25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho]

That this House takes note of this year’s 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web and its effects on society in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)]

My Lords, I start by thanking noble Lords for signing up to my debate. I must confess that, as I saw the list of names increase, I was slightly alarmed that perhaps people thought I was going to give some kind of technology master class in the Chamber. However, I think that noble Lords’ enthusiasm, and the breadth of experience that we will hear from this afternoon, is testament to the extraordinary impact this relatively new invention has already had on all our lives.

I first began grappling with the opportunity of the web in 1997 when Brent Hoberman and I co-founded lastminute.com. We were on an evangelical mission. We had to convince suppliers, customers and investors that the internet was here to stay, that the web was not going to blow up and that it was safe to buy things online. Imagine the landscape then: no Facebook, no Google, no Twitter, and certainly no smartphones. What a short time—and how much everything has changed.

The UK has a long history of technology breakthroughs. Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s invention follows on the footsteps of Ada Lovelace’s first computer program, which she wrote for Charles Babbage’s analytical engine in 1842. Obviously, the Bletchley codebreakers deserve a mention for their role in helping us win the Second World War.

I now find the web’s usage numbers not even surprisingly huge any longer: 2.4 billion people worldwide use the web; 1.2 billion are shoppers online. To put this in context, the rate of adoption is warp speed. It took 38 years for the radio to reach 50 million users, it took 13 years for television, it took four years for the web and it took 10 months for Facebook.

The fastest growing demographic using social media is the over-55s. Africa has the fastest growing number of web users, with Nigeria having the largest number; 47% of them are accessing the web via their smartphones. More than 55,000 projects have been started on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, most of which would never have got started without it. In the UK alone, £4.6 billion has been earned by people sharing their products and services using what is called the gift economy through sites such as Airbnb or Zopa.

The web has transformed the way we work, the way we interact and the way we play. Some of health’s greatest challenges are being rethought. Millions of so-called citizen scientists are plotting cancer gene patterns via online games. Early intervention in dementia is becoming more common after the success of an online test for patients. Education is being opened up on a global scale through the use of massive open online courses, from Khan Academy’s tutorials to Coursera’s degrees.

All industries are being disrupted. Farmers in Ghana are saving time and money by using their smartphones to trade their products before the long walk to market begins. Underprivileged women in South Africa are breaking out of the cycle of poverty after training that enables them to help US customers with their technology problems.

Even the animal videos posted online—much mocked by some—are now enabling scientists to gather meaningful data about animal relationships that would never have been accessible before. Noble Lords may have seen the BBC’s brilliant documentary “Animal Odd Couples” based on this.

Beyond the hyperbole, this 25th birthday—and as part of that, I hope, this debate—is a good moment to reflect on all these different aspects to the web. The UK’s relative position on the technology stage is a complex one. There are many areas where we lead the world. Products and services delivered online now account for at least 10% of UK GDP. We have the highest proportion in G20 countries. The British are the most advanced online shoppers on the planet. Estimates are that in 2014 e-commerce will be 20% of total UK retail. The UK internet sector is bigger than the health, education or construction sectors. Britain has created some world-leading businesses—Asos, Moshi Monsters and, dare I say it, lastminute.com.

London is becoming a significant tech hub, but it is not alone. Edinburgh, Bristol and Brighton are all seeing record numbers of digital start-ups. Our location and our language mean that we are a vital part of every dominant global web business. London is the only English-speaking city in Facebook’s top 10 and we have the highest number of Twitter users on the planet.

The Government are also making some big strides in how they embrace the web. Through the Government Digital Service, which I am proud to have played a small part in creating, the Government are leading the way for open data, open standards and digital government. The government digital platform, gov.uk, even won a design of the year award from the Design Museum—surely a world first.

This year, coding will be part of the school curriculum and all children aged five and above will be taught computer science. The UK now has the most visionary policy in the G8 for educating children. Yet we face some big challenges. There are 11 million adults who lack the ability to do four basic things online—communicate, transact, search and share information—and to do these things safely. Of these, 50% are over 65 but 50% are of working age in a country where 90% of new jobs require basic online skills and many vacancies are advertised only online. In addition, only 30% of small businesses are able to transact online, meaning that they miss out on both huge sales and savings. Go On UK, the cross-sector charity I chair, estimates that there is £68 billion of value to the economy if we address these adult skills.

