Misinformation, trust and truth: the role of parliamentary research services

Representing constituents’ interests is a key part of the role of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK. MPs regularly spend time in their constituencies and deal with vast amounts of emails from constituents (supported by their office staff). When constituents ask MPs for their views on various policies, they are sometimes influenced by misinformation, including false claims spread via social media and potentially shaped by AI. This raises questions, especially if MPs ask the House of Commons Library for information to help them respond to constituents.
First, how might answering these requests affect trust in MPs and in Parliament? MPs have an interest in maintaining the trust of their constituents as potential future voters. Providing evidence is not always an effective way to counter misinformation, and MPs need to engage with these views sensitively. The interactions between MPs and constituents are also an important way in which citizens engage with Parliament, offering opportunities to build trust in parliamentary democracy more generally. Parliaments therefore have an interest in how MPs deal with these questions. The Commons Library offers MPs training and guidance on misinformation, and provides information on request to help them respond to constituents.
This raises a second question: how should parliamentary research services deal with false claims while staying impartial? These services usually uphold impartiality by upheld using strategies like reflecting different viewpoints and highlighting methodological limitations, but hesitate to explicitly denounce claims – which may be supported by some politicians – as false. Some argue that the (impartial) media should be more assertive in assessing truth claims by politicians; should this apply to impartial parliamentary research services, and what specific challenges would this raise for them?
This paper aims to draw out these questions in greater detail and outline their implications, as a first step towards answering them.