UK Digital and Tech Industries

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Ms McDonagh. When I mention my constituency of York, hopefully hon. Members think about the city walls, the minster, the Vikings—

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Steam trains!

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[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The digital and technological industries break boundaries in many ways, not least by providing alternative forms of employment. They certainly do not have any rules about where they are located. It is a 24/7 industry, so it includes individuals in their own homes and small businesses with global impacts. It is an exciting sector to be involved in.

The University of York is also at the cutting edge of digital technology and has its own digital creative labs, which I had the real pleasure of visiting earlier this year. I should say that I am on an apprenticeship with much of this, and I am learning: they are at the heart of the video-gaming industry, which has its home in York. Many businesses—start-up businesses, new companies, small tech companies—surround our city. We have 250 such businesses in York alone, and all that activity is building into the future of our economy, as we search for a new identity in a new era.

What also really excites me is that old is blending with new, as we move forward in our city. The new gives new opportunities. At the heart of our city, we have the biggest brownfield site in Europe, waiting for businesses to land. Rich heritage surrounds where people live. I say to any digital tech or digital creative company, “Come and see if your future is in York, and you will be most welcome to make it your home and make it your own”.

As I have said, I am on a bit of an apprenticeship in this industry and I thank the Industry and Parliament Trust for giving me the opportunity to explore this sector—to have placements across the sector and to learn more about the cutting edge that the industry is providing our economy and our nation.

I have learned that our gaming industry is one of the fastest growing in the world because of the skills base that we are able to provide. The potential is huge if we really embrace that wider economic opportunity. In York itself, we are seeing how this industry—both alone and standing alongside other industries—is so cross-cutting and how the skills acquired around video-gaming can then be applied right across the curriculum. Education is certainly at the forefront of that. I saw programmes that provided individualisation of tutoring. For instance, I undertook a French course; I will not say how I got on. Such programmes can track an individual’s learning, taking them back over their weaknesses, improving their skills and ensuring that they are the best that they can be at that particular skill.

I also saw how the Yorkshire Museum has embraced virtual reality, to take visitors into a Viking village and enable them to experience life in that settlement. I saw 3D modelling technologies, pioneered in the games industry, that now help companies such as Rolls-Royce to design better engines. I saw artificial intelligence—machine learning—and how that work is advancing and the technology is progressing. This is in my city, this is in our country and we must be so proud of that.

The academic world around this work is so strong. Along with other cities, York hosts the Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence—IGGI, for short—programme, which hosts 60 PhD students. An absolutely global standard is being set around academia and looking at the future technologies that will drive our country’s engine forward. Gaming will be really important to us, and not just for the sake of playing games; there is also the application of the skills that many people working in the industry will go on to develop.

What is going on before us—spread across the country, including in my city—is a quiet revolution that is transforming all our lives, with massive opportunities for the future of our country and my city. However, there are some issues that I want to talk about today. First of all, there is skills. We have good skills in our country, but we need some changes. The narrowing of the curriculum is not helping, particularly with regard to the digital creative sector. The arts have been downgraded and yet they could really be at the forefront. I ask the Minister to go back and have a look at that and make sure that the creative subjects are at the heart of our curriculum, too: it is when the technical and the creative join that we see this explosion of opportunity coming to our economy.

There are also the tech skills of kids to consider. We narrow people into boxes around a traditional learning curriculum, which is fit for a different era. We need to ensure that our children are embracing the new technologies of the future, because children are doing so elsewhere in the world and we really need to ensure now that we embed digital and technical skills right into the heart of our curriculum.

[Liam Byrne]

In the 19th century, it was the marriage of design and engineering brilliance in York that ensured it was the centre of the railway industry. Does my hon. Friend take inspiration from that?

[Rachael Maskell]

My right hon. Friend makes an absolutely excellent point, because that is our heritage—how we drove our economy forward through the Victorian years. We have that opportunity again today. The digital signalling centre in our city—the rail operating centre, or ROC, as it is called—is now at the heart of how trains are driven. They will not be driven in the cab of a train any more; the digital tech sector is now driving forward, so it is like having a train set in front of a screen. That is completely radicalising the way that our country works. It is cutting-edge, 21st-century technology, and we have to see more of it in the future.

