25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord may be about to be proved wrong. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, was concerned that we would think we were going to receive a masterclass and would be disappointed, but that is indeed what we received. When she asked if I would contribute to this debate, she said it would be good if the youth wing of the House were represented. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, showed, this is an invention for all ages and for all time to come.

If the noble Baroness and I have anything in common, it is that we were the last generation of children to go through school without any online resources. We were the last to have our childhood with no online play and no online interaction with other children. This now happens around the world. Today we are debating an empowering invention. There are some areas where we need to consider the dark side, but the rest of my contribution will be about the positives: the platform it is providing for future generations of young people who will be more creative and entrepreneurial and will invent great things that we cannot comprehend today. It will be the platform for our future leaders.

In essence, the world wide web is a means for humans to communicate, celebrate, inspire, amuse, insult and learn. My business card is printed on the last Victorian printing press in Scotland, Robert Smail’s printing works in Innerleithen. Some 150 years ago, that print works promoted passage and communication to Canada and the new world for people wishing to leave Scotland. With this e-mail and web address, people from my own family who moved to Canada can now communicate with me instantaneously through the world wide web. The motive to communicate is the same: it is the mechanism that is different.

A number of years ago, at the National Library of Scotland, I held in my hand the second book to be printed in Scotland; it was printed in 1509. Today, I have it in my pocket, along with Magna Carta, the US declaration of independence, Ann Frank’s diary and a fair few movies produced by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. The noble Baroness mentioned Taiwan. I was there as a guest of the Government just after Christmas. We have also heard Sherlock Holmes mentioned in today’s debate. You might think this a slightly incongruous link, but when I was there, using the Taipei-wide wi-fi system that is free to anyone, local resident or tourist, I read the South China Post, which reported that 2.8 million people had watched the new episode of “Sherlock” on their version of YouTube.

It is an exciting, empowering invention—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said, it is also a challenge for this place. If we are to have genuinely open participation and an open democracy, we also need an open Parliament and an online Parliament.

Finally, I mentioned Innerleithen not just to plug my former constituency but because it is about to receive superfast, fibre to the cabinet and fibre to the property broadband of up to 300 megabits per second. The community wanted it and won a competition from BT. They put pressure on the Scottish Government. I hope that we will put pressure on the UK Government to ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom have the right infrastructure to allow us to utilise the invention to the full.