Digital Skills and Careers

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Caroline. I welcome the Minister to his new role, and I congratulate the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) on securing the debate. She has hit on one of the important and strategically significant issues of our day, and made the point that there is a whole set of issues and new disciplines that policymakers need to catch up with.

The subject of digital skills covers a range of disciplines. It could mean digital literacy for engagement with services; accessing information online; office-based skills, such as creating spreadsheets or presentations; or new digital social media tools. It also covers business software use and development; confidence with hardware, including mobile phones; social media for businesses; data analytics; and so much more, as has been highlighted. Indeed, the hon. Lady talked about how Britain becomes a science and technology superpower and leads the way in cyber-security, AI and so much more.

Digital skills are crucial for the future of our economy, businesses and workforce. That is why a core pillar of Labour’s industrial strategy is to harness data for the public good and to transform digital skills. Database technologies are already transforming our economy. For example, AI is being used to prevent fraud, enable search engines and develop vaccines and medicines.

Hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), have made powerful points. The key point about inclusion—whether by place, demographics, needs, disabilities or the gender divide—is how, not by accident but by design, we can create and work towards the future in terms of how Britain performs.

As a nation, we are way behind where we need to be. The Government have failed to equip young people and the existing workforce with the digital skills they need. That has been demonstrated in some of the research that has been quoted today. Fewer than half of British employers believe that young people have the right digital skills, and we do much worse in computer skills than most of our economic rivals.

As has been mentioned, the 2023 Lloyds bank report commissioned by the Department for Education found that about 13 million people in the UK had the lowest level of digital capability, which means they are likely to struggle to interact with online services. That is an enormous number. The digital skills gap is estimated to cost the UK economy £63 billion per year, and 46% of businesses struggle to recruit for roles that require hard data skills. That also absolutely has an impact on our productivity, such that we sit 16% below international competitors such as the US and Germany.

The Digital Skills Council has found that the barriers to the uptake of digital skills courses include opportunity barriers such as lack of encouragement, restricted options, low teaching quality or even the capacity to access courses in local areas. It also found that those barriers hinder early-career switches for those aged between 27 and 35 and prevent those people from upskilling digitally. That is critical, given the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West made about people being able to move from job to job or from career to career in a changing economy. We also know that the total number of information and communications technology-related apprenticeship starts has fallen by almost 30% since the start of this Parliament. There are core structural and strategic issues that have not been dealt with effectively by the Government.

There need to be solutions that are commensurate with the challenge. The last Labour Government introduced the statutory digital entitlement for adults with low digital skills. Similarly, boosting digital skills will be a national priority for the next Labour Government. That work will be led by a new national body, Skills England, which will drive the skills needs of our industrial strategy and the green prosperity plan, making sure that we deliver those things in line with what is needed on the ground through the local skills improvement plans, working with employers, unions and civil society. We will also reform the apprenticeship levy so that employers can use up to 50% of their total levy contributions on more flexible course, which, as the Minister will know, was called for by the Manufacturing 5, UKHospitality, techUK and so many others.

The system needs to work together. Young people need to understand developing technologies, to be able to use and shape them, and to understand the opportunities and risks. That is why our curriculum review will embed digital literacy and skills throughout children’s learning and ensure that the curriculum keeps up with technological change.

In conclusion, I have some questions for the Minister. Will he outline what steps the Government are taking to reduce the barriers to uptake of digital skills courses and to address digital literacy gaps? Why are the Government not sufficiently addressing the significant gender disparity in the uptake of computing GCSEs and A-levels, with 92% of those starting A-level courses being male students? That critical issue needs addressing. Finally, how is the Minister working with businesses to understand the digital skills needs of the future, how skills needs can best be met now and what we can do to future-proof our courses? Ensuring that the workforces of today and tomorrow have the digital skills they need is vital for our citizens, our economy, our industry and our public services.