Children’s Rights: Digital Environment

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

I call the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—sorry, the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Understandable confusion from the Lord Speaker.

My Lords, The Ofcom Online Nation 2021 Report showed that lockdown had highlighted the digital divide and that, with one in 10 households without access to the internet during lockdown, it had been magnified and was clearly a severe socioeconomic problem. Last week the Times reported that Amazon was engaged in the mass disposal of unused IT equipment, with 120,000 items marked for destruction in one week alone. I know the Minister will share my anger at that obscene waste, against the backdrop of lost education and damaged life chances caused by the pandemic. So can she tell noble Lords what discussions the Government have had or will have with retailers to maximise the charitable repositioning of devices for schools?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the expertise of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, as this question straddles a number of departments.

Obviously, we want to avoid all kinds of waste; food waste has also been on many people’s agenda. I can assure the noble Lord that the 1.3 million laptops we have distributed are the property of local authorities and schools, and we would take a very dim view if anything of that nature happened to that property. I will have to write to him in relation to the specific point about the recycling of white goods.