exit polls at UK parliamentary elections before the close of the poll, and this was applied for the EU referendum.

We do not comment on private arrangements between private polling companies and private hedge funds, but I would say that, if anyone has evidence that an act was illegal under either electoral or financial law or regulations, they should report it to the appropriate authorities. With reference to Mr Farage, I can only repeat what he was reported to have said to Bloomberg. He is reported to have said—rather inarticulately, but the gist is clear:

“That would have been, that would have been—for he and I to have spoken ahead of that 10 o’clock—would have been wrong at every level. Wrong for me, wrong for him, just would have been wrong”.


I am very reluctant to go any further. As I said, we do not comment on private deals.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I respect what the Minister said. We are not asking him to comment on a private deal. There are two points to be made. First, if information is made available to a section of the public, the law is clear—that it is effectively being made available publicly—and the section of the public in this case was the hedge funds. So some breach clearly took place. Secondly, the evidence may be circumstantial, but it is overwhelming. Surely there must be some way that the Government can deal with it. It is not a private arrangement; it is a major issue whereby billions of pounds have been made by currency speculation because of a secret deal between the polling companies and the hedge funds. If the Government cannot take that up and do something about it, they are more impotent than I thought.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The first thing is that the Government have to act according to the law. The law must be obeyed and if there is a breach of the law, the authorities should investigate it. When a private poll is commissioned, quite apart from why a particular poll should be regarded as more accurate than another, that is a different question to a section of the public. I am told that that point was made in the Bloomberg report to which I referred. If it has been shown that acts have taken place that were illegal but questionable, the Government should look at the law. If, however, acts have taken place that were contrary to either electoral or financial law, the authorities should look at them and complaints should be made by people who have evidence of that.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

One problem, as I understand it, is that this may not be something that the department for which the Minister is directly responsible can deal with. Will he draw it to the attention of Ministers in the department which might be able to act?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The first thing I will do is find out which department that is, and I will certainly draw the Bloomberg report to its attention. I assume it knows about it already, but I am very happy to do that.

Moving on, and going back to the report at hand, the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, asked whether the Government shared the concern that polling is being misreported and can be misleading. We agree with the British Polling Council that transparency is the best way to guard against polls being misleading—whether deliberately or accidentally. We therefore welcome its statement in May this year, which introduced a new requirement for its members to report the level of uncertainty when reporting estimates of voting intention. We are also encouraged that it will revise its guidance to journalists on the reporting of polls and will work with other relevant organisations to develop a suitable programme of training for journalists. Of course, broadcasters have a duty through Ofcom to ensure impartial reporting.

I have, however, taken on board the caveat to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—that if at the next general election the polls get it completely wrong again, all of us will have to revisit the issue.

In tackling all these issues, the Government are committed to working with international partners, industry and civil society. I welcome the recent discussion at the G7 summit about tackling disinformation, and look forward to continuing to work with like-minded partners.

I thank noble Lords again for their contributions and hope they can see that we are taking this issue seriously from some of the things we have said about what we are doing before the publication of the White Paper, particularly on the digital space, the internet safety strategy and the digital charter, along with the work we are doing this summer and the assurances I have given that the Cabinet Office is aware of these issues. We will consider the issues raised carefully, with a view to taking concerted action.