Digital Exclusion (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and I declare my technology interests as set out in the register as adviser to Boston Ltd. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Stowell, not just on this report but, as she rightly set out, quite a week for the committee. It shows how all these issues touch so many elements of our society and our economy.

I will pick out the most significant recommendation from the committee’s report, and that is the need for a strategy. Some 10 years ago, I sat on my first House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills. We began our work in 2014 and we finished in 2015 by talking of a strategy, and yet the strategy that was published before we began our deliberations is still the strategy we have today. There are clearly good examples of operational delivery happening across the country and across Whitehall, but without a strategy it is de facto non-strategic. Does the Minister not agree and see the urgent and pressing need to have a strategy so that we can be strategic about our approach?

A lifetime ago, EM Forster entreated that we should “Only connect!” These words can be helpful on our journey through digital inclusion, because we have never been more connected. Yet look at the rise of populism, nationalism and retreatism—horrific geopolitical outlooks. We have never been more connected and yet we have an epidemic of isolation and a mental well-being crisis.

Why? There are many factors, but a significant one is that this is connection without inclusion, enablement and empowerment. Those who find themselves at the sharpest end of digital exclusion are often those who would have the most to gain—older people, disabled people and those in lower socioeconomic groups. Even when they manage to get online, for want of information only 5% of those who could take advantage of social tariffs do so.

Take the example of a grocery shopping app. Imagine how you place your order and it comes to your door. Many people are familiar with this and the convenient offers within it, and it is a great way to shop. But imagine that you are not online, and so you cannot use that app; imagine that you have the app but do not have the digital skills to transact, and so it is not working for you; imagine that you have the skills but have no or low internet connectivity, and so the app is not working for you. For want of digital inclusion, more than a few folks are not getting their food.

Digital inclusion is about the stuff, the kit, the skills and the learning. It is about enabling people to have the comfort and confidence that come through digital inclusion in all aspects of their lives. It needs leadership at a national and local level. The hubs are an excellent suggestion, where they exist, but we need more of them on a strategic basis.

Everything starts with education. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, if we are really to enable digital inclusion, and enable and empower our young people to take all the advantages of the fourth industrial revolution, we need a complete overhaul of our school curriculum? Great stuff happens, if you are lucky, but it is not strategic and it is in pockets.

The PISA results on numeracy and literacy are impressive. We know how to take this performance approach, but alongside numeracy and literacy we need data literacy, data competency, digital literacy and digital competency. They are equally important. Then young people will be enabled and empowered, with all their talent unleashed through digital inclusion and education.

Taking this broader, we have nothing short of an opportunity to completely reimagine our economy and society and the very social contract, transformed into a digital social contract between citizen and state, for the benefit of both.

I finish on the essence of all this—inclusion and innovation. More than that, it is inclusion for innovation. That must be the mission of us all.