We will need to fill 1 million technology sector jobs by 2020, which is looking nearly impossible from our current workforce. More depressingly, the number of women in the UK tech sector is actually falling as an overall percentage. If current trends are not reversed, only 1% of the sector will be female by 2040. Looking around the Chamber today, I am sad to see that this does not seem an alarmist statistic.

Despite the Government’s ambition to improve our infrastructure—I welcome Maria Miller’s announcement this morning about a rural broadband fund—we lag far behind Taiwan, Korea and Japan for universal coverage and a long way behind Singapore or Korea for available average speeds.

I am constantly surprised and frustrated that the only local website in the top 10 most visited websites in this country is the BBC. So although we start as many digital businesses as anywhere in the world, we do not scale them and we do not compete with the global web businesses in the world.

Finally, and perhaps most seriously, we do not have the skills and understanding of the digital world at the top of our corporate, public and political life. This leads to a lack of high-quality decisions about our future—a future where so much will inevitably revolve around technology. Only four FTSE 100 businesses have a CTO or digital executive on their plc board and yet all these businesses face huge upheavals.

Turning to Whitehall, the picture changes again. Just think of the UK Government’s reaction to the Snowden allegations. The political discourse lags far behind that of the US, where an expert panel has looked into the NSA’s claims about the necessity of data gathering and found that only one case was solved by the bulk collection of data—just one, and that was a small incident of money-laundering. We are woefully quiet on the subject of liberty versus security. Allegations that GCHQ and the NSA worked to undermine encryption should caution anyone who trusts the web with their medical, financial or personal records. To add to the complexity, the technology landscape is not remotely stable but is changing at mind-boggling speed.

We face hard questions as we grapple with the technology we already know about, let alone that coming up in the future. What should be the regulation of personal drones? How do we regulate driverless cars? How do we protect against increasing cybercrime? What are the privacy implications of wearable technology? What is the IP of a 3D-printed object in your home? How do we teach children about online identity and anonymity? How do we protect the free flow of information around the world and avoid a balkanised web? How do we make sure that we have the understanding and experience to debate these areas effectively?

To celebrate this anniversary year, Sir Tim Berners-Lee wants to kick off as many open source-style, local discussions as possible to try to answer the question, “What kind of web do we want?”. I would construct my answer by going back to what I imagine were some of his guiding principles in 1989: inclusion, by making sure no one is left behind demographically or geographically; freedom and transparency, by making sure that consumers understand the quid pro quo with the handful of big companies whose services they mainly use without obvious charge; and openness, by making sure no Government can control access and content. This is tested every day. Just this weekend, the Turkish authorities announced a clampdown on websites and a new wave of censorship.

The web has immense power. I find something magical and remarkable on it every single day, but I agree with Sir Tim. We need to talk about the web we want. We need to pause for breath and perhaps be more conscious of the next 25 years of development. At the moment, we are sleepwalking into assuming that the platform underpinning so much of our daily life is not changing.

I should like to ask the Government two questions. First, what plans do they have to mark this extraordinary global invention that should be a brilliant inspiration for the next wave of British inventors? Secondly, do the Government agree that a fitting tribute to Tim’s vision that this is for everyone would be to review the billions government invests annually in adult skills and employment training to ensure that digital skills are embedded throughout the whole of our society?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho]

I thank the Minister for his answers. I am delighted that we have had the first debate on the world wide web here in the Chamber. It is perhaps one small step for mankind and one bigger leap for the House of Lords. If I was going to organise a birthday party, I think I would engineer the presence of an astronomer, a writer, a philosopher, a composer, some film directors and maybe, dare I say, even a politician or two. I would argue that it has been a very successful birthday party for the world wide web; I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and look forward to many more high-quality debates about the future of our technology landscape.

Motion agreed.