Speeches by Morello.

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and my Lancastrian wife will be delighted that rugby league was brought into this debate, as she always tries to convince me when I am watching league that it is better than rugby union. I absolutely take his point about targeted support and I am sure the Minister will, too.…”

“I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman; in fact, I would quite happily have a whole other Westminster Hall debate on how we raise the level of the Championship, or the Champ, because the difference between the Prem and the Champ now is enormous. There are better models elsewhere. For example, we can look at France …”

“Apologies, Ms Vaz. We will come back to that topic in another debate. There are signs of growth and optimism in Prem rugby. The quality of rugby is among the best in the world. We are producing world-class talent that—the Six Nations aside—usually excels on the world stage. Attendance is growing, with several rounds of…”

“You leave me in something of a quandary because I deliberately chose Government support for English rugby, rather than using the debate as an opportunity to beat up the RFU—although I certainly have my criticisms of it, and I will come on to some of those points. The Government repeatedly say that the RFU is an arm’s l…”

“I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member about the wider benefits of rugby, and I will go on to speak about some of the important things that physical activity and sport bring to communities and young people. However, as he mentioned “Gladiators”, it would be remiss of me not to mention my son’s favourite Gladiator,…”

“I agree wholeheartedly and am sure that the Minister will take the opportunity to speak to that pledge. Most importantly, grassroots clubs are where the future of the sport begins. They are where the next England star first learnt to pass, make a tackle and score a try. Yet many grassroots clubs are struggling. Across …”

“I wholeheartedly agree and will come on to the issues about funding, but also about how we measure the impact to ensure that, whether it be Rugby Football Union funding or Government—taxpayer —money through Sport England, we are measuring the outputs and making sure that we are delivering results.”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered Government support for English rugby. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. Although I confess it is tempting to use this 30 minutes to talk about the disastrous result at the weekend, I will instead stick to the topic. I am a rugby romantic. For me and so …”

“That seems to be an underlying acceptance of the fact that the algorithm is pushing the content, because what you are saying is that it is a requirement of the user to correct that stream by actively moving it in a different direction. The starting premise of what you are suggesting is that it is in fact pushing far-ri…”

“I am interested in this point, because of some of our trips to certain countries. This is not to lay the blame in any way entirely at the feet of the social media companies, because there is also the other side of it, which is state institutions. They have flagging processes: a member of the public may identify somethi…”

“Do you agree with the statistic from the 2024 academic research that said that around 12% of active users on X were inauthentic accounts? Does that feel like an accurate number to you, or is it higher?”

“I accept your premise. So the 800 million are either fake accounts in the process of being created or ones that you have identified as being created. Of the remaining circa 600 million that are deemed to be active users, how confident is X that all of those are authentic accounts?”

“Help us to understand that. There are 600 million real people that have accounts and 800 million that have been removed. How many more not-real accounts are still on there?”

“Do you think that the 600 million you have as active users are all real?”

“I am going to interrupt again, to give Dr Fernández a chance to reply.”

“I ask only because the internet tells me that you have only about 600 million active users. What is the number I am missing between the number of users of Twitter and the number of accounts you are removing?”

“Whether or not the misinformation or disinformation meets your guidelines, the business model is obviously getting engagement, selling advertising, getting people to use it or whatever it might be. If you look at your global annual revenue, what percentage of it is realistically driven by or as a result of engagement w…”

“Sorry, we are running out of time, and I must give everyone a chance to answer. Mr Law, do you have a revenue number?”

“Can I just be clear—is that a temporary suspension or a permanent removal?”

“I will not repeat all the allegations against social media companies, but the underlying issue with disinformation and misinformation—I separate out inauthentic co-ordinated behaviour—is that, to the public, social media platforms feel like cesspools of misinformation and disinformation. The inherent problem is that yo…”