Digital Infrastructure, Connectivity and Accessibility

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We will begin with a time limit on speeches from the Back Benches of six minutes, but that will very soon reduce.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Elliott]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

It is estimated that those in work need to update their skills every five months. That needs a strategic and co-ordinated approach. People often need to retrain to get new jobs, but people already in employment also need to ensure that they constantly update their skills as the world of work constantly evolves. That has not been helped in recent weeks by the Government’s decision to scrap Unionlearn, which did amazing work in this arena.

There is a plan to combat this in Sunderland, the city I represent along with two other colleagues. The Sunderland Smart City plan is designed to leave no one behind. One year ago, Sunderland City Council delivered on its promise to install and begin the city-wide rollout of free superfast public wi-fi, using 5G digital technology. It is already delivering wi-fi to Hudson Road Primary School, two community rooms in local tower blocks in the city centre, and along a coastal stretch between Roker and Seaburn, with more to come later this year and in 2021. It supports individuals and businesses, and has had over 7.5 new instances of wi-fi use and a total of 18,500 connections to wi-fi from January to October 2020. We are one of the first cities in the UK to do this and the take-up is proof that it is working well.

The investment in skills must be combined with proper investment in infrastructure, as outlined by the right hon. Member for Tatton. This must be a combined approach. Investment in gigabit broadband infrastructure on its own only makes faster internet for those who can access it, furthering digital inequalities. It does not benefit those who have not had sufficient access to begin with. It makes inequalities worse.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on digital skills, I have heard from national and local organisations from around the country about what has worked and what has not. We wrote to the Chancellor before the spending review proposing a great digital catch-up, championed by Helen Milner and the Good Things Foundation, with Government investment in skills, co-ordinated nationally through existing national networks of trusted local organisations. The Secretary of State for Education has announced boot camps for digital skills, but that is not the answer to the problems we face.

In our report, we recommended investment in existing programmes for device distribution, such as DevicesDotNow, and in existing community groups that work in harder-to-reach communities, teaching digital literacy. More must be done to educate people about online fraud and equip them with the skills to identify fraud and report it. We need to invest in lifelong learning hubs in partnership with local authorities and businesses, and we need more cross-departmental collaboration. Those recommendations would benefit not just the individual, the learner, the worker, the jobseeker, the older generation or the young—all good things—but the economy, as clearly highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). As we move out of the restrictions that the covid crisis has brought to all our lives, we must ensure that all our citizens have the data, devices and digital skills we need for the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am now reducing the time limit to five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for bringing this debate to the House today, because this issue is extremely important to me. Indeed, in my maiden speech, I gave due notice that I would be raising the issue of poor connectivity in my constituency. It is perhaps a sad fact that I have had to do so continuously ever since, because in the vast land mass of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, there are still some very bad spots indeed.

I want to touch on a couple of issues. First, I am sure that all of us who have been telephoning our constituents during the pandemic have come across the crippling issue of loneliness, particularly for single elderly people. One route out of loneliness—one aid to make it better—has been the ability to go online, and to FaceTime or whatever with loved ones and friends. When people do not have that connectivity, it doubles the difficulty of it all; in fact, I might say the horror of it all, because it is pretty desperate. I have had some really heart-rending appeals from people to help them in their loneliness. The Campaign to End Loneliness has pointed out that half people over 75 live by themselves. In Scotland, we have a new organisation called Scotland Cares, which aims to tackle loneliness, but it is not blind to the fact that the problem will be much exacerbated over Christmas, which is a sad fact of its own.

On a more positive note, where we do have connectivity, it has been—inversely—a godsend during the pandemic, because people have been in touch with their family and friends, and have made full use of it. As we come out of the pandemic and try to restore our economy, connectivity will be crucial. It will empower small businesses and enterprises in my constituency—where they have the connectivity—to punch at an equal weight and to compete on a level playing field, and that is crucial. For myself and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), tourism is a vital industry. The ability to have equality of connectivity is crucial if the tourist product is to be sold in the most efficient way.

Let me turn to my next point. Maybe I am being a little bit ignorant—I do not know—but I have talked about bad connectivity in my constituency for over three years, and I hear conflicting answers. Some say it is the Scottish Government. Some say it is the UK Government. I do not know the middle way between all that. I ask the Minister whether Her Majesty’s Government would consider some sort of commission or inquiry into why connectivity has not been rolled out in the past in the way in which places such as my constituency would so much desire. I am sure that this would also be true of the west country and parts of Wales. At the end of the day, I am getting tired of going back to constituents and saying, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why this is. I have been making representations on your behalf, but here am I, three years on, still not an awful lot further forward.” There has been some improvement, but there are still some very poor patches. I do not mind who is responsible; I would just like us to get to the bottom of the problem and to put it right.

My final point is simply this: as we have all gone about our business as Members of Parliament, having Zoom meetings with Ministers, with civil servants in attendance and so on, we realise—this happened to me only a couple of days ago—that as often as not the Minister is in his or her home, and the civil servants are in their homes, wherever they are in the UK. There has been great talk over the years about decentralising civil service functions out of London and the home counties, and into the north of England, or, indeed, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It strikes me that the use of connectivity has demonstrated that this can work fantastically well. It is a bit of a tall order, but could I ask the Minister to look at the benefit that could arise from this terrible pandemic? We could actually do clever things with the civil service, and create jobs in areas where rentals and costs are cheaper, which would save money for the Exchequer. I make that suggestion from the bottom of my heart.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am reducing the time limit to four minutes.