Digital Competition

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

The Government are committed to ensuring that markets work for all consumers. Since the Green Paper, we have consulted on enabling consumers to simply and securely share their data with third parties. We have confirmed our commitment to giving regulators the tools they need to address the harm caused by the loyalty penalty and worked with the UK Regulators Network to ensure that better support is available to vulnerable consumers, including piloting projects on data sharing and setting minimum standards for their treatment across sectors. Work has also been undertaken to follow up on the Green Paper. As I said, we would, in the normal course of events, expect to bring forward proposals for consumer reform early next year.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, has the Minister seen the reports that people who used to work for Conservative Prime Ministers and the Conservative Party have set up false sites on Facebook and other social media, under false names, and attacked the Labour Party? When will that kind of manipulation, falsehood and lying by Conservatives be stopped and outlawed?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I do not recognise those reports; I have not read them myself. However, the Government are committed to increasing transparency in digital campaigning to maintain a fair and proportionate democratic process. To this end, the Government announced, on 5 May this year, that they will implement an imprints regime for digital election material. The defending democracy programme, which we have already set up in the Cabinet Office, also works across government departments to strengthen the integrity of our electoral system.