Jodie Gosling MP speaking about our amendments in the House of Commons last week.
I wanted to give you a quick update on what has been an important few months for our politically neutral campaign Reform Political Advertising.
Thanks in no small part to your support, our proposals to bring greater accuracy and transparency to election advertising have gone from campaign ideas to amendments backed by dozens of MPs across Parliament. At the final Commons stages of the Representation of the People Bill last week, our three main amendments had attracted the support of 38, 47 and 57 MPs.
They did not make it into the Bill, but importantly they were not rejected in a vote either. They remained on the amendment paper at Report Stage but were not what is called “reached” before the Bill moved to Third Reading.
I sat through the session in the gallery, and my impression was of a Government focused on getting a very large Bill through its Commons stages rather than closing down every proposal that had been put forward. There were also some encouraging signs that the door remains open. In her closing speech, Florence Eshalomi (who is responsible for the Bill) said the Government recognised the challenges posed by AI-generated content and deepfakes. She agreed that greater transparency was needed to protect the integrity of elections, and said it was continuing to assess the best way to respond to concerns raised through amendments.
That is exactly why we cannot afford to lose momentum now. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to update the rules that govern our elections.
The news over the last few days that Reform UK has received two donations totalling £72m is another reminder of how much the campaigning environment has changed. That is the largest single donation ever made to a UK political party. That comes only a few years after the Government increased the national spending limit for a political party contesting every constituency at a UK general election from £19.5m to £35.1m.
Whatever your politics, that combination is important. Parties can now raise and spend much larger sums on campaigning than before. Parliament is rightly looking at where political money comes from and how it is regulated with the Bill, but failing to address the information side of disinformation would be an enormous error at a crucial moment for our democracy. Elections are increasingly being decided by razor-thin margins in a five-party political environment, just as campaigning is moving into the AI era.
We also can’t help but mention again that new PM Andy Burnham signed up to our ad code for factual accuracy which is part of these amendments in his 2024 Manchester mayoral campaign.
The Bill has now moved to the House of Lords, where we are pushing forward the same core asks: factual accuracy in paid election advertising, an independent database of election advertising to prevent “dark advertising”, action on AI and deepfake impersonation of candidates, and party identification in imprints (the copy on election material that is meant to tell you its provenance).
The amendment process now effectively starts again in the House of Lords when the Bill will go through several stages: that are called Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading. The detailed timetable is not yet fixed, but the process is likely to run through the autumn, giving us further opportunities to build support and press for change.
There is also another important development: we now have the advertising industry behind key parts of our campaign. Key ad trade bodies ISBA, the IPA and the IAB, representing advertisers, agencies and publishers (including Meta and Google) respectively, are supporting reforms we are asking Parliament to consider.
You can watch videos of MPs speaking in the House of Commons in support of these reforms below:
Watch MPs speaking in the House of Commons
There is still a lot of work to do. Over the coming weeks we will be briefing peers, building support in the Lords and making the case directly to those who can influence the Bill.
RPA is a small, politically neutral, not-for-profit campaign run by unpaid volunteers. If you value this work and are able to help, please consider making a donation so we can keep up the pressure through the Lords stage.
Donate to Reform Political Advertising
If you’d like to ask any questions about the campaign and its progress please send me an email at alex (dot) tait (at) reformpoliticaladvertising (dot) org and I’ll be happy to answer any question you have.
Thanks for your support.
Alex Tait
Reform Political Advertising
