Digital Technology: Skilled Workforce

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cromwell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to boost and sustain the pool of skilled workers from the United Kingdom in the digital technology sector.

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

My Lords, as set out in the UK Digital Strategy 2017, we are taking steps to develop the digital skills needed for our world-leading digital economy. We have revised the computing science curriculum and are undertaking work to increase advanced digital skills in areas such as cybersecurity and data. We have introduced digital degree apprenticeships and are reforming technical education, including creating a specialist digital route with a clear pathway to employment.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply and celebrate the £6.7 billion invested in tech businesses in this country last year, making us the leading European country in this sector, with a tech sector growing at twice the speed of any other in the economy. Nevertheless, I refer him to the government agency Tech City’s own report, which states that the tech sector employs proportionally more non-UK nationals than any other industry, and the report by the Coalition for the Digital Economy, which predicts an 800,000-person shortfall in skilled employees over the next three years in this area, an issue which is made far worse by the delay and difficulty in obtaining visas. I ask the Minister to meet me and others from the sector to discuss how best to plug this current gap in skills and enable the UK to sustain its present advantage in what the Prime Minister has called a key sector in our post-Brexit economy.