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6.57 p.m.
Lord Haskel: My Lords, I consider myself particularly fortunate to have worked on this topical report. I can tell the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, that I have been fascinated by information technology ever since a dozen BBC micros were introduced into my company. Since then we have always used information technology to give us a competitive advantage. So I am particularly grateful to my hard-working colleagues on the committee, to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for leading the committee so well, to our specialist adviser, and to Dr. Tudor our excellent Clerk.
I have an interest to declare. I am a non-executive director of a cable company and am involved in the merger of three cable companies and Cable & Wireless about which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, spoke. Now that it looks as if the merger will go through, I expect to receive my P45 fairly soon--a document with which some noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite may become familiar in the spring.
The merger is relevant to the commercial aspects of our report. As we heard, the present regulatory regime encourages a variety of operators to build an infrastructure but the control of that infrastructure lies with the local loop. The local loop is the connection between the infrastructure and the home or office.
The local loop is the most expensive part of the network to install and maintain. At present, that local loop is largely owned by BT and is being duplicated by local
cable companies. Away from metropolitan areas, where there is plenty of business traffic, the individual cable companies do not have the critical mass to provide an effective alternative, even with their right to transmit entertainment. That is why they are merging, and that is why providing the local loop is likely to become a monopoly or, at best, a duopoly. In the end BT and one or two other large companies will control the local loop and therefore control Britain's information society. That is why I join the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and other noble Lords in being unhappy about the Government's response to our recommendations in paragraphs 6.6, 6.7 and 6.8 which call for better public access and regulation of that access. The Government's response is that its role is to promote a stable regulatory environment in order to encourage infrastructure investment,
- "promoting effective competition and communications networks".
I find this complacent and backward-looking, rather than forward-looking, because this policy will leave the monopolies or duopolies in control of the local loop and thus in control of the network. Perhaps the Minister will give further thought to our proposals, bearing this argument in mind.
One of the delights of working on this report was the feeling we got from many witnesses that the information society will be a more open society. We became a little infected with this spirit of openness, and that is why our first recommendations, paragraphs 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, dealt with opening up the work of Cabinet Committee GEN 37 and the relationship between this Cabinet Committee and the information society.
One of the essential purposes of our recommendations for an information society task force is to break down these barriers and open up the information society. This spirit of openness may have infected us, but sadly it did not infect the Government. The rather tired response of
- "collective responsibility requires Ministers to respect the privacy of Cabinet business"
is not exactly an example of open government encouraging an open information society. That is why our report was published on the web, as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, told us. For the Government to say in their response that the present arrangements of various committees reporting to Ministers provide a useful diversity of input misses the point entirely. We are concerned about looking outwards to the information society at large, not about looking inwards to advise Ministers.
However, I welcome the Government's support for our proposals to encourage the use of e-mail in government, citizens advice bureaux and doctors in general practice. I am sure that they will not only benefit from the lower costs but will also find that, as in business, e-mail will provide a powerful tool for empowerment by overcoming barriers to information. The shop floor can e-mail the chairman direct. As a result, decisions are taken lower down and information is more widely available. All this produces subtle changes in the hierarchy by reducing layers of access. Working patterns become more flexible and informed. I hope that the Minister will take note of these lessons.
I am disappointed that the Government, in their response to our recommendation in paragraph 6.24, do not consider training as part of education. After all, we are still in the Year of Lifelong Learning. Providing education and training for all, using interactive multi-media programs over the Internet, is an important part of Labour's concept of an information society. This is particularly important in providing education and training for employees of small and medium-sized companies whose firms do not have the facilities to provide their own training. Perhaps I may suggest that the Minister should send a representative to the National Film Theatre on 10th December, when our plans for this service will be presented to a conference.
I welcome the Government's agreement with our proposal in paragraph 6.9 regarding unacceptable content on the Internet. We called for a code of practice and on 4th October the Internet Service Providers' Association issued such a code. My noble friend Baroness Dean spoke of this. However, in addition to what my noble friend Baroness Dean, said, I draw the Minister's attention to the first words of the fifth paragraph:
- "The current code is intended only as a starting point from which to evolve a comprehensive code".
It is important continuously to develop this code because the internet is a fast-moving worldwide institution, as many noble Lords have said.
A code of practice is designed to back up the legal obligations currently in force. More important is the concept of regulation by the Internet Watch. As the Government pointed out in their response to our proposal in paragraph 6.10, and as my noble friend Baroness Dean pointed out, regulation can keep up with changing technology whereas a code of practice will only reflect the existing law. Is it intended that the Internet Watch Foundation will become a regulatory body like the Broadcasting Standards Authority? The global scale and huge diversity and volume of material on the Internet is just too large for a voluntary code which only applies to those service providers who agree to it.
Internet Watch is focusing initially on child pornography. Will the Minister ask for this to be extended to a watch on racism, as the paper from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research on the Governance of Cyber Space suggested? Regulation of the Internet is closely tied in with issues such as privacy versus freedom of expression and copyright versus freedom of information. This is a complex and difficult area, to which I hope the Minister will give special attention. He would have been greatly assisted in this by the information technology task force which we proposed.
As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, told us, the information society is developing rapidly. Much has happened recently, both technically and commercially. In concluding, perhaps I may bring to your Lordships' attention a development about which I became aware during the summer which adds urgency to some of our recommendations. I refer to voice recognition.
