Martin Lewis defends using ‘fruity language’ in Parliament as he fumes over scam adverts-Louise Griffin-Entertainment – Metro

Martin Lewis has explained why he used ‘fruity’ language in the House of Commons, after he gave evidence to MPs about scam advertising online.

The Money Saving Expert criticised tech giants as he gave evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) sub-committee on Online Harms and Disinformation in Parliament on Tuesday morning.

He accused the tech firms of not being ‘interested in funding the victims of scams’ despite being ‘culpable parties’ in fraud adverts appearing online.

In 2019, Martin reached a settlement with Facebook, which involved the social media company setting up a new scam ads prevention project.

Speaking three years later, Martin said he thought it was ‘a good settlement at the time’ but is ‘very disappointed’ in how many scam adverts still appear on Facebook.

He also said he recently attended a meeting with tech giants, where they explained why it’s hard to reduce the amount of scam adverts.

Martin recalled ending the meeting after telling them he’s ‘not interested in technological b*****ks.’

Martin gave evidence to the House of Commons parliamentary committee (Picture: ITV)

He was left fuming over scam adverts (Picture: Parliment TV)

After the clip was played on Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid said: ‘We took out the fruity language’.

‘Yeah, I used a word that begins with “B” that wasn’t balderdash or baloney when talking about how, when I went into a meeting and they tried to do an hour-long presentation about the technological difficulties of stopping scams, that after a few minutes I just said, “Stop, this is irrelevant, you don’t need to talk to me about your technological…baloney,”‘ Martin said.

‘Because the truth is, if you can’t do it with technology, then employ people and pay people to manually vet each scam. It is not a technological solution that’s needed, it is a solution.

‘The big tech companies are the biggest and most profitable in the world, they make billions of pounds, and yet I believe they have been weak and flaccid at stopping vulnerable people being ripped off in scam adverts that destroy lives, that lead some people to consider taking their own life, that have huge mental health impacts as well as destroying people’s financial lives,’ Martin explained.

He defended his use of ‘fruity language’ (Picture: Parliment TV)

Martin Lewis hosted GMB with Susanna Reid (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

‘Clearly as my face and occasionally [Susanna’s] face as well is used in ripping those people off, I feel passionately about it which is why I sued Facebook those years ago.’

He went on to say: ‘My fruity language was a bit of anger,’ adding: ‘I should not have had to sue Facebook.’

However, he also apologised for his language after sharing the video on Twitter, writing: ‘Giving evidence to parliamentary committee today inc on scam ads – sorry for swearing…’

He added: ‘PS for accuracies sake I don’t think i actually said ‘b*****ks’ in the legal meeting, I was using it to express my feelings here [sic].’

Martin hosted GMB alongside Susanna, and will be on the show every Wednesday until Christmas.

Earlier this year, he won a National Television Award, taking aim at the government in his acceptance speech.

Accepting the award, he said: ‘It’s been a pretty horrible year financially. I mean, the energy crisis has been disastrous and left many people with terrible issues and mental health problems.

‘I’m afraid the next year with the mortgage problem and the knock-on to rent is going to be pretty bad. And you know what? We need somebody to get a grip on the economy and put things a little bit back.’

Metro.co.uk has contacted Facebook for comment.

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.

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