Tag Archives: Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee

The Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill: steps in the right direction for democracy

Posted on by

The government’s draft Online Safety Bill does little to protect democracy from damage caused by online actors, despite a previous commitment to take action. Alex Walker argues that this was an error. Here, he analyses the December report of the parliamentary joint committee tasked with examining the bill. A post in early February will critique the conclusions and recommendations of the DCMS select committee, which published its report earlier this week.

In December, the joint committee tasked with scrutinising the government’s draft Online Safety Bill published its report, the conclusions of which were outlined by its Chair, Damian Collins, on this blog. The committee recommended significant overarching changes to the draft bill, which represents the first major attempt in the UK at online regulation.

Since its publication in May 2021, the draft bill has been subject to extensive criticism, including on this blog. In previous posts, I’ve highlighted that it fails to address online threats to democracy. The government’s 2019 Online Harms white paper acknowledged the seriousness of this issue and set out measures to tackle it. These proposals were then later abandoned.

Positively, the committee noted the government’s change of direction and concluded to the contrary that online harms to democracy should be tackled by legislation. Whilst the committee’s recommendations have their own limitations, if adopted they would better protect democratic processes from online harm than at present.

Continue reading →

The Parliamentary Constituencies Bill: how to ensure a level playing field

Posted on by

alan.jfif (1)professor_hazell_2000x2500_1.jpgLegislation now before parliament will reform how parliamentary constituencies are drawn up. Most controversial is a proposal that the recommendations of the independent boundary commissions should be implemented automatically. Alan Renwick and Robert Hazell argue that the principle of automatic implementation is right, but it should be combined with stronger safeguards on the commissions’ independence. 

The government’s Parliamentary Constituencies Bill was debated in the House of Commons for the first time earlier this week. The bill, if passed, will keep the number of MPs at 650, cancelling a cut to 600 that was legislated for in 2011 but has not yet been implemented. It will also alter the procedures for drawing up Westminster constituency boundaries, in four main ways. First, it will reduce the frequency with which boundaries are reviewed, from five- to eight-year intervals. Second, it will slightly shorten the duration of the next review (but only the next one), from 34 to 31 months, to ensure its conclusions can be implemented in good time for a 2024 election. Third, it will adjust the sequence of the review process, so that public hearings on proposed boundaries take place after an initial round of written submissions. Finally, and most importantly, it will make the implementation of new boundaries automatic: parliament will lose its current power to block the proposed changes.

Cancelling the cut in the number of MPs is no longer controversial. That reduction was introduced in 2011 in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal, when public scepticism about the value of MPs’ work was at a peak. It was designed to show that ministers understood people’s anger about perceived waste at the heart of politics. Since then, however, parliament has done much to reassert its value. MPs have become more independent-minded in holding government to account. Following reforms implemented in 2010 – some of which were strongly based in earlier Constitution Unit research – select committees have risen greatly in prominence, and are now widely seen as doing much important work. Furthermore, many constituents were discomfited when they saw that cutting the number of MPs would reduce their own local representation at Westminster. The cross-party support that exists for retaining 650 MPs is therefore welcome.

Some of the changes to review procedures have, however, proved more contentious. In particular, opposition parties have argued against the introduction of automatic review implementation. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, both the Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement, Cat Smith, and SNP Spokesperson David Linden called it ‘a power grab’ by the executive over the legislature. Labour’s Stephen Kinnock described it as ‘nothing short of a constitutional outrage’. Continue reading →

Responding to the coronavirus ‘infodemic’: some lessons in tackling misinformation

Posted on by

Michela.Palese (1)alan.jfif (1)The proliferation of false, misleading and harmful information about the coronavirus has been described as an ‘infodemic’ by the World Health Organisation. Government, social media companies, and others have taken concerted action against it. Michela Palese and Alan Renwick here examine these responses and consider potential lessons for tackling online misinformation more broadly.

COVID-19 is rightly dominating the international agenda. Besides the crucial health, economic, and social dimensions, considerable attention is being paid to the information on COVID-19 that is circulating online. 

Ever since the virus emerged, false, misleading and/or harmful information has spread, especially online. Newsguard, which ranks websites by trustworthiness, found that, in the 90 days to 3 March, 75 US websites publishing coronavirus misinformation received ‘more than 142 times the engagement of the two major public health institutions providing information about the outbreak’. Ofcom found that ‘[a]lmost half of UK online adults came across false or misleading information about the coronavirus’ in the last week of March. The World Health Organisation (WHO) described the misinformation as an ‘infodemic – an over-abundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.’

The capacity of social media and 24/7 news to proliferate misinformation was already manifest. But this is the first time the potentially nefarious effects of an unregulated online space have combined with a global pandemic. As Conservative MP Damian Collins put it, this is the ‘first major public health crisis of the social media age’.

Governments and tech companies across the globe are responding. In this post, we highlight key steps and consider lessons for dealing with misinformation in general. Continue reading →

Democracy and the coronavirus: how might parliament adapt?

Posted on by

sir_david_natzler.smiling.cropped.3840x1920.jpgParliament is currently in recess but its work continues, with select committees moving to remote hearings, and the Speaker promising to move, if only temporarily, towards a ‘virtual parliament’. David Natzler, who spent almost 40 years working in the House of Commons, draws on his experience to suggest how issues relating to the remote conduct of oral questions, voting, committees, and other key matters, might be resolved before parliament returns in late April.

In my blog of 23 March, I suggested that parliament would be judged on how well it had dealt with COVID-19. Over the past fortnight parliament has passed the Coronavirus Act and Commons select committees have held several hearings (see below) in procedurally unique circumstances. Developments in other parliaments and institutions have given an indication of how Westminster might adapt in the coming months. And there have been growing calls for business – in  some radically different form – to be resumed well before 21 April, when parliament is due to reassemble following its standard, if slightly extended, Easter break. The proceedings in both Houses on 23-25 March are of course available to read in Hansard. They do not seem to have been widely reported in the press, save for the observation that there were no votes. 

Speaker’s letter of 27 March: Chamber proceedings 

On 27 March the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, wrote a letter to all members of the House of Commons. The letter confirmed that he would be considering several practical measures to enable the number of members present in the Commons chamber at any one time to be reduced. These measures included advance publication of the order of speaking in debate, which the Chair has hitherto not revealed, thus requiring members to attend the debate and wait until called. In the past it has been suggested that the draft list be published, as it is in many other parliaments; this already happens in the House of Lords. If this were introduced it could take some persuasion to return to the existing practice, which allows the Chair to show some flexibility in response to debate.

Oral and written questions and statements

The Speaker’s letter also envisages possible adaptations of the oral question regime, conceivably allowing for questions and supplementary questions to be posed remotely by absent members. Advance submission by MPs of their desire to be called to ask a supplementary question following a statement or urgent question is also canvassed as a possible change. And the Speaker gave a strong signal that he would expect the government to allow for answers to written questions to be given during any future extended period of adjournment, much as happened in the mid-2000s when September sittings were abandoned for several years (see Standing Order 22B and Erskine May 22.4, footnote 3). This was repeated in his letter to the Leader of the Commons on 2 April. Continue reading →