Speeches by Cooper.

“Madam Deputy Speaker, you will of course be aware that the best summer attraction is the Northwich piña colada festival, which is enjoyed by boys and girls of all ages. I thank the Chancellor for her statement. The relief she is providing to the chemicals industry will be welcomed by sector businesses in Mid Cheshire. …”

“Andrew Cooper, Member of Parliament for Mid Cheshire.”

“The Government said that their objective is to preserve democracy for the next generation. From your experience, what do you think election mis- and disinformation will look like in a generation?”

“Interesting.”

“If I may though, with respect, have we not already seen an impact on election results? You say we might have a big event and there might be a moral panic and we have to legislate quickly, but we are getting it now, surely. This is not a nuclear weapon that is being deployed. This is the salami tactics. This is the drip…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous with her time. She talks about green spaces. My constituency is in a section of the route that has now been cancelled, and is in the process of being removed from the Bill. We still have planning safeguards in place, and uncapped boreholes from ground inv…”

“You said that your role is not to come up with solutions, but notwithstanding that, as society becomes more dependent on social media for news, how do you think that our elections or indeed our discourse more generally can be protected from mis- and disinformation in these spaces?”

“We are very focused on what happens during the regulated period, what happens during a short campaign, but from what you are saying it sounds like—certainly what Marianna was talking about, with the rise in decline porn and the sum total of disinformation that is being put out online all the time—this is a build-up of …”

“So it created a distrust effect against the whole political class rather than saying left-wing politicians are responsible for this?”

“Okay, thank you. Clearly this abuse can have a chilling effect on candidates willing to stand for election. What are the key reforms that you think that we could make to help protect these groups?”

“I have seen in my own constituency misinformation and disinformation around elections that can lead to abuse and harassment, in my case for council candidates. What starts online does not necessarily stay online and can lead to assaults of candidates in the real world. Hanno, could you give us a sense of the scale of t…”

“Interesting. Thank you. Is there anybody else?”

“Are social media companies incentivised to amplify false or misleading content and how can we break this link?”

“That is so interesting. It is a bit like what I have heard: in the Ukraine war there are no-fly zone areas where tools are monitoring when something enters their airspace and they are automatically launching drones. This is the social media equivalent of that, isn’t it?”

“Do you think there is a risk that if Parliament ends up legislating for a social media ban at 16 we effectively end up letting social media companies off the hook, that we put a big check mark next to, “We have regulated social media now and we have protected our children from it”, but we ignore the fact that children …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her statement and for her leadership of the Select Committee during this inquiry. I would like to start by commending Cheshire West and Chester council for its efforts to substantially reduce B&B use for temporary accommodation. However, not every local authority is in the same position a…”

“I am Andrew Cooper, Member of Parliament for Mid Cheshire.”

“I would just like to come back briefly to the point you were making about algorithmic bias. In broadcast media, Ofcom will enforce due impartiality during the election period, whereby political parties and independent candidates must be given due weight across broadcasters’ TV and radio coverage, which clearly made sen…”

“I am struck that we have been talking about deepfakes only during elections. You only have to spend a bit of time on YouTube to look at the extent to which deepfakes are operating 24/7 with regard to what the Prime Minister is saying. It feels like we are missing what is happening right now. My line of questioning is t…”

“Indeed, you have differing requirements for nomination papers and returns of expenses for town and parish council elections versus unitary authorities. It is a mess and all over the place, so it is that sort of thing that you think we should be consolidating and tidying up.”