Ms Billie Sparks:

The Chairman raises an important point. Online advertising, like any advertising, costs money. The larger and better resourced parties have more opportunity to put money behind advertisements to microtarget to a larger extent. They have more staff members who are devoted to this task. This is something we come up against. It is a challenge. It is something we focus on and prioritise, but resources are limited for us compared with some of the other parties and we often have to be smarter in regard to how we go about doing things and ensure we invest the limited resources we have wisely.

I share the Chairman's concerns in regard to how this will impact on democracy and how politics functions in this country going forward. The Chairman is correct that those with more money tend to have a position of advantage, but it has never been as apparent or obvious in politics that the parties with the larger resources and money behind them have a much greater advantage than smaller parties such as the Labour Party, the Social Democrats or the Green Party. The Chairman has raised an important issue that needs to be looked at in terms of how we want our democracy to function into the future.