As I was saying, whether someone studies history, literature, medicine or maths, the digital and technical industries will play a vital role in their future. Just last week, I had the opportunity to take a tour of another York University department—the archaeological department. Archaeology digs into the past, but I also saw how the department is using technology to provide access to artefacts, by displaying them in a unique way, so that people can explore them and manipulate them on screen, to connect with artefacts dug up all over the world. They are put into context and it is possible to understand the history surrounding them: the experience was mind-blowing. That is because through technology the past has met the future, and there are very exciting opportunities in that regard.

The tech industry will also provide the breakthrough for telehealth, which will improve all our health. Again, I was exposed to some of those opportunities when I looked around the University of York, but so much more can be done, even when it comes to issues such as our mental health. We are massively struggling for resources in our health sector, including in mental health, so to have technology that can support us—technology can work against us, but also support us—and improve our wellbeing, we must embrace that technology as we move forward. It is so important that we consider the scope of where this technology is leading us and understand why the investment in our schools and education is so important.

I turn to research and innovation. We are talking about a very disparate sector, with lots of different companies scattered around. They do not have the capacity to build up much resource to get funding for research. We need to find a breakthrough on research, so that companies can network, to come together and draw down research funding, because we have a real future in this area, not least in the field of artificial intelligence, where we can really drive that technology forward. Of course, such technology is not about replacing humans; it is partly about doing things quicker, but also about pioneering breakthroughs in how we work. However, we need support for that.

I want the technology to have a social impact as well. York itself is brilliant in every stretch of the imagination, but it is also a very divided city. Some of the most deprived areas in the country are in my city and we are seeing exclusion being built in around it. I ask the Minister to consider whether the digital and tech sectors can be used to reduce the inequality in our country, not only through opportunities and skills but through the outcomes that the sector can bring. For me, that will be the win-win of the sector.

Finally, I want to say that the arts enrich all of us. In closing, I want to talk about Mediale 2018. Will the Minister meet me to discuss it? It will run from 27 September to 6 October, and it will be the nation’s creative digital festival. It is a platform for innovative art and technology, showing what can be done in this modern age, providing art to everyone as an enhancing experience. Mediale will be a springboard for this sector of our economy and how the arts are projected across our country, blending the old and the new. I am sure the Minister will want to ensure that the sector has a major footprint not only in York, but in the whole nation.

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[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on securing the debate.

I recognise the enormous progress that many of us have celebrated this afternoon, but I want to sound a note of warning about becoming complacent. For all the progress that we have talked about in our constituencies and around the country, the truth is that, across the horizon, others are moving much faster. We have heard about some of the big technology firms that are troubling us from the west coast of the United States, but look east, to Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu.

Look at the fact that China is now not only the country that invented paper currency, but will soon become the first cashless society, where everybody pays for everything on WeChat. That country is now backed by the biggest science spend on Earth. There are countries around the world moving much faster than us, and if we want to ensure that this great superpower of the steam age does not become an also-ran in the cyber age, the Government will need to make a number of important policy reforms and changes of direction, three of which I will touch on very quickly.

First, we have to ensure that the digital economy in this country has a much more robust foundation of trust. Trust is the foundation of trade; it always has been and always will be. However, as we have seen in the debate surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, that trust is evaporating very quickly, which is why we need a clear statement of principles and a clear Bill of digital or data rights for the 21st century.

The truth is that we are going into a period of rapid regulation and re-regulation. That is perfectly normal and sensible. There was not just one Factory Act during the course of the 19th century; there were 17. We regulated again and again as the technology and the economics of production changed. That is what we are about to do in this country, yet if we do not have a clear statement of principles, that regulation will be difficult for anybody, frankly, to anticipate.

