Elections: Subversion
(asked on 17th December 2025) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will take legislative steps to ensure that no future election in the UK will be subject to outside interference.
Answered by
Samantha Dixon
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government takes any attempts to intervene in democratic processes very seriously. It is, and always will be, an absolute priority to protect our democratic and electoral processes, including from foreign interference.
On the 16th of December, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced an independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. The review will report at the end of March and will inform the forthcoming Elections Bill. This builds on the major reforms announced in the Elections Strategy in July, and the launch last month of the Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan to disrupt and deter spying from states.
The Government’s strategy for modern, secure and inclusive elections, published in July, sets out our plan to strengthen oversight of and safeguards against known and emerging threats, including foreign interference through covert political funding. We will deliver a robust and proportionate response to known risks, protecting the integrity of our system and reinforcing public trust in democracy.
This sits alongside the government’s robust toolkit of measures to investigate and disrupt the threat from foreign interference in UK politics. This includes the National Security Act 2023, the Defending Democracy Taskforce, which coordinates work to protect UK political parties, elected officials and the electoral infrastructure, and the Joint Election Security and Preparedness unit, which coordinates work across government to protect UK elections and referendums, and the Online Safety Act which requires services to take steps to remove illegal disinformation content including illegal state-sponsored disinformation in scope of the Foreign Interference Offence.