Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for his timely debate and his relentless and indefatigable championing of this issue. I declare my interests, most particularly as president of the British Chambers of Commerce and chancellor of the Open University. I will make three brief points. The first is about business and its role in helping with this issue. I have been travelling around...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, I, too, thank the committee for its work on this important subject, although I must confess to raising my eyes to heaven when I saw that it was still necessary to do this work. I studied ancient history, so forgive me a minute, but my ancient history has a very deep connection with this important topic. In 2009, I was asked by the then Prime Minister to become digital inclusion...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, I too was not of a member of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, but was compelled to come today. I hope your Lordships will forgive me a short personal detour about why I was particularly keen to come and speak this morning. I have been absent from the House for many months, partly because of severe hospitalisation. I will not bore Members with physical...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: The irony clearly weighs heavy when I have wi-fi issues. I apologise, but the internet completely collapsed in my home—fingers crossed that it works this time. You would think that I would have been able to crack it, but I appreciate that I am the least qualified person, perhaps, in many ways. I too commend the noble Baroness, Lady Black, on her maiden speech. She is an absolute heroine to...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: At the Covid-19 Select Committee yesterday, both the Fabian Society and the British Independent Retailers Association gave startling evidence to our inquiry. Both said, quite rightly, that this would disproportionately affect women, who traditionally have held many more roles in the retail sector. Many of these roles are now going towards distribution centres, where, as we know, the gender...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: I declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. Nearly half the recommendations made by the climate change committee require some kind of behaviour change by the general public, yet a recent BEIS survey showed that only 5% of people understand in detail what net zero even means. What concrete plans do the Government have to urgently educate citizens about actions that they should...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: I declare my interests as noted in the register. Can the Minister confirm that there will be a special focus, in the strategic review that she mentioned was coming next year, on the relationship between young people, public service broadcasting and information? With just two minutes a day of news being consumed by people under 24, as other noble Lords have said, the case for the veracity of...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: I declare my interest as a director of the Peers for the Planet group. A Resolution Foundation report out today states that 20% of 18 to 24 year-olds are likely to face unemployment, yet there are huge potential opportunities for employment in the clean energy and climate crisis innovation areas. What are the Government doing to make sure that these young people are able to have the skills...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: Understandably, this news has caused much confusion: you only need to take to social media to see people’s anxieties. As I understand it, the app keeps all data locally on your phone and only when you upload a positive test does it then become more widely available, although anonymised. What measures are the Government going to take to make sure that communications are crystal clear, so...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: I draw attention to my interests in the register. To build on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about citizen engagement, the citizens’ Climate Assembly UK made many great recommendations when it recently reported, many around business, which is vital to help reach net zero. Will the Government commit—as the citizens’ assembly, at 83%, agreed—to making sure that...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, one of the things that I found while digital champion for the UK was the shocking lack of data literacy within government. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that all people working as special advisers, Cabinet-level Ministers or those within their departments are equipped to understand the implications of the data strategy? Does she think that there should now be a more...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: Amazon increasingly seems to be part of our critical national infrastructure. US legislators have been asking tough questions about the number of Covid cases in its warehouses and among its delivery workers. What conversations have the Government had with this vital online service, which is serving our nation at the moment?
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: There are currently about 700,000 children with no access to internet facilities at home. On 20 April, the Education Secretary announced a £100 million fund to ease this problem. Can the Minister please tell me what percentage of this fund has been distributed and how many families there are left to help?
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: I declare my interests as noted in the register. With an increase in harms to children online during this pandemic, the pushback of the online harms Bill and no date yet set for the code of conduct so tirelessly campaigned for by my noble friend Lady Kidron, when will the Government commit to filling the gaps left by these pushbacks and delays?
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: Clearly, one of the biggest differentiators between local councils’ and government’s ability to deliver services is the quality of digital infrastructure, skills and understanding. What extra support is the Minister giving, both to the local digital team that works in his department doing vital work and sharing resources, and to the local councils themselves?
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: Smaller companies will rely on the future fund for support, yet the Government have said that companies are required to have already raised £250,000 to be eligible. This will put both diverse funders and locations outside of the south-east at an enormous disadvantage. How will the Minister ensure that the future fund will neither deepen existing inequalities nor perpetrate new ones,...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: The Office for National Statistics tells us that the highest number of deaths is among the poorest communities at 55 in 100,000 versus 25 in 100,000 in other communities, yet they are also the most digitally excluded people. It is tragic that these inequalities mean that the contact-tracing app will not help those who most need it. What is the Government’s plan to address this enormous...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, as global emissions from ICT have now overtaken those from air travel, you can imagine that, as someone who started an online travel agency, I am feeling pretty fantastic. I want therefore to focus today on how I perceive technologies to be at play over the next decade, while taking on board this interesting report’s view that technology will not save us. I am certainly not a...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Kidron for her timely debate and draw attention to my interests in the register, including as board director of Twitter and adviser to a bunch of media start-ups, predominantly through Founders Factory. Therefore, noble Lords will see immediately that I am entirely conflicted. On the one hand, I have seen many times the extreme benefits that...
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho: My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that our standing on the world stage is also heavily influenced by our ability to defend against cyberattack—most recently the micro example of the hacking of the New Year Honours List but, more alarmingly perhaps, the likely retaliation from Iranian activity in the cybersphere. What deep thinking around cyber and the joining up of the strategy...