Digital Understanding

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, I am happy to concur, as always, with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, has said. His remarks are well worth careful study. I want to draw colleagues’ attention to something that those who work with the Parliamentary Digital Service will already know—that tomorrow is the last day for our retiring director, Mr Rob Greig. As a former chair of the Information Committee I shall take this opportunity to wish him well in his career and thank him for the leadership—which is worth mentioning in dispatches—that he gave to the response to the recent cyberattack. Without his leadership that would have had a much worse impact on our institution. He has done two and a half years, and he has made a difference. We wish him well, and thank him for his work.

I was particularly interested in the reference by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, to the way in which we run Parliament. Listening to the debate, I realise that with her, with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, and others, we have an enormous amount of talent among the membership of your Lordships’ House. I am also pleased that the Senior Deputy Speaker has taken enough of an interest in this debate to be present today, because he has a key role in trying to make sure that we do business in a way that is fit for purpose in a digital age.

I agree with some of the speeches made earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, made a powerful speech, and he has done great work in dealing with training needs. He says that we need to catch up with Estonia, and he is correct. That is how bad things are. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans made a powerful speech about fairness. Obviously, I would subscribe to that, because if we in this House are passing laws relying on “digital by default”, it is not right if we do not know what we are asking our clients—applicants for universal credit—to know and understand, because we need a better grounding. We need not only a grounding but an understanding—that is a good word; it is not just digital skills that we need, but an understanding of what a modern Parliament needs.

My plea, following on from the important speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, is that, working with the Lord Speaker—I know that he has a genuine interest—and the new interim director of the PDS, we should be operating with a much closer interest by Members to try to make Parliament much more effectively digital. If we do not do that, we will be left behind. The institution, qua institution, will become more and more irrelevant to the needs, political and otherwise, of the day. I suggest starting some kind of interest group—it could be online, virtual, or anything we like—to bring together some of the collective massive talent we have, and try to encourage other Members who are perhaps less familiar with technology, and do not feel as comfortable with it, to engage in a conversation, so that we can all not only improve our own individual contributions to the work of this important institution, but produce a better result for the British public. That is an important priority for the Government.