Sharing Economy

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Baroness is right that skills—especially digital skills—are important to our economy. We are extremely aware of that, including in the context of the Brexit discussions. I am sure she knows about all that we have done to ensure that we can get diverse digital skills from abroad, where that is appropriate, and to develop digital skills here in the UK, both through lifelong learning education and, more importantly, in schools, with computing now being part of the curriculum from five to 16.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, in the last Administration the noble Baroness was a Minister not just in BIS but in DCMS—a post that she has now had to give up, although I in no sense cast any aspersions on her very successful successor. Since that Administration, the creative economy has been moved back to DCMS and higher education has been carved out and sent back to DfE. Given that she talked about the industrial strategy that is coming, and that we are all looking forward to, what arrangements are going to be made to ensure that the work on that will not be restricted to BIS?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I can give the noble Lord that assurance. Obviously an industrial strategy has to be wide-ranging and, as I have said, key things such as the development of the digital economy and skills have to be at the heart of that. There is a Cabinet committee under the Prime Minister looking at the development of the industrial strategy, and that is bringing together the strands of work across Whitehall. There have been departmental changes; we have gathered energy—a major and important area—and I am trying to get to grips with its important challenges.