Digital Skills (Select Committee Report)

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and all her colleagues on an excellent report and on today’s debate, which has been so excellent and thought-provoking. At times, in fact quite frequently and understandably, it has been underscored by considerable impatience. It is a shame that it has taken quite so long to debate this report.

In his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Knight, emphasised that digital is not really a sector any more but all-pervasive. This is illustrated by a recent report by McKinsey, saying that some 50% of the world’s traded services is already digitised and that 12% of global trade is conducted via e-commerce. Moreover, 3D technology will ensure a huge impact on physical trading flows in the years to come. I have just come back from China, and it is sometimes worth looking at how the UK is perceived from the outside. The UK’s digital economy is recognised as a world leader, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said. At 10% of GDP, its percentage is larger than that in any other G20 country.

The noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Haskel, lightly touched on the European Union aspect. In that context, I have considerable concerns that Brexit would have a major impact on our digital sector, including our software industry, particularly in respect of its inability to take full advantage of the European digital single market. Furthermore, Brexit could easily shrink the talent pool available to companies in the sector.

I hope that many of the points made by the committee’s digital future report will be incorporated in the forthcoming digital economy Bill. We all look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. For example, there is still time to rethink the ambition for the universal service obligation. At present, rollout will happen only on request and may not mean 100% coverage. Superfast broadband of at least 25 megabits per second is a utility, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said. It should be universal and the Government should be investing in it. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said, this is not just about infrastructure. My noble friends Lord Kirkwood and Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, emphasised that exclusion is also a major danger, with 10 million people possibly being excluded. I very much like the emphasis placed on universal basic digital literacy, which we must emphasise in our public policy. The case for the investment payback was illustrated very well by my noble friend Lord Foster.

The report rightly places emphasis on the importance of regional clusters for digital development. It is not only the northern powerhouse; as my noble friend Lady Janke made clear, Bristol is also leading the way in becoming a smart city. Links with local universities are crucial in each case. But as the committee also points out, there is a great need to link industry and local government far more effectively with further education institutions as well. I welcome the funding of incubator facilities in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, but I hope that, when elected, each of the mayors in those cities will appoint digital champions for their city regions and combined authorities to work with education and research institutions and private sector organisations.

There is so much interest outside the UK in the digital developments taking place in our cities that a point of clear contact is absolutely crucial. I hope that, following the Nurse review, the new UK research and innovation body under the leadership of Sir John Kingman will have a major impact on digital research strategy by building links between business and the research base, as he says. Will the Government set up a ministerial committee to provide oversight and co-ordination, as recommended by the Nurse review? Many noble Lords in this debate have asked for a much better method of co-ordinating government efforts in this area.

Above all, however, the Digital Skills Committee’s report draws attention to our major digital skills gap that, more dramatically, was called a crisis by the Commons Science and Technology Committee. Perhaps the Government have been guilty, as in the words of an advertisement, of turning a drama into a crisis. Recent estimates suggest that the UK is already losing a potential £2 billion a year from unfilled roles requiring digital skills, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said. The scale of the growing gap over the next decade cannot be underestimated. In that context I welcome the recognition in the Birthday Honours List of Eben Upton, a pioneer of the Raspberry Pi computer that has helped so many young people to acquire digital skills.

More generally, however, is the DfE satisfied with the implementation of the computing curriculum? Is it really making an impact on growing the pipeline of digital talent in the UK, especially in the light of the committee’s finding that,

“Many teachers are not confident or equipped to deliver the new curriculum”?

The committee rightly stressed the importance, as did many noble Lords today, of encouraging women to enter the tech sector to bridge our digital skills gap, while techUK recommends that tech businesses, LEPs, local authorities and schools should collaborate to support organisations that provide events to show young girls the opportunities that digital and tech can offer. There are many other ways of introducing young women into the tech sector, such as the Government’s Your Life campaign, which a number of noble Lords commended. There is also techUK’s important back to work programme, which provides women returners with the tools and assurance they need to apply for tech sector roles. We need to redouble our efforts in that respect.

I accept that agility of education and training is needed, as emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. The noble Lords, Lord Janvrin and Lord Lucas, used the phrase “lifelong learning”, which must be one of the lessons learned from the committee’s report. However, there is a great need for more digital apprenticeship. What progress is being made by the new Apprenticeship Delivery Board? The apprenticeship levy could have significant unintended consequences for the tech sector: techUK has pointed out that tech companies will be some of the largest contributors to the levy but under current proposals will struggle to find relevant apprenticeships to train their workforces. I entirely take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that these apprenticeships should not be too narrow in their scope. What are the Government doing to address this?

Again, seen from outside the UK, are we doing enough to exploit our knowledge and research? We have a competitive edge in many areas, not least e-government. I would have been more fulsome about the Government Digital Service were it not for last week’s events, but the fact is that across government something has been created that other countries want to emulate. In 2013, the Government set out their strategy for their own digital services, but we now need a much broader strategy for how we as a nation can capitalise on our digital services and skills worldwide. I welcome the move of the Digital Economy Unit into a single department, but it needs to be much more assertive in promoting UK digital services and know-how internationally. I have almost lost count of the number of noble Lords who mentioned this, but when can we finally expect the digital strategy paper to be forthcoming? Will it be this summer, as promised in the Government’s response to this report, or slightly later? I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say on that.

The committee did not dwell on the intellectual property aspects, and the noble Baroness will be pleased to hear that I will not dwell on them today. Nevertheless the protection of intellectual property in this context is extremely important. Looking at the impact of digital, this is just a first step. Like a number of noble Lords, I am beginning to be concerned about how little planning for the next stage—that of artificial intelligence and robotics—we are doing. The pace of change is speeding up. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, used the phrase “failing to keep up”, and I entirely agree with that. The combined impact of digitisation and robotics, with AI, will mean the hollowing-out of many low-skilled jobs but also of many professional and managerial jobs. How much attention are we giving to educating our young people to enable them to benefit from this new world and adjust to it? We need to become expert in the use of information and data in making judgments. We will need to excel in creativity and the use of our imagination: EQ will be as important as IQ. Like my noble friend Lord Kirkwood, I look forward to a Select Committee on that subject to build on the work that this committee, and I very much hope the Liaison Committee will take note.