It should not simply be about our rights as consumers; it should be, as the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) said, about basic equalities. In South Korea, they want to use wearable technology to increase life expectancy by three years. How do we ensure that those new privileges are not simply the preserve of those who can afford the technology? How do we ensure that we democratise both the protections that we need and the progress that we want to share? That is why a Bill of digital rights is so important.

It is important that the Government pick up on one crucial component of trust: the electronic ID system—a public choice for EID—that we currently lack. At the moment, public data is scattered between the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Passport Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the Government Gateway, which I see the Minister’s Department has now claimed. At the moment, that information is so disjointed that we cannot use it as citizens to create a secure public EID system, as they have done in Estonia. That has been the key to Estonia’s creation of 3,000 public e-services and 5,000 private e-services. It is the foundation of what is now the most advanced digital society on Earth. The Government need to put in place those important foundations of trust.

The second point is on infrastructure. It is not just here in the Houses of Parliament where the digital infrastructure is appalling. I do not know about you, Ms McDonagh, but I certainly cannot get a mobile signal in my office, on the fifth floor of Portcullis House, and I know that frustration is widely shared, but it is not just a problem here. In fact, the areas of this country that Brexit will hit hardest are those where download speeds are slowest. The parts of the country that will be hurt most by Brexit are therefore the least prepared to prosper in the new digital society that we are all so much looking forward to.

Other countries are racing ahead of us in terms of the targets that they are putting in place for broadband access. I was privileged to visit South Korea last week, where they have 60% fibre to the premises. What is it here in Britain? It is 3%. Not only do they have much greater penetration of fibre than we do, they have not one but three mobile networks delivering 100% broadband access, and they will commercialise 5G not in 2020, but this year. That is why the Government should be far more ambitious about universal service obligation for broadband access. We proposed 30 megabits per second, and proposed putting £1.6 billion behind that. The Government should be more ambitious than they are today. We will soon go to consultation on what it would take in terms of public investment to commercialise widespread 5G. We hope that the Government will look closely at our results.

[Jim Shannon]

Through the confidence and supply arrangement that the Democratic Unionist party made with the Conservative party, we secured £150 million for broadband to take us up to that level, so we can continue to be the leader in regions across the whole of the United Kingdom for economic development and delivery.

[Liam Byrne]

Well, lucky you! If the west midlands had enjoyed a per capita bung on the same level as Northern Ireland, an extra £600 million would be coming into my region; I know I am not the only one to look at the deal that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues skilfully struck with some jealousy.

The final component is skills. My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made brilliant speeches about the importance of skills. I come from the city that is home to Soho House. Soho Manufactory was the first great factory, built in 1766. People have heard, of course, of James Watt, but many forget Matthew Boulton. It was Boulton who put together not only the best engineers in the world, but the best designers in the world. Where did he get them from? He brought engravers and artists from France, Germany and central Europe. That was the strength of the business; it married design brilliance and technical brilliance.

What do we have today, 250 years later? In Jaguar Land Rover, we have a company producing vehicles where the infotainment system is now worth more than the engine. Design brilliance and technical excellence need to go together, but design brilliance is being smashed out of the curriculum at the moment. I speak as a father of a boy going through his GCSEs, so I see it first-hand when I go home.

Young people are at the sharp end of the jobs risk of automation—that was confirmed by the International Monetary Fund yesterday, and by the OECD a week or two ago. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West mentioned, older workers are also crucial. By the age of 52, a working-class man in this country has paid £103,000 in national insurance. What happens if he loses his job? He gets sent down the job centre like everybody else, with no extra help, retraining or reskilling for the digital economy. Yet this is the country of the Open University, the Workers’ Educational Association, Unionlearn, and great education entrepreneurs such as Dr Sue Black and Martha Lane Fox. We should be bringing those players together to create a different kind of lifelong learning for the 21st century.

This is a nation of scientific genius. We have been burying our sovereigns with our scientists since we interred Isaac Newton over the road in Westminster abbey. We are the only country in the world that could make films about great scientists such as Turing and Hawking. We are the nation of the industrial revolution, but if we do not change course soon, this foundation of the industrial revolution will not be the leader in the fourth industrial revolution.