Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of misinformation spread by Russia on democracy in the UK.

The Government's Defending Democracy Taskforce, chaired by the Security Minister, is focused on safeguarding our democracy from the full range of threats including foreign interference.

MI5’s National Protective Security Authority has recently launched new guidance to protect the UK’s democratic institutions from foreign interference. It notes that the UK is a target of long-term strategic foreign interference and provides advice for at-risk individuals to take to protect themselves, their teams and the integrity of our democratic processes.

Protecting the UK’s democratic processes continues to be a priority for this Government and we have a number of mechanisms to tackle foreign interference and misinformation:

• The National Security Act 2023 provides the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to deter, detect, and disrupt state threats.

The Online Safety Act 2023 introduced measures which strengthen our ability to tackle information threats, especially in relation to electoral processes.