Digital Understanding

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and everyone who has contributed to the debate. I have 10 minutes and about 50 minutes’ worth of material, so I will speak fast and hope I will be able to answer some questions.

This is obviously an extremely important subject, as demonstrated by the contributions around the House. I have certainly enjoyed the debate. As everyone has said, there are good things and bad things about our digital world, but the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, expressed it more succinctly: “Get over it”, he said. We will have to cope and I will try to explain how we will.

We have three overarching goals for digital technology. First, we want the country to continue to be what it is today—a world-leading digital economy and the best place in the world to innovate with technology and to start and grow a digital business. Secondly, we want all the benefits of digital to be enjoyed by everyone, rather than be the exclusive preserve of tech professionals. Thirdly, we are committed to making the UK the safest place in the world for users to be online. I will come to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, is right to highlight the importance of awareness and understanding in accomplishing these goals, but we need the skills to be in that position. I do not have time to outline them, but we are making enormous efforts to develop and enhance these digital skills. If I have time, I will come to some of the educational areas that we are looking at. If not, I will certainly write to everyone who has asked a question which I have not managed to get to.

Thanks to these efforts, we are in a position of relative strength on digital skills internationally. However, that is just one part of the story. Increasingly, people need digital skills in every aspect of their lives: shopping, doing their taxes and getting the best healthcare. So we are taking action on every category of digital skills: basic skills, the general skills needed in most jobs, and advanced skills for specialist roles such as cybersecurity. I will not go through those now, because it is important to focus on what the noble Baroness outlined in her very good opening speech.

The technology promises bountiful opportunities and rewards, but it comes with challenges and threats. These threats are to our security, privacy, emotional well-being, mental health and safety—especially the safety of children. Society’s norms, rules and institutions must all evolve so that technological progress delivers a better world for everyone. That is the underlying thinking behind the digital charter that the UK Government will introduce. It will set out a framework for how businesses—including the huge digital corporations mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens—individuals and wider society should act in the digital world. This is absolutely not just a task for the Government. Over the coming months we will work with businesses, academics, charities and the wider public to build consensus around what this framework should be.

An important part of that work will be the publication of the internet safety strategy Green Paper. This will ask for views on a range of options to counter internet harms. We talked a lot about that in the progress of the Digital Economy Bill last year. Through the strategy, we want to agree the balance of responsibilities shared by technology companies, teachers, parents and the Government in keeping people safe online.

I turn to the difficult issue of social media. The Digital Economy Act requires the establishment of a code of practice, to be issued and reviewed if necessary by the Secretary of State. This will offer guidance to providers of social media platforms on action it may be appropriate to take against users of the platform who engage in intimidating or insulting behaviour. We expect online industries to ensure that they have relevant safeguards and robust processes in place and to act promptly when abuse is reported. The data protection Bill will give individuals more control over their data. We are working also towards an international consensus, which is so important in this area.

I return to the concept of digital understanding. The Government have put forward the idea of establishing a data use and ethics body, which will I believe address some of the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin. This will establish a sound ethical framework for understanding how data can and should be used. It will address both the needs of the present and the challenges emerging on the horizon as data use becomes ever more sophisticated. Importantly, it will ensure that the public have confidence that their data are being handled properly, that businesses have the assurance that they are handling data with integrity, and that regulators and Parliament are equipped to identify and guard against abuse. We will be very interested in people’s views, and the body will consult widely. Since we mentioned it in a debate in this House in July, we have been working with stakeholders such as the Nuffield Foundation, the Royal Society and the British Academy to identify the roles and functions. So the Government are working with the public, tech companies, education and training providers, and charities such as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, Doteveryone, on this vital agenda.

I will quickly come to as many of the questions as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, asked if digital was a priority of this Government. I confirm that it is a priority—which is reflected in the fact that my department has now been renamed the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The noble Baronesses, Lady Lane-Fox, Lady O’Neill and Lady Kidron, asked whether we would make a clear articulation of values online. We absolutely agree with the importance of articulating those, which of course is why we are going to introduce a new digital charter and set out a framework, as I mentioned. Our starting point is that the delicate and careful limits that we have honed over generations for life offline should apply online, too.

It is true that I went to inspect my noble friend Lord Cathcart’s broadband, which I would describe as slow but sure. However, being serious, this is difficult. We are on track to reach 95% superfast broadband. For the 5%, there are problems, but I assure my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that, in her words, there has been real government support for this. More than £24 million of central government funding has been allocated to better broadband for Norfolk. That has been matched by local council funding, which means that more than 173,000 additional homes and businesses are able to access superfast broadband in Norfolk. I accept that, for people who do not have it, this is a real problem—I have experienced it myself. But I also commend what the right reverend Prelate said about WiSpire fixed wireless providers. They would be particularly appropriate in Norfolk—which, as we know, is very flat.

[Baroness Murphy]

Could I just ask the Minister whether he has seen trees in Norfolk?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I did not quite hear that.

[Baroness Murphy]

Trees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I realise there are trees in Norfolk. I would have mentioned to my noble friend Lord Cathcart the work we have done on bringing forward 5G, but as he does not have a mobile telephone, there is no point.

The noble Lords, Lord Maxton and Lord Baker, talked about joined-up government activities on education. I cannot go into all the details now—I would be happy to write to the noble Lord—but the DfE is working closely with the DCMS in improving communication and coherence in digital skills. As an example of that, we have DfE officials in the Box today. We were the first country to mandate computing sciences in both primary and secondary schools. As I have said, I will write further to the noble Lord on our whole education provision.

The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will remember that in the Digital Economy Act we took some time to talk about data in government departments and how they could be used, subject to relevant safeguards. We are making progress with that, but it is very difficult and we have to be careful with the safeguards. None the less, we have made a lot of progress. ID cards are a separate subject, which is probably out of date: it is much easier to microchip the noble Lord than to give him an ID card.

I am coming to the end of my time; I am sorry that I did not have the full amount of time. Lastly, I must add that we are giving attention to lifelong learning, which we take very seriously. As announced in the 2017 Budget, we are spending £40 million to deal with it. My time is now up. I will of course reply to all noble Lords who I did not even begin to answer. I wish I had had more time. These are vital issues, and the Government are working hard to address them, but we need to do so in partnership with academia, business, charities and other stakeholders. I also look forward to many more contributions from your Lordships on this vital subject.