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EU Referendum: Lessons Learned

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the fairness you have always shown me in this and previous Parliaments.

The report is clear: the referendum was called to call the bluff of the Brexiteers, civil service neutrality was clearly jeopardised and, as the Chair of the Committee said, there was no preparation for the vote to leave. Is not it obvious that the referendum was held not in the national interest but in the governing party’s interest? Now, with 30 of its MPs under investigation, we are having an election, instead of focusing on the outcome of the referendum. Paragraphs 102, 103 and 104 of the Committee’s report should concern the House—and, in fact, the whole country. We have not done enough to secure our systems for either referendums or elections. In the Chair’s view and the view of his Committee, are our systems strong enough, at the time of a snap general election, in the event of a concerted cyber-attack, to which the report refers, by a foreign power or from some other source? Even at this late stage, does he think that there is anything that we can do to strengthen our systems’ resilience?