Voice recognition is much more advanced than I thought. Not only can you dictate letters and memos direct to your computer, but Bell Canada has recently
introduced a telephone service where you do not need to dial the number, you just speak a name. If this technology can replace the keyboard, the number pad, or the mouse, the information society will become accessible to many more people far more quickly. It will also make it more accessible to older people.Our recommendations in paragraphs 6.17 and 6.18 calling for steps to be taken to assist the "have nots" and the "cannots" and to provide library terminals will become more urgent as voice recognition is introduced. I am pleased that the Government agree with these recommendations, but, if voice recognition becomes as universal as the telephone companies would like it to be, then the Government will have to give a lot more priority to these recommendations.
However, I remind noble Lords that human error is always with us. I am one of the Compuserve subscribers over 50 to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Hogg, referred. Compuserve recently arranged a special home delivery deal for some of its clients with the local supermarket chain. Using a CD-ROM and the Internet, we placed a heavy and bulky order. The order never arrived. However, the following day we received an e-mail which said:
- "Order for the Lord Haskel. Our delivery van diligently scoured the area but could not find a pub of that name".
7.10 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Ellesmere, for finishing a truly mammoth task. I was privileged to start the examination on his sub-committee. I enjoyed the one or two sessions that I was able to attend but I then left to begin a different examination. This paper points the way forward in a very practical way across a broad field of problems which in my view are easy to over-estimate. We have reached our present situation of having an enormous amount of technical development without perhaps the degree of government co-ordination, enthusiasm and regulation which some people seem to think necessary.
I have heard the Internet described as an anarchic organisation. That is perhaps what one would expect of something born out of a defence need. I hope that my noble and gallant friend sitting opposite will forgive me for that. It has grown out of demand and the one thing that will continue to develop is demand. Demand will come from the direction in which individuals like the individuals within this Chamber wish. We should always remember that. We should keep it very much in the background of our mind.
My intention is to come at this report from the position of a provider in the field. In the early 1980s the Essex County Council established a small unit to look at and develop the use of computers in schools, to study the implications and to find out what was involved. It was supported by what were then the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Trade and Industry. Inevitably that unit became incorporated into what was in those days an institute of higher education and subsequently that institute of higher education was taken out of local government control and became a part of what is now the Anglia Polytechnic University. It has
been given the rather exotic title of the Ultralab, and is one of Europe's top research centres for multi-media technology. That has happened despite all the inadequacies of the current framework.It is perhaps worth relating what the unit does. Its staff very often are leaders opening conferences on multi-media in education across the whole country. Inevitably, there is a multi-media degree, which one would expect, and there is even a Master's degree which is taught on the Internet. There is a student operating entirely out of Fremantle in Australia who will obtain a very good degree. We operate multi-media and information systems as part of teacher-training within the university, which comes back to points that have already been made. Those aspects of work are already taking place. Indeed, there is an on-line component in an MA.Education degree. Because of the work of that unit, particular support can be provided for pupils with learning handicaps, such as dyslexia or visual impairment. One can become involved in language teaching. All those things go on not just in the university but also in the classroom.
It is very important at this point to use another military metaphor, if I may be permitted to do so. I thought that it might have been out of line but I was told by an educational man that it was very much in line. The military people may, however, pick me up. There is concern in the teaching profession that the computer might put some of their positions at risk. The military metaphor is appropriate; namely, that battle is about holding ground. Ground cannot be held without troops on it. Teaching is about classrooms and individuals; but a class cannot be held without a teacher in it. In fact, we are talking about systems which will come to the support of traditional teaching and which will aid and improve it. We have to develop the thinking in teaching education to make that possible.
I turn to another aspect of work that is already taking place. Obviously, there is research. The unit gets a very good score in the research assessment exercise. One of the current projects is funded by a major local hospital to assess multi-media for postgraduate medical doctors' training. That has an immediate and major impact on the possibility of keeping doctors up to date as medicine and medical technology develop. Better than that, it feeds back into medical education. We do not train doctors but we do a lot of work with nurses, radiographers, and so on. So there is feedback there. As an aside, we have in the DTI's "Schools On-Line" Internet project the "Best Educational Web-site", which was announced at Edinburgh this year.
Going on from that and coming to more serious problems, it is surprising where one can go with a little unit of this kind. It is at present working with the BBC, studying and helping to develop thoughts on the future of television. That arises inevitably from the development of digital broadcasting and of course the similarity between that and telecommunications. The distinctions are disappearing. I had a problem because I found that the BBC were also working with BT on the future of telecommunications. One might have thought that there was a potential conflict of interest there but
there is in fact a community of interest. Surprisingly, it is working with Nortel, looking at the question of social interactions as a result of the technical changes that are now happening. So the family television set will become the family computer. What happens when there is a conflict of interest between granny who wants to watch an entertainment programme and little Johnny who needs to do his homework? That is the reality of what is happening on the ground.It seems to me somewhat ironical that within just one year of passing a Broadcasting Bill and having a new BBC Charter, we should already need to be looking at the question of how we regulate and control the broadcasting and telecommunication industries. Those industries are moving together. There is no escaping that fact.
It is my candid opinion that we can never move the regulatory framework to be in advance of the situation on the ground. The developments that are taking place are so quick that we shall have to face the reality that the framework in which people operate must always be open enough to permit the developments which are happening in reality to take place without restriction. We shall then have to look at what needs to be done to make sure that wholly undesirable ill effects do not take place. I am very happy with this report and support it wholeheartedly.
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