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Dr. David Clark (South Shields): I wish to add my thanks to both Front Bench teams for the way in which they have tried to co-operate to tackle the problem. I also wish to thank those who have worked so hard to make the transition appear so seamless. I urge my right hon. Friend robustly to reject the line of opportunists who have claimed, late in the day, that we have wasted vast amounts of public money, which was not the case. Will she also confirm that the management of the central Government Departments ensured that we took the opportunity to make large investments in upgrading to new IT technology? Not only did we overcome the problem of the millennium bug, but we have sound investment in IT for the next two to three years.
Mrs. Beckett: My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I hoped and anticipated that he would be here, as I want to pay considerable tribute to him. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) was understandably anxious to gain credit for those Conservative Members who had taken some action on this matter, but I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) is very well aware of the great step change required by the programme and in the funding for it. He made that change within three weeks of the general election that brought this Government into office.
My right hon. Friend may not have spotted the fact in the information that has been made available, but he will be happy to learn that his initial forecast of the cost to central Government of dealing with the problem was accurate to within £10 million. That is because, contrary to early projections, a possible increase in the required expenditure has turned out not to be necessary. That is a rare example of an accurate forecast of the cost of such a project.
However, my right hon. Friend is also right to stress the value of the investment that has been made, and the potential dangers. British Nuclear Fuels plc had reported that fire alarm systems in some of our nuclear power plants were not compliant. It could have been very serious if an alarm had failed to work in the event of fire. My right hon. Friend will know that the United States Government took the trouble to keep running three non-compliant systems alongside the equipment that replaced them. All three of the non-compliant systems in that control group failed.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
The Leader of the House is right to praise IT staff in the United Kingdom across the board for their work on the project. However, as Chairman of the Information Committee, I should like to add my thanks to the many staff in Parliament who kept our systems running perfectly throughout the millennium period.
An IT professional commented to me yesterday that he thought that we should have a millennium bug every year--not to create work for staff in the IT sector, but because he said that the bug problem had forced reluctant
managements to modernise their systems in a way that they would not otherwise have done. The right hon. Lady was right to refer to the matter as a management issue.
Will the right hon. Lady consider building on the structures set up to deal with the millennium bug to ensure that all sectors are talking to each other as we move into a world increasingly dependent on IT, and in which IT systems are increasingly interdependent on each other?
Mrs. Beckett:
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Information Committee of the House. He and his colleagues were instrumental in examining what the House needed to do. I entirely share his view that, as always, the staff of the House deserve a great tribute from us for their work in keeping our systems going.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to identify some of the benefits that have emerged. The forced modernisation of systems is certainly a factor, but top managements across the developed world--and especially in countries such as our own--have been forced to engage with the questions of why and how they use IT, in a way that has not happened before. That has had considerable benefits already. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that part of the work now being undertaken is to identify and capture those benefits, for Government and across the wider economy.
A number of valuable lessons have been learned. For example, it appears that the extent of contact with small and medium-sized companies through the Government's information programme on this matter has been greater than in any previous programme.
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston):
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. For the first time since I came to the House, a statement for which I asked at business questions one Thursday has been delivered the following one.
My right hon. Friend raised an important point in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) concerning the benefits that have been identified throughout the country. Would it not be helpful if Departments, when they make their reports, identified the benefits that have accrued to them, in terms both of the year 2000 issue and of the other managerial changes brought about as a result of the exercise?
Mrs. Beckett:
I am glad to have been able to satisfy my hon. Friend's request on this occasion, but I hope that he will not take that as a precedent. It is not always so easy to arrange statements.
My hon. Friend is entirely right to identify the need for Departments to work out and declare the benefits that have accrued to them, and to learn from them. That is exactly what we are seeking to encourage them to do.
Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East):
That this country has avoided problems so far is great credit to the right hon. Lady, the right hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), Action 2000 and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) pointed out, the previous Government, who established Task Force 2000 in response to my Adjournment debate in May 1996. However, will the right hon. Lady confirm that we are not yet out of the wood, since many computer
Mrs. Beckett:
I am happy to endorse the hon. Gentleman's remarks, and I am grateful to him for his kind remarks about me. I suspect that we are all a great deal happier to share the credit today than we would have been had we had to share the blame instead. But that is fine--it is in the national interests as well as in ours.
The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that we are by no means out of the wood. Although I say that prioritisation and contingency planning worked--that is a very important lesson--and we have, as far as one can judge, avoided almost completely any impact that would cause problems for the public, the hon. Gentleman, and others in this House who have expertise and have been following the issue, will know that we have not avoided impact altogether. Hundreds of examples of problems--some of them quite serious in terms of running organisations--have occurred across the world and will have to be tackled. I have no doubt that many others will be uncovered.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are seeing something of a recurrence of a problem that he will recall from the very beginning. The greatest difficulty then was getting people to share information because their lawyers told them not to, apart from anything else. People who have problems do not necessarily tell the world about them so, while not encouraging the blame-game that exposes organisations that have had difficulties, we must ensure that they and others learn from them. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that problems will occur until the end of year at the very least, and people must be aware of that.
Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey):
May I also add my congratulations to everyone involved? Will my right hon. Friend's report give a Department- by-Department analysis of embedded chips and their cost and, if possible, put that information in the public domain?
Secondly, I echo some of the remarks that have already been made, in that neither this Government nor the previous one have, in the past 10 years, received plaudits for the way in which they bought and delivered computer systems. We are all guilty. The people who have has been involved in the preparations have clearly learned a huge amount. It would be great if my right hon. Friend's report could recommend that they take over the way in which computers are bought and designed, and systems put into place. That would stop a huge amount of waste. Will my right hon. Friend consider that?
Mrs. Beckett:
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, and it is one of the issues that will have to be considered when the reports come in. I have taken note of his point about embedded chips. I have a feeling that we may have already asked Departments to do that, but I will make sure that his point is conveyed. There have been some comments in the press to the effect that, internationally, people did not bother to do things. A good example of latecomers benefiting from the experience of others is that people could identify where it really
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