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Mr. Battle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which I accept. His comment should be echoed more widely than just in the Chamber. It is vital that we get the whole infrastructure right and we take that point seriously on board.
We want to ensure--this relates to the point made by the hon. Member for South Dorset--that we link schools, libraries and colleges that are connected to the Internet. I accept that that requires infrastructure. Our national grid for learning takes account of that point as does the university for industry, which will link industry and the potential for life-long learning. That also needs investment in infrastructure if it is to happen. Those initiatives will bring together Government, industry and education and will create a new virtual resource as long as we have the infrastructure in position. That point is accepted.
Having the national grid for learning on the Internet will enhance teachers' skills. The grid will bring them up-to-date materials, and pupils will have access to high-quality educational materials. As youngsters of the new generation begin to take IT for granted, they will begin to think that the Internet is passe. They will use it for pragmatic reasons and to get the information they need, and teachers will have to catch up. Teachers will be learning from pupils for once. They will have to learn how to switch on and use computers. We shall have to train new teachers to ensure that they are all literate in
the new telecommunications and we shall have to retrain existing teachers. The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts will contribute to that process.
We want to connect up schools, colleges and libraries, working with the cable companies, British Telecom and other telecommunications companies, and we want to keep the access charges as low as possible--a point raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. We want to develop plans for public-private partnerships to deliver educational software and services to pupils, teachers and other learners. We want to remove barriers to learning and set up opportunities even for those with special educational needs to increase the availability of information.
The national grid for learning will provide curriculum support for schools. It will help teachers' development and it will extend life-long learning, whether home based, through further education or through specific training for employment opportunities. The grid will link closely with our plans for study centres funded through the national lottery and through the university for industry. We hope that museums and galleries can be linked up so that there are many opportunities for learning.
Mrs. Gillan:
I am delighted by the plans for information technology in schools which the Minister is outlining. They will build on what the previous Conservative Government did. Will he now tell the House how much money is going into the programme?
Mr. Battle:
I cannot tell the hon. Lady the answer today. We are working up the programme and we shall spell out the details later. As always, budgets will be put before the House. We have already said that we will invest in this area and that it has been included in our Budget programmes.
Mr. Battle:
The amount will be rather more than the hon. Lady's Government invested during their whole period in office. I will give her a practical example. I recall pressing the previous Government very hard to invest in the joint academic network--JANET--and its counterpart, the super-JANET. It was us, when we were in opposition, who pushed for investment there. We see the potential for network technologies in United Kingdom education and we will ensure that they are properly backed up.
Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher and Walton):
I have sat listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman enumerating the policies he inherited. Many of the things in the grid that he is talking about are already happening simply because of private sector investment. That is exactly why Oftel announced an agreement with the cable industry on fixed-price packages for ISDN connections to schools. That programme is under way. That is why the profits of companies making the machines have been rising year in and year out, despite the constraints on school budgets. They have found ways in which to enable schools to use
Mr. Battle:
The hon. Gentleman was responsible for this area in the previous Government.
Mr. MacShane:
A distinguished part.
Mr. Battle:
I compliment the hon. Gentleman on the foundations he built. We want to see the process enhanced and developed--
Mr. Ian Taylor:
With the private sector.
Mr. Battle:
I accept that. The hon. Gentleman played a distinguished part, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said. I would like to see the private-public partnership enhanced, built and developed a bit more to ensure that new technology reaches all parts of our society and not just little exclusive enclaves. We need to extend the process and to put together new forms of public-private partnership. We should network all the higher education institutions and that process should include publicly funded research institutions as well. Piecemeal work went on under the previous Government, but we did not have the integrated, joined-up thinking that is needed to connect the whole lot together and to take us into the new millennium. I publicly acknowledge the contribution of the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) and I am pleased to build on it, but I hope that he will acknowledge that we need to develop the process further.
Information technology will be one of the key strands--the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham referred to this--of our better government programme, which was announced last month by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Information technology will inform much of what we intend to do in government because it underpins how we relate to local communities, to citizens as a whole and to businesses large and small. We are talking about open government and communications.
Information technology enables us to use post offices, public libraries and citizens advice bureaux to the best advantage. We must ensure that assisted access to electronic services is available throughout the nooks and crannies of our society. The health service is another area where there are exciting possibilities for the use of information technology products and services.
As we move into the new millennium, the development of on-line services is creating a new environment for communication between businesses and their customers. Businesses have begun to use that environment for advertising and selling services and products. Consumers use on-line services via the Internet to buy things, to obtain banking and financial services and to buy tickets. Already, a mass market is developing, using and stimulated by interactive digital television.
As we see the convergence of televisions, computers and telecommunications, we see increased buying and selling over the network; we are moving into the digital age of electronic commerce. That brings with it a new series of issues that we will need to address in the House.
We need to build an infrastructure that we can trust and use with confidence. Some communication between human beings will always have to be confidential, so confidentiality is crucial. As we move towards the new global information networks with the potential for electronic commerce, we need a clear legal framework and a proper system--for example, for confidential digital signatures. That would prevent fraud in transactions. We need good information technology security to protect users and suppliers. We must also tackle offensive and illegal material on the Internet. We require a clear, predictable, international legal framework and we must ensure that it is applied on line.
Within those developments, we must ensure confidentiality and integrity in transactions, and the new science of cryptography--using secret codes to keep messages secure--will be vital.
The previous Government issued a consultation paper to which the hon. Member for Esher and Walton invited responses. We have continued with that work. We shall work through the replies and prepare our response. We are making progress on the basis of the work that the hon. Gentleman did in government. Once again, I compliment him on having the foresight to tackle an issue that we need to address.
In the medium term, we need to establish a competitive framework to take account of media convergence. The gradual erosion of distinctions between the previously discrete sectors of telecommunications, broadcasting and IT will require a regulatory structure for the next century. There is much work to be done.
In closing, I am reminded by a remark of the French poet, Paul Valery. He said that we can be certain that the future is not what it used to be. The world of new information and communication technologies exemplifies that. In 1968, an engineer from IBM's advanced computer systems division said of the microchip, "Yes, but what is it good for?"
We have spoken of the half-life of Internet products being only six months, so the pace of change is momentous. It is unlikely to slow down. In fact, it will probably increase. The skill will be to ride the wave of change, seize the opportunities and be confident that we can shape change and the future. We need to ensure that the little word "all" is all-inclusive and build an inclusive society that provides opportunities for all by making use of the new potential.
Our children are already moving into the digital future. They are quickly mastering the tools that they will need for the new century. Some of us need to catch up. The Government have a crucial role to play in optimising the benefits of new technology as we approach the millennium. In partnership with business, we must not only promote the use and development of the information society and its products and services, but ensure the future competitiveness of our business, industry and commerce.
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