B

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 5 January 2026

Debate

Government Communications: X

Contribution

My Lords, we do not spend a penny of government money on advertising on the platform. However, what is always useful when these questions come forward is that it makes you look in more detail at the subject matter. Not only are 19.2 million British citizens registered with X, but 10.8 million families use X as their main news source; that is more than any other social platform, which I find genuinely extraordinary. We would be doing a disservice by removing government communications from X when that is where people are actually accessing them; we are making sure that facts are available. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right that we need to look at these issues in the round. One thing that is incredibly important on some of these issues is prebuttal, as opposed to rebuttal—a word I had not heard before today. It is about making sure that people have the skills to challenge the data in front of them, which is why it is so important that DSIT is about to launch a campaign to make sure that families have access to the right skills to challenge and interrogate the data. Better and enhanced skills are part of the new media literacy and will be part of the new national curriculum.

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