The case for election advertising regulation was raised again in Parliament during the Third Reading of the Representation of the People Bill.
MPs highlighted several of the recommendations Reform Political Advertising has been campaigning for, including rules around factual accuracy in paid political advertising, an independent database of election ads, and stronger protections against deceptive uses of artificial intelligence.
We’ve included several contributions below – from Jodie Gosling MP, Ellie Chowns MP and Emily Darlington MP that show how firmly these issues are now part of the parliamentary debate against disinformation. .
Jodie Gosling MP: factual accuracy in election advertising
Jodie Gosling MP made the case for applying basic standards of factual accuracy to paid political advertising, while leaving political opinion, argument and debate untouched.
Ellie Chowns MP: AI, deepfakes and candidate impersonation
Ellie Chowns MP highlighted the need for greater transparency in election advertising and stronger safeguards against AI-generated impersonation and deepfakes.
Emily Darlington MP: transparency in election advertising
Emily Darlington MP focused on the case for an independent election advertising database and the need for election law to keep pace with AI.
The next opportunity: the House of Lords
The Bill now heads to the House of Lords, where we will be campaigning for these topics to be included in the scope of the Bill.
Two of the three amendments that are in line with our recommendations reflect unanimous recommendations made by the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee in 2020, to which Reform Political Advertising gave evidence. The third of AI-generated candidate impersonation was, of course, not a thing then.
We can’t help but point out that the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, signed up to the election advertising code that now forms part of these amendments when we tested it with the Mayoral elections in 2024.
