Digital Skills (Select Committee Report)

Baroness Harding of Winscombe Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as the chief executive of TalkTalk, an internet service provider, and as a trustee of Doteveryone, a digital charity set up by my noble friend Lady Lane-Fox. It is a huge privilege to speak in this debate, not least because of the fantastic work the committee has done shining a light on Britain’s digital skills challenge. It is an excellent report and I am only sorry that my own endeavours in the digital world have meant that this is the first time I have been able personally to participate.

It will not surprise your Lordships to learn that I am passionate about the ability of the internet to change lives for the better. At its best, the digital world can advance human knowledge and understanding, enable business to thrive and spread prosperity, and bring families and communities together—not just digitally but physically. It can be a tremendous force for good. It is also something Britain can be brilliant at. We are already firmly established as one of the leading global clusters for the tech and digital sector, and are sucking in talent and innovation from around the world. That is fuelled in part by our insatiable demand for digital services, whether click and collect retailing, takeaway apps that link SMEs to consumers, or innovative transport apps that link open source data to allow us to transit London faster.

Britain spends more online per head of population than any other country in the world. That is testament to the dynamism of our digital economy, which is driving job creation and prosperity. Research from Tech City UK and Nesta showed that between 2011 and 2014, the tech and digital sector created jobs nearly three times more quickly than the wider economy. Crucially, they are fantastic jobs: the average salary in the sector is £50,000 a year, 36% higher than in the rest of the economy. It is also making our public services more efficient and responsive. The Government’s digital by default programme is transforming how citizens interact with the state, making it easier for people to get the support they need and saving nearly £2 billion a year that can be reinvested in front-line services.

We can be proud of what Britain is already achieving, but we cannot unlock our full potential as a digital nation if we allow that digital revolution to not be an inclusive one. As the committee’s report highlights, the unequal distribution of digital skills means we are at risk of leaving some groups behind. The report forensically sets out the detailed picture, but in the interests of brevity, and not wishing to repeat what other noble Lords have said, I will highlight a couple of areas that particularly concern me.

The first one is the disadvantaged groups. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, pointed out, 10 million adults in the UK lack basic digital skills as defined by Doteveryone. That means they do not know how to send an email, do a web search or fill in a job application online. However, those 10 million people are not evenly spread across the population. Nearly half are in disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. The disabled and women are disproportionately likely to be offline. As workplaces and public services become digitised, we risk exacerbating existing social divides, making it harder for vulnerable groups to find work or to access the services they most depend on.

My second concern is gender. The committee is right to highlight that women are disproportionately likely to lack digital skills or to pursue technology careers. Believe me, I feel it: as a female chief executive of a digital company, I am quite a rare breed. Sadly, it came as little surprise to read in the report that just 10% of app developers are women. Without more young women studying STEM careers at school and university and being encouraged into technology careers, that is simply not going to change and our digital future will be one-sided.

The third concern is business. The transition to online is a challenge for any organisation. I run an internet service provider, and we are still learning how to use the very product we sell. No organisation makes the transition from nondigital to digital without assistance. This is particularly true of Britain’s SMEs. Research by Lloyds shows that more than a quarter of SMEs do not think that the internet is relevant to them. That is despite the fact that the most digitally mature SMEs are a third more likely to be growing.

Put simply, the digital revolution is at risk of being a partial one. Without addressing the growing gulf in digital skills, we risk permanently disadvantaging some groups. That would be a tragedy for those individuals but also artificially cap Britain’s potential to be the world’s leading technology and digital economy.

I believe that universal digital literacy will be every bit as important as basic literacy was during the industrial revolution and that if we do not grasp that now, it will be too late and other countries will get ahead of us. What should we do about it?

Too often, debates about the digital economy and digital skills focus on infrastructure. I run an infrastructure business, so of course I think infrastructure is important, but it is not the only thing that will drive basic digital literacy and skills. We must not conflate the supply of infrastructure with the ability to use that technology.

The vast majority of the 10 million people without basic digital skills have access to superfast broadband today if they want it. Many live in households with superfast broadband connection, but they do not know how to use it. They are scared of it; they think it is not for them; they lack the skills to make use of the digital world, not the infrastructure. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that extending coverage is a substitute for tackling the digital skills deficit.

The committee is absolutely right to call for more robust intervention to address the digital skills challenge. I welcome the vast majority of the report’s recommendations, and I hope they find support from all sides of the House. I want to highlight three specific things to focus our efforts on universal basic digital literacy.

The first is a strengthened government strategy, perhaps to take advantage of the fact that the strategy has not yet been published. I encourage my noble friend to ensure that the digital strategy contains a detailed plan for universal basic digital literacy. We will never turn people from digital citizens to digital workers to digital makers if they do not have the basic digital skills. Co-ordinating that—the role that government can play as the convener, the challenger, of the private sector and the third sector—is hugely valuable.

I defer to the great experts in this House on education, but it is also essential that we focus on equipping our young people with the skills they will need in tomorrow’s economy. That can be done together with the private sector, so I welcome the proposals for greater contact between tech companies and teachers, including industry support to reform FE courses and to roll out industry-endorsed qualifications. That will be essential.

Finally, I focus on one essential as a businesswoman, which is money. We have to be honest in acknowledging that eradicating digital exclusion will not be free. I am mindful of the pressures on very limited government resources, but I feel that there is scope to review the case for investing in universal basic digital skills.

The Government expect to save £8 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament by moving services online. That will not be possible if 10 million adults remain digitally excluded. It is not expensive to teach people to use the internet. Research from the Tinder Foundation has shown that it can cost as little as £47 to open up the digital world to someone, to give them those skills. Clearly, that investment would reap rewards for the individual but also by unlocking that efficiency for government, and set us on the path to becoming a proper digital leader. We are willing to invest in higher-end digital skills development; why are we not so keen on investing in basic universal digital literacy?

I conclude with a note of optimism. We have a digital skills challenge, as all nations do, but I am hopeful that if we embrace the digital revolution, as we embraced the industrial revolution a century or more ago, we can emerge as one of the strongest digital nations—not just for the few, not just for one sex, but for everyone. I believe that digital skills can play a role in uniting the country and helping us all to prosper, and that is a prize worth striving for.