UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Digital Impact

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)]

What a delight to follow the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Shields. To have more women in this Chamber is essential, but to have one with such digital smarts is a dream come true.

The second Chamber of the UK Parliament was not the obvious place for a young woman from Pennsylvania to end up, but she brings a distinctive perspective through her rare experience. The noble Baroness’s CV is like a roll-call of the great and good of the tech sector, from early video in Silicon Valley to Google, Bebo, AOL and Facebook; but for more than that, her commercial smarts, the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, has earned her place among the leading voices in our sector. Alongside the work on the issue that she has described today, she has tirelessly championed more recognition and support of entrepreneurs, particularly women, and was instrumental in the Government’s renewed focus on technology, founding Tech City and moving on to advise the Prime Minister on digital policy. Perhaps we should not find it surprising that a few weeks after entering your Lordships’ House, the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, has launched a free digital academy providing skills to help people move on in their careers. Watch out, noble Lords—she may be hoping to use you as test cases. I look forward to working with her very much.

I also add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Kidron, both personally and professionally. She has been a great ally and supporter since my arrival in the House and I have watched with admiration as she has built her iRights campaign. Like this debate, it is timely and important.

In some ways I feel ill equipped to speak. I have no children of my own and have spent my entire working life in the company of grown-ups. During the founding of lastminute.com, the closest I came to dealing with the difficulties of children and the web was one customer who claimed that he had not meant to book a fairly ritzy holiday but that his dog and his two year-old had completed the transaction. I suggested that his child should be sent straight to college as the child was clearly a genius. That happened in 2000. How things have changed. Now it seems more than possible that a two year-old child could complete a transaction on a website. I read just yesterday that a five year-old boy, Ayan Qureshi, has become the world’s youngest qualified Microsoft Certified Professional.

However, no one who works in or around the digital world can ignore the questions and challenges that the internet now raises in relation to young people. It was interesting to read the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child and consider how fast technology is evolving, how hard it is to unpick themes and how difficult it is to future-proof legislation. No one would have predicted social networks when I started my career in technology, and even at the start of this Parliament WhatsApp and Snapchat were fanciful notions, yet they now present some of the knottiest problems.

I will make three points. The first is about digital exclusion. As noble Lords may know, I have been working for the past five years on the lack of basic digital skills in the UK. I declare an interest as founder and chair of Go ON UK, an alliance of eight public and private sector organisations coming together to help people reach their digital potential. There are still 10 million adults in the UK who are unable to communicate, transact, stay safe or search using the web, meaning that information, jobs and significant savings—let alone entertainment and all the things we take for granted—are unavailable to them. This is a huge issue for the country, especially as this group is from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and the older population—two groups that could arguably benefit most from online skills. More than 4 million of that 10 million are parents and I cannot imagine how intimidating and difficult it must be to navigate your child’s online life if you have no understanding of your own.

In addition, the charity Mind the Gap tells us:

“Over 500,000 children in over 400,000 of the poorest homes in the UK cannot go online using a computer at home, disadvantaging them in their education”—

we know that children with access gain on average a two-grade improvement in results—

“Schools expect children to use the Internet at home for homework, research, revision, collaboration and independent study”,

yet 10% of schoolchildren are excluded from doing so. It is vital that we do not let up on championing and creating access and skills for all to ensure that there is not a disadvantaged group of children or a disadvantaged group of parents. Will the Minister please elaborate on how the Government plan to ensure that half a million children—a worryingly large number—are not permanently left behind?

Secondly, I would like to reflect on the changes to the curriculum that this Government have introduced so boldly. It is a fantastic ambition to have mandated that every child of primary school age should learn to code. In an age when the internet underpins all aspects of our daily lives—like water—giving children the confidence to look under the bonnet and start to create and build is essential. With innovations such as Raspberry Pi, the Scratch sites and Codeacademy, there really are few barriers that prevent curious children from becoming the next tech stars of tomorrow. As we have heard already, we need them, with 700,000 tech sectors jobs empty right now and 1 million more predicted by 2020.

Education is being blown apart by technology. Children are as likely to use YouTube as a textbook. They whizz to the web as a default when faced with homework. One of my favourite examples was a wily group of children in Michigan who realised that they could outsource their homework to Singapore overnight. Teachers were baffled as results suddenly and dramatically improved. There is a whole new set of challenges for teachers, who are so central to this debate.

The shift is both exciting and vexing for the rest of us. As my noble friend Lady Kidron articulated so well, concepts of authenticity, context and credibility are more important than ever. The connectedness of the world allows for deep and broad learning but it is not a simple transition. I agree completely that it is key for all educational institutions and the national curriculum to establish a place in children’s lives from an early age for the discussion of what it means to be a good user of digital media, as well as having exposure to coding.

This discussion should not be too preachy, fearful or didactic—better to acknowledge the uncertainties and anxieties that accompany many online experiences and encourage children to share those feelings. Above all, they should learn how to access good-quality information and advice, and we should avoid scaremongering by overuse of words such as “addiction” and “dysfunction”. Ensuring that there is the time to express, share and explore nuances is an important part of any education system that aims to promote digital literacy.

Finally, as we, the older generation, grapple with the rapidly changing nature of our world, it is easy to forget that there is much online to amaze, inspire, help and sometimes even save children’s lives. I met one very young carer recently who told me that without the support of the young carers community on the web, she was not sure that she could cope. I agree with the Harvard professor danah boyd, who argues that we fail young people,

“when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers’ ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens”.

Her recent book is called It’s Complicated. It sure is, and that is why this debate is vital in this Chamber and in the wider world. But it must be rooted in facts not fiction and, crucially, at the heart of the debate we must not forget to listen to young people themselves.

I end with a quote from a brilliant young woman I met recently, Amy Mather—@minigirlgeek, if noble Lords would like to look her up—who at just 15 is the EU’s young digital leader. In a conversation we had on stage at the recent Open Data Institute summit, she summed it up: “It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is, all children deserve the opportunity to make the future”. I agree. I would add only one word—safely.