25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

Lord Taylor of Warwick Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for making this timely debate possible, and for her inspiring speech. The irony is that most of the history of the web is ahead of us. The internet is far from reaching its full potential as an agent of empowerment. The reality is that only 25% of the world’s population currently use the web, and in this year, 7 million adults in the UK have never used it. The noble Baroness emphasised the importance of inclusion, which was part of the vision of Sir Tim Berners-Lee for universal access.

However, there is a group that is excluded from access to the internet by way of government policy. I am not asking the Government to change the policy, but to modify it in relation to some within that group. Its members are part of the digital divide and they are on the wrong side. At present, UK prisoners are excluded from the internet. We imprison more people than any other nation in Europe and our prisons are full to capacity, with more than 85,000 prisoners, but the policy is not working. More than 70% of prisoners reoffend within the first year of release, and major factors concerning reconviction are a lack of education and training, and the inability to gain employment.

For low-security, category D open prisons, I suggest that where prisoners are preparing for release back into the world, the intranet or even the internet under controlled supervision should be made accessible for training, education and researching job opportunities. It should be a privilege to be earned and not a right. Some 74% of UK prison governors surveyed this year by the Prison Reform Trust believed that low-risk prisoners should have secure and controlled access to the internet as part of their release process. Norway and Australia are among the countries leading the way on internet provision in prison, where it has led to decreasing reconviction rates.

The other issue I would like to raise is that of cyberbullying. Some 28% of 11 to 16 year-olds have been targeted, threatened or humiliated by an individual or a group through the use of mobile phones or the internet. For a quarter of the victims, the bullying was ongoing for weeks or months, and there have been high-profile cases where Twitter has been used to intimidate people. I am an admirer of a small charity called the Cybersmile Foundation, which started in 2010. It offers advice to victims. Organisations like Cybersmile and charities like BeatBullying, ChildLine and Kidscape have an important role to play in this. I urge the Government to find ways of working with these charities and to offer them more support.

The growth of the web has revolutionised the UK and the rest of the world, but it has not been a bloodless revolution, because the web has brought with it some difficult challenges. But while humans manage to remain at least one step ahead of computers, I believe that its future can be approached with faith, not fear.