Digital Exclusion
Richard Foord Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. On the subject of digital exclusion, we should also look at the opposite: digital literacy. When I go home on a Thursday or Friday, I am struck by how very digitally literate the next generation is. My children and their peer group are way in advance of anything that I can do online or with computers. I make that point because we tend to think that it is older people who are digitally excluded. Yes, they are, but lots of other people are also less digitally literate. Recent years have seen a rush, even a stampede, in company boardrooms towards moving services online at the expense of doing things in person. That has been to the detriment of many older people, particularly in rural and coastal communities, such as those I represent.
I want to highlight one specific example and give voice to a constituent. Brian, who lives in Weston, a small coastal hamlet that is tucked away on the beautiful east Devon coastline, wrote to me to explain how he lives somewhere where there is such poor 4G mobile phone signal and internet access that he is completely and utterly dependent on a landline. As has already been said, losing copper will have a profound effect on some people in our rural constituencies.
Finally, another constituent, who lives in the village of Luppitt, has no mobile signal or fibre broadband connection, and is concerned about the landlines being phased out. He writes:
“Think of all those who are unaware, infirm or technically naive. Will we be cast adrift and simply forgotten?”
Science and Technology Framework
Richard Foord Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. This highlights how the Department will be working hand in hand with other Departments. On this agenda, we will be working closely with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. It is our Department that will be focusing on innovation and the technologies of tomorrow, but it is incumbent on us to work with the other Departments to deliver them in time to be ready for tomorrow.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The issue with Horizon is that UK-based researchers were able to take more from the scheme than the UK Government contributed to it. The Times reports today that the Prime Minister is said to be sceptical about Horizon:
“He thinks it’s a very expensive way to fund a lot of small academic collaborations which don’t really change the world.”
Does the Secretary of State recognise that science is an international endeavour, that incremental developments in science do change the world and that the UK would be a net beneficiary of Horizon if only we could associate?
Michelle Donelan
The entire point of our announcement yesterday was that we believe that science and technology can change the world. We also believe that they can change people’s lives here in the UK, and that is why we made our announcement on the actions we are taking now and on the long-term framework, so that we can be proactive as well as reactive. As I have said on Horizon, our position has not changed.