Technology in Public Services

Debate between Richard Holden and Peter Kyle

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention; my hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. First, on the broad themes of under-represented communities in the tech sector, the issue is multifaceted. It is not just about some people being excluded from the products that are emerging from the tech sector; it is also about access to the great jobs that are being created in the tech sector itself. It is clear that there is regional and socioeconomic imbalance, and that there are other equality issues. I remember very well in the 1990s trying to get into university, and the system back then diverting people like me away from it. I had to apply four times and go back to secondary school at the age of 25 to get into university. Now I see a tech sector that is not dissimilar—sometimes it diverts people from certain backgrounds away from it or fails to attract into the sector those people with great potential.

We need to do better than that. We need to lead from Government. When I saw Innovate UK’s decision, I was unsettled, but I was very pleased that it then came out so rapidly—not only reversing the decision and going back to the full 50 grants but issuing a forthright apology for the mistake that led to the problem in the first place. Such issues should not emerge. I know that Innovate UK will learn those lessons, but we need to ensure that the Government are at the forefront of delivering support for the sector and creating the jobs and technology of the future, and making sure that it does so in an equitable way. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to put that on the record, and I look forward to meeting the community she mentioned.

A missions-led approach to reforming our public services will harness the power of technology to make them more productive. Let us take artificial intelligence. It is not just doctors and teachers who are using AI to change the lives of the public they serve. In Greater Manchester, citizens advice centres are using Caddy, an AI-powered co-pilot tool developed with my officials to help staff and volunteers provide more helpful advice to the people who need it. Digital experts in my Department are thinking about how we can use AI to connect clean energy projects to the grid more quickly. Stories such as these are just the starting point, but they remain all too rare. Why should any citizen be denied cutting-edge healthcare, clean energy or a world-class education? Why should a vulnerable person struggling with eviction or debt struggle to get the help they need?

Adopting AI across health, education and policing could boost productivity by almost £24 billion a year. If we fail to do so, the benefits of AI could become the preserve of the privileged few. The urgency of our task demands decisive action, because people should not have to wait for better public services. Rightly, they expect that we will fix the public finances fast. That is why we will publish the AI action plan, led by Matt Clifford. The action plan will work out how we can make the very best use of AI to grow the economy and deliver the Government’s national missions. Then we will set up the AI opportunities unit to help make the action plan’s recommendations a reality.

My Department will transform public services for the people who use them, by working with Departments across Whitehall to pioneer safe, new and innovative applications for AI. Every one of those applications will depend on two things: digital infrastructure and data. These will be the driving force behind Britain’s digital transformation, better hospitals and schools, safer streets and transport that works for working people.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his position. Transforming the public sector is something that I think we all, across the House, can get on board with. I wonder whether in any of the pay negotiations that have happened or will happen across Whitehall, the acceptance of technology in the public sector will be part of a quid pro quo for the future.

[Peter Kyle]

I think the right hon. Gentleman pits productivity-enhancing tools against the interests of workers. I do not believe that is the case. If we take my example of Huddersfield hospital, which I had the pleasure of visiting, people have been retrained because AI is very good at giving all-clears—20% of people were given all-clears. Therefore, the radiologists are retrained and come back on a higher pay scale for doing so, and productivity has gone from 700 scans a week to 1,000 scans a week. It is not only cost-neutral but cost-beneficial for the Department. Those are the kinds of productivity gains that enhance work and the satisfaction of workers in the workplace.

We are the Government. We have some agency in how this technology is used and rolled out and how it supports people in the workplace. We will ensure that we deliver value for money for the taxpayer and services that are cost-effective for the taxpayer, but we will also aspire to ensure that workers’ rights and satisfaction in the workplace increases. We are a Government who respect the work of the civil service and the value it provides to our country. We want to ensure that these tools sit alongside that ambition to deliver greater outcomes for the country, while ensuring that the civil servants who work so hard for our country take a bit more pleasure from their work, by being assisted by some of this technology that we will introduce to the work of Government.

Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Debate between Richard Holden and Peter Kyle

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Let me start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson). He has put a lot of effort into this Bill, and he has obviously cared about this issue for a very long time. The way that he has approached this Bill has been gratefully appreciated by Labour Members. Not only has it been open-hearted, but he came to see me and briefed the team alongside the Minister, showing that he is dedicated to getting the Bill through, not just at any cost but in a way that takes the House with him, so that it will deliver some of the outcomes that he is after. As I say, it was a very open-hearted speech and a very informative one for everyone in the Chamber.

The right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) made a very informative speech, and it was good to learn about some of the practical work that she has been doing in schools up and down the country. She sparked a series of interventions and a debate about her work, which focused on how important it is for people, particularly from deprived communities, to have experience of different workplaces, and I absolutely agree with that. It is really important that people from deprived backgrounds have experience not just of university campuses, but of business environments, especially prestige business environments. I say that not so that we channel young people in a certain direction, but so that, should they choose that career pathway in the future, it will not be a leap into the unknown.

We also need to recognise that there is an equal opposite. I hope that students who attend schools in areas of advantage and affluence also take time to experience the modern manufacturing workplace, because they do not often have experiential time in such settings. They need to get that experience, because the modern manufacturing and vocational workplace is extremely exciting and offers incredible careers. We need to make sure that young people from all backgrounds experience all different types of future pathways so that they will not be making a leap into the unknown.

After the huge expansion of the academy programme, thousands of schools across the country now operate independently from local authority control. An increasing proportion of these schools are now part of multi-academy trusts, pooling resources, expertise and governance with similar groups of institutions. There are real questions about the way that some academies—not all academies—operate. The majority, as with every other school, are very dedicated to the future pathways that local young people take. As a former chair of governors of an academy, I know full well the effort that many academies and schools of all status put into ensuring that the pathways for young people are the best ones for their talents. None the less, some academies and multi-academy trusts operate their career development in a way that is not fit for purpose, and it is clear that the requirements placed on many schools in this area must apply to them, too.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has in the past few days introduced a Bill to ensure that MATs are looked at by Ofsted. Will the Official Opposition commit to working with him and with people like me, a former special adviser in the Department for Education, who support my hon. Friend and agree that a small number of MATs need extra oversight, particularly in areas such as careers education, which we should be driving forward for everybody?

[Peter Kyle]

Only on Wednesday I had a conversation with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) about his Bill, for which he, too, is an enthusiastic salesperson. The Opposition are certainly open-minded to that suggestion. I have already met the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and will stay in touch with him, and he has met the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), to talk about his Bill. I am happy to meet the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) as well—in fact, I would do so enthusiastically—to talk about not only the issue at hand but others, too, because there are more shared beliefs about the way forward to tackle the core education challenges than is sometimes apparent in the heat of debate, even though we diverge on specific things when it comes to their application in practice.

The Bill before us will go some way towards tackling the challenge of fragmentation and the ways that some schools deliver careers development in different ways. We welcome any moves towards the embedding of high-quality careers education throughout all state schools equally. Such education is a vital way to expose children to options for work that are alternatives to those that surround them as they grow up.

Careers & Enterprise Company research found that 73% of children who receive careers education feel more aware of different careers and 69% have a better understanding of what they need to do to achieve their ambitions. Under this Government, though, far too many children are missing out. According to that research, only 30% of schools and colleges have a stable careers programme, meaning that thousands of kids are missing out.

The expansion of an existing legal duty to cover all schools is welcome—it is common sense—but a more fundamental challenge needs to be addressed. We must ensure that schools have the capacity and expertise to make careers education a true priority. Cuts to school budgets have had a real effect on school leaders’ ability to prioritise careers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that despite Tory promises to level up spending, per-pupil funding will not return to pre-2010 levels by the end of this Parliament.

When spending is squeezed, it is natural that schools prioritise subjects such as English, maths and science, and topics like careers are so often left behind. Indeed, when one speaks to the academies that do not prioritise careers, often the reason cited is that they simply do not have the resources to do everything.