Digital Skills (Select Committee Report)

Lord Macdonald of Tradeston Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of Tradeston (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on her chairing of our Select Committee and her excellent introduction to the debate. Much will have changed in the ever-expanding digital world in the 16 months since our report was published. We offered our conclusions to, and drafted a digital agenda for, whichever Government might be elected at last year’s May general election. As the noble Baroness said, at the end of last year DCMS promised that a five-year digital strategy would be published in early 2016. Apparently, it was completed in February but has since been stuck awaiting approval from No. 10, quite the opposite of the urgent action called for in our report. I therefore take this opportunity to remind your Lordships of some of the reasons why the committee recommended that an ambitious government-led digital agenda should be given a high priority.

Our report, Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future, advised the new Government to establish a single cohesive digital agenda. The need for a more cohesive approach was emphasised by many of our witnesses, who complained not of government or public service inactivity but of the bewildering number of old and new initiatives, good, bad and indifferent. We were also told that a shared vision was lacking of what the digital revolution might mean for people across the country, for their families and their jobs, for the economy and, indeed, for the future security of the UK.

We heard from respected economists that an estimated 35% of current jobs in the UK could be automated over the next two decades. Since then, that prediction has been given widespread coverage in the media. A recent headline in the Times claims that,

“Robots could exterminate the middle class”.

Another warns of,

“The robot coming to take your job”,

with the strapline underneath:

“We are on the cusp of a techno-revolution that could make us all redundant”.

According to the Financial Times just last month, we are completely unprepared for the “robot revolution”.

The digitalised transition is happening so quickly that millions are being stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide, especially the elderly, the unskilled and the underqualified. At the higher end of education, an increasing number of graduates cannot find stable or rewarding jobs. Parents worry about how to guide their children towards a career path with prospects. Research published today by Citizens Advice reveals that 800,000 workers are on zero-hour contracts, 1.1 million more are on temporary contracts, and another 2.3 million are working variable shift patterns, making a total of 4.5 million in insecure jobs, feeding public anxiety about the changing economy and the impact of the digital revolution.

Add to all that social and personal insecurity the threat of cybersecurity; business data are stolen and banks are robbed by cybercriminals, while financial scams go unreported. Terrorism, money laundering and all kinds of criminality thrive anonymously on the so-called “dark web”—and, we are told, it could get worse. Last week Robert Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, said that the arrival of quantum computers inside the next decade will crack even the most sophisticated encryption and undermine the foundations of internet security.

In these increasingly unpredictable times in international affairs and democratic politics, the internet and social media add to the growing public anxiety. Given the disruptive potential of the digital age, with its novel technologies and unintended consequences, our report encouraged the UK Government to take a much stronger leadership role. Our committee voiced concern that the UK might be left behind in the new digital era and that we were at a tipping point. With exquisite timing, an updating of our February 2015 report is published today by the Commons Committee on Science and Technology. Its findings reinforced our concerns. Some 90% of jobs now require some degree of digital skill. The UK needs another 745,000 workers with digital skills by 2017. The digital skills gap costs the economy £63 billion a year in lost income, and the Commons committee reckons that 12 million British adults lack basic digital skills and that 6 million have never used the internet. Those are alarming statistics, but, sadly, the Commons committee says that it doubts that the Government will give,

“sufficient weight to the vital areas for change that we have highlighted”.

As a member of your Lordships’ Digital Skills Committee, I share these doubts. I hope that in his reply the Minister will tell us whether the Government’s digital strategy, when it is finally published, will reflect the priorities of the Lords and Commons committees and will actively promote the cultural change required to meet the challenges of the new digital age.