25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, www.chrisholmes.co.uk—if I am not in the Chamber, that is where you can find me. That is the point; we all need an online presence, or at least an online connection. If we want the best shopping deals, the cheapest flights, the best hotels, or if we want to interact with local or national government, we do so online. When I was a schoolboy, 25 years ago, I had no idea about the world wide web or its potential; I was still playing on my ZX Spectrum.

Latterly, at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, when we were making the Games’ website, we were profoundly aware of the impact that it could have. It was the most visited website of the year, reaching billions around the world to become the first truly new-media Olympic and Paralympic Games. That is the point; we need to be online, and yet millions suffer on the wrong side of the digital divide, for reasons of age and geography, for social and economic reasons, or because of disability-related factors. Disabled people who are currently offline number 3.8 million. This has to change. We need to look across the piece at the skills, kit and technology—and, crucially, at ensuring that the best broadband is rolled out right across Britain. I ask my noble friend the Minister to comment specifically on all the points around broadband.

The coming decade will be fascinating, not least in the relationship between our on and offline environments, such as the connection between bricks and clicks in retail. Click and collect was excellently delivered this Christmas by our retailers, not least John Lewis. In a wider context, to see how the internet has impacted politics, we should look to Libya and Egypt. There is all this to come, and the time moves so quickly in this internet age.

Similarly, considering where the next steps will come from, we have already heard about issues of online security. As Eric Schmidt of Google said, “Mea culpa, we didn’t think criminals would show up”. It is crucial that we make this environment safe and secure. A lot of that will tie in with the quality and credibility of the content that is online: how it is ranked, how we access it, whether we can rely on what we are reading online and how we can make sure that we are secure while we are there.

In short, we have to consider accessibility in its widest possible sense. We have to consider usability in its widest possible sense. As has already been mentioned by noble Lords, we need inclusion and inclusivity in their widest possible senses. We need to ensure that we do not construct in the internet world artificial, exclusionary barriers and steps in cyberspace.