Beyond Digital (COVID-19 Committee Report)

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I join other Members of the Grand Committee in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, on the report, which is hugely valuable. Although some time has passed since it was published, it is still fresh and useful for government and all of us to understand the changing nature of the digital world.

I feel humble to be in the noble Baroness’s presence and privileged to be able to join in this debate. I am delighted that she is here and in better health than she has been. She is a terrific advocate for the benefit of expertise in this House. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Her background in the digital realm is legendary and speaks for itself. The Government should have availed themselves of her expertise and insight rather earlier—and, of course, that of her fellow committee members represented here.

I have taken part in many committee report debates over the years—in fact, I have been responsible for ensuring that committee reports have been authored—and rarely have we seen a committee feel so compelled to publish a follow-up document that criticises the Government’s response. It is very much needed, and I say that not in an adversarial sense but because it adds to the quality of our thinking in debating this important subject. Of course, as the committee acknowledged, this may have been due to the cross-departmental nature of the report: it remains to be seen whether the creation of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will help or hinder efforts to facilitate cross-government co-operation on digital matters. I rather hope it helps.

As the report makes clear, the pandemic rapidly accelerated digital transformation—all speakers today have drawn attention to that very obvious point. People’s habits changed quickly and, while we have thankfully returned to relative normality, many of those changes in behaviour have persisted and grown. It has certainly changed my working world: the time I give to a charity has been made much easier by the widespread adoption of Teams, Zoom and so on. Travel has been reduced but content has increased and output has certainly increased—my output, too.

Whether it is the digital strategy, which we acknowledge has been updated since the report was published, or the AI strategy, Ministers have faced legitimate criticism for being behind the curve on technological change, being too slow to spot opportunities and even slower to mitigate risks. Although the Government may not have been able to anticipate the precise speed of change brought about by the pandemic, the shift to a hybrid world, as all speakers have acknowledged today, was under way well before Covid-19 struck, and policy in some areas should have been more thought through than was evidently the case.

The report discussed issues around the availability of IT devices and speedy and affordable internet connections, noting, among other things, the regrettable reality of the thousands of schoolchildren unable to participate in remote learning during the lockdown. I know from my own charity world experience about the extraordinary steps we had to take to ensure that children could get greater access to IT—shared laptops; trying to log on using generally available wifi. We had to tackle all those things to try to provide a bit more of a level playing field for kids in hard-up communities where digital access was rare or very remote.

Although some progress is being made in rolling out fibre broadband connections and upgrading mobile infrastructure, it remains the case that central government targets are routinely missed and/or downgraded. With many families still struggling with the cost of living crisis, it is surprising that the Government have not done more to promote broadband providers’ social tariffs. Instead, the department and the regulator are leaving it largely to operators, which have no incentive to proactively offer customers a cheaper product. The committee talked about the importance of improving digital literacy—again, all participants today have drawn attention to this—yet it has taken months of cross-party pressure to persuade Ministers to reinstate media literacy provisions to the Online Safety Bill after they were mysteriously dropped following the period of pre-legislative scrutiny.

Public service transformation is another important issue covered by the committee, and one where the Government’s progress has also been slow. I was at a Google presentation today, and it is so obvious when you listen to what Google says that public services could be transformed with better use of data and a more advanced digital strategy.

My own party has been clear about how new technologies could make public services more efficient and responsive to users’ needs. As we have heard this afternoon, AI tools can bring about better health outcomes, particularly for cancer patients, in terms of diagnosis; help spot mistakes or fraud in the welfare system; and provide more personalised plans for those seeking employment, changing career or training. Mind you, I am sad to say that it would not have been much use with crumbling concrete because the advice would have been ignored. The point here is that it is about making intelligent use of data and the insight that the new world of digital and the hybrid future of work bring about.

We are also clear that, as many jobs become hybrid or online only, employment rights must keep pace and workers’ well-being must be safeguarded. The Government have pledged on several occasions to introduce an employment Bill that begins to reflect the new world of work, but still we wait.

Another salient issue covered by the report is that of resilience against cyberattacks and other threats. As more public services move online and more transactions are undertaken online—or should be—systems become more vulnerable to attack and individuals become more vulnerable to costly scams. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, drew attention to the cyberattacks on the health service. We know that the Government and their relevant agencies, including the National Cyber Security Centre, take these threats seriously—we all must —but it is clear from recent events in Northern Ireland that more must be done to safeguard systems and data.

I think we all recognise and understand that the internet is in general a force for good. It brings people closer together, but it can also make them feel more remote from one another. We have to balance those things and find a way through that. It gives us access to information and entertainment and it can enable us to be more productive, creative, thoughtful and thinking. However, when it comes to the Government’s approach to the digital transformation accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, all is not well. The UK is by no means the worst but there is much more to do if we are to ensure that the benefits are spread not only evenly but fairly, and that risks are properly managed.

I have a few questions for the Minister. How will the Government keep their digital strategy fresh? That is essential. For instance, will they have a plan to ensure that we take advantage of the electronic trade documents legislation, which is urgent? I had no sense of a strategy when we were dealing with that Bill; I know that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, shares that view.

Can the Government assure us that they will build into the design of future public services a commitment to tackling the digital divide? I believe that to be a fundamental issue of fairness and probity and essential for us to maximise the benefits of the digital world. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, made that point rather powerfully.

Finally, what assessment are the Government making to guarantee health resilience in the face of likely and future pandemics? I think somebody said—this is an advert—that nobody thought that we would have a pandemic of the sort that we did or could predict the pandemic that we had. I strongly recommend a film made in 2011 called “Contagion”. It is a good watch, but it is scary.

I hope the Minister will deal with some of the issues that we have raised this afternoon. Again, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for a really thought-provoking and valuable committee report, which I hope will help us all shape public policy in future.