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Mr. Bruce: The Minister will know that a confidential directory is sent to all hon. Members--because of our current Tory-lookalike Government, it has a blue cover--which shows that the Department of Transport no longer has an e-mail address. Although most Ministers are on
e-mail, hon. Members are not allowed to know their e-mail addresses. It is, therefore, rather difficult for us to communicate with them.
Mr. Battle: I will examine the situation and ensure that the addresses are there. I should add only that, when I first subscribed to e-mail, my system was clogged because 2,500 American high school students sent me an e-mail asking about politics in Britain. E-mail does not solve all communications problems. In principle, however, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should sharpen up accessibility and the openness of government. E-mail is a means of accomplishing that goal and we will examine ways in which to use it.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham): While the hon. Gentleman is improving availability of information and access to Ministers, will he do me and every other hon. Member a favour by carefully examining access to Treasury Ministers? Like my Opposition colleagues, I received a letter from the Treasury stating that hon. Members should not write directly to Treasury Ministers but should take up matters with senior officials in relevant Departments. That does not sit very well with the Minister's comments today or the spirit of open access and open government. I therefore hope that, today, he will undertake to examine the Treasury's position and to report back to the House. I should be very grateful if he will write to me on that matter.
Mr. Battle: I cannot take responsibility for every Department simply because it is on the super-highway. I will, however, look into the situation and ask my colleagues at the Treasury to make a check of their communications systems. We are talking about communications. If we simply go electronic and never again talk to one another, it will be a bit of a disaster.
I have asked whether I cannot have a virtual red box rather than having to carry around masses of paper. I think that I was in a better position on using computers before the general election than I was after it. In all seriousness, however, there are questions about exchange and confidentiality, about which I will say more later in my speech. Nevertheless, we believe that we should be as open and accessible as possible and that we should use the new communications technologies as a means of achieving those goals. I will look into the matters raised by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham.
The challenge of the new technologies will be to harness their potential for the benefit of all--which is a short, three-letter word that I am determined to prove is absolutely inclusive. We will have to work together to include everyone. We should have an open debate on the developments to ensure that the new technologies are not only for technophiles, leaving others as if they are technologically challenged, lost in computer acronyms and jargon or even afraid to turn a computer on because they fear that they may get an electric shock.
In practice, global information networks are transforming our world, drawing people closer together through global communications. A vision of a global information society is now starting to take shape, making possible profound economic and social changes that are transforming and diffusing through all realms of human activity. The coherent developments of an information society have become essential to our competitiveness,
to our employment and to improving of our quality of life. It is therefore vital that the benefits of the information society are available for all.
My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry underlined those points in her first major policy speech. She said:
Global information networks can contribute to resolving economic, social and political problems in new and imaginative ways. The networks can be used to rid society of social exclusion. We can raise awareness and use new technology as a tool to improve the quality of human relations and human communication.
I must insist that we continue to regard technology as a tool. It is not about machines simply transmitting electronic signals to machines out of human control. The real value lies in linking people together, not in joining up the technology. It is about human communication, which should be an ordinary, every-day, interactive, personal experience. It should be person-centred. I am tempted to reply to the advert, "Yes, it's good to talk, but it's even better if someone is listening."
Using technology should be an inclusive human activity. Raising awareness, providing access and enhancing skills are the key themes for the Government's IT for all programme which is run by the Department of Trade and Industry. IT for all is a partnership with the private, public and voluntary sectors. It provides the public with the opportunity to try out and get involved in the information society. As we know, business is already working to increase awareness and give people a chance to try out the new technologies, which should bring home to them the way in which IT might improve business performance and the quality of our lives.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham):
Has my hon. Friend seen the very interesting letter in The Times this morning written by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East and Saddleworth (Mr. Woolas) about the job-creating potential of digital television and the extent to which it is a way of moving jobs and creativity outside the great wen--London--to which too much wealth has flowed in the past 18 years? Technology can help the spread of jobs and wealth across our nation.
Mr. Battle:
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was going to deal with that point. We do not need to be concentrated in the same place; mobility is the key to spreading opportunities more widely than ever before. I shall emphasise the human possibilities of technology before dealing with the economic potential.
The Equality project in my city of Leeds aims to assist people with severe disabilities. It uses new technology to counter social isolation and enables people to find out how standard IT equipment and software packages can be adapted to be made accessible to them. People who cannot even use their hands to move a mouse can use speech to direct a cursor on the screen, which helps them to communicate. Someone confined to a wheelchair said that a computer could literally open new doors. That is a real improvement in someone's quality of life.
Mrs. Gillan:
While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of disability, when are the Government goingto implement the second part of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which directly involves new technologies?
Mr. Battle:
I cannot respond as generously to that question as I have to others. The House had a great struggle to get the previous Government to take disability seriously. In opposition, we made incredible efforts to force the Government to take access for people with disability seriously. We got a half-baked Bill in return, but we shall work to improve access in any way we can, as will my colleagues in other Departments. We do not need any lectures on that topic.
I was talking about access to new technologies. I have visited projects in Leeds and also one in Norris Green in Liverpool's inner city. There is a centre in a library where people of all ages call in, looking for information on training, education and leisure. People who have no IT training, background or skills are using use the new technologies. I saw older people looking up and writing their family histories using computers. I met a young man in his twenties who suffered from dyslexia, but said that, because he could now use a computer, he could literally write. They are the benefits of technology.
I must mention my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) who set up an organisation called Cambridge Opportunity Links. It is a scheme to help parents who are returning to work after a spell looking after their children to get information on jobs, training and the availability of child care. It helps them calculate whether they will be better off in work or on benefit. The equation is worked out using new technology.
My hon. Friend's organisation collects the information and puts it together on easy-to-use web pages so that parents can access it at public access points in libraries, community centres or citizens advice bureaux. It enables a lone parent in Cambridgeshire to get information on jobs, training courses and child care, and work out how she can be better off in work. At the end of this month, I believe that it will be possible to get access to that system in local Benefits Agency offices in a touch-screen kiosk. That is precisely the kind of imaginative use of technology that we ought to promote. I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking that initiative, and I hope that many others will imitate her example.
IT has to be for all, and it can be for all. It must be inclusive, and not divide society into the information rich and the information poor. By working with large and small companies, community groups and local authorities,
we can make a step change and build an inclusive community. For example, new IT networking can enable the unemployed literally to enter the labour market on screen and find a job. British Aerospace has already set up a model on the Internet which enables graduates in engineering to screen and scan all the companies in Britain and Europe to find out what they can apply for. In other words, technology can open up the labour market. Yes, it improves and enriches the quality of life, but, at the same time, it is a tool for empowerment.
I deal now with the need to make the networks and infrastructure easy to use, but also with the need to develop the economic potential, a point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) referred. The electronics and IT sector is a substantial part of British industry. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks asked about the post-industrial age. I am tempted to remind him that industry includes making the telecommunications and computing equipment. It is part of industrial activity to build that infrastructure.
"The information superhighway is the means of delivering to all our people improved access to information, services and markets. The mass markets of the future will first be identified for those who provide access to the technology for the mass of their people, and opportunity follows that understanding."
We want to ensure that every member of the British public is ready to embrace the information society and to use and realise the benefits of information and communication technologies. That means raising awareness of the opportunities available through the new technologies, and the use of technology to get information for learning, work, industry and, indeed, for fun and leisure, to help children and to help communicate--I am tempted to say "to communicate more intensively"--with families and friends anywhere in the world.
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