Rural Areas: Superfast Broadband
Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund is expected to be available to support the provision of superfast broadband in hard to reach rural areas.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, the digital infrastructure investment fund aims to support industry investment in full fibre networks, which are the next generation of digital infrastructure. The Government are committing £400 million, which will be at least matched by private sector investments on the same terms. It will be up to the selected managers of the fund themselves to make investments.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the Minister for his reply. Fibre alone may not be sufficient to reach the final 5%; that is, those who will not have access to superfast broadband by the end of this year. In the light of that, what is being done to encourage the use of alternate or mixed technologies? In particular, when is BDUK expected to publish its report into superfast broadband market test pilots, which we were promised was to be published at the end of last year?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. We are now not prescriptive about any particular technology to reach the final 5%, as 95% will be covered for superfast broadband by the end of this year. Therefore, any procurement supported by BDUK is done through open tenders on a technology-neutral basis. Projects supported since 2016 have included fibre to the cabinet, fibre to the premises and fixed wireless access. As regards his question about superfast broadband market test pilots, the report is scheduled to be released shortly.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend give the House an assurance that 95% of the digital infrastructure investment fund will be spent in the 5% hardest-to-reach areas? Does he agree that it is unacceptable that doctors’ surgeries, schools, rural businesses and farms are deprived of speed and good access to infrastructure in the 21st century?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The digital infrastructure investment fund is purely for fibre projects. There may be hard-to-reach areas where fibre is not the answer—where, for example, it may be satellite or fixed wireless. Therefore, I cannot give my noble friend the assurance she seeks. The Government are working hard to reach those areas but the digital infrastructure investment fund is purely for fibre, which, of course, is very important for ongoing technology such as 5G.
Lord Gordon of Strathblane (Lab)
Given that the Government have now made the provision of fast broadband a universal service obligation, does the Minister recognise the need to create another fund which will focus on technologies other than fibre to reach the most difficult parts?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
Actually, fibre is crucial because it underlines every other technology as, sooner or later, when you are on wireless, you get to a router, and the data come via fibre-optic cable. 5G, which will reach a lot more places and has more bandwidth, relies on fibre for all the extra masts that will be required.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, the Minister talked very broadly on the fibre front, but in rural and indeed less rural places like Leominster, people currently endure upload speeds of less than 1 megabit per second. Can he tell us when these people will be invited to join the digital economy?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
At the moment, anyone with a connection of less than two megabits per second is entitled under the better broadband scheme to have subsidised access to it. If they are above that but below superfast level, the universal service obligation will be in place by 2020, which will give them 10 megabits per second, and that will allow them to do normal things such as emails and streaming TV.
Lord Harrison (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister knows rural Cheshire well. Will he ensure that superfast broadband will aid and abet small businesses to establish themselves in the countryside so that they can strengthen the countryside for the benefit of all those who live there?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Lord is correct; I know that area well. I point out that there has been a tremendous improvement in rural connectivity. In 2010, only 15% of rural premises were getting 30 megabits per second; by April 2016 that had risen to 72%, and since that, many more have received the coverage. But I accept that it is important for businesses. When we talk about getting to these targets of 95% and more, we mean premises—which includes business premises as well, not just households.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate’s Question links very nicely with the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, about care and consideration for older people in rural areas. We are failing them, and in doing so we are losing a big opportunity to lessen mental health problems, to keep elderly people in contact with their children overseas, to make them see local television and what is going on—in fact, to do away with the isolation that is so prevalent in rural areas for elderly people. What is the date when every part of England, Scotland and Wales will have some broadband as a right?
Data Ethics Commission
Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw attention to my digital interests as set out in the register.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, data governance and the effective and ethical use of data are vital for the future of our economy and our society. The Government are committed to creating a sound ethical framework in the UK that will give people confidence in how their data are being handled and used. We are working closely with industry, civil society groups and academia to examine how we can best achieve this.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his Answer. It is encouraging to hear his enthusiasm, but the scale and scope of data usage is growing fast. Just in the past couple of weeks, parents have been scrambling to work out how to protect their children’s location from Snap Map, and we have heard that Vodafone has been using robots to screen candidates in advance of interviews. Just because you can does not mean that you automatically should. The technology world will not wait for us. Will my noble friend say when a commission will be set up?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this because we agree that these issues are vital. It is critical that we get the rules right so that we can give the public confidence in how their data are being used. I completely agree with her that things are moving very fast. I can be more specific about the timing when we have consulted various groups that will be set up or have been set up, and when we have looked at the reports, particularly the Royal Society and British Academy report. When we have considered those reports we can be more specific, but we aim to update our thinking later in the year.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
My Lords, the necessity of an ethics component in a structural engineering degree is well known: you cannot become one unless you have completed an ethnical component to the course. Would the Minister consider the other points at which we could insert an ethics course in our computer science degrees or other points of learning?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
That is a very good idea. This affects many areas of work and our society: data are part of everything. Many degrees, not just the ones the noble Baroness mentioned, should consider the ethical issues surrounding this. A careful consideration of ethics is part of any good education.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, Matt Hancock from the other place said that, fundamentally, intelligent systems will take off only if people trust them and how they are regulated. I understand and totally agree with the noble Baroness’s suggestion that we must have a clear timetable for this commission, but what steps are the Government going to take to properly engage with the public to ensure that we gain their trust?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
We are going to liaise with civil society groups, as I have said, and academia. The Nuffield Foundation, for example, is going to develop plans in partnership with the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Royal Statistical Society and the Alan Turing Institute to establish an independent convention on data ethics. This is something we support and will contribute to, and I think the public will be able to learn from such conventions. As I say, we will update our thinking later in the year.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, will this commission cover not only ethics but the use and application of data, for example through machine learning and development of algorithms? Can the Minister also explain how this commission will interrelate with the new data protection regulations starting in 2018 and the digital charter announced in the Queen’s Speech?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The data protection Bill, which will come before Parliament in the autumn, is to give effect to the general data protection regulations and the law enforcement directive. It will obviously include things to do with privacy, but data ethics covers many other things, such as artificial intelligence, which the noble Baroness mentioned. So it is not specifically a regulatory thing, although regulation may come out of it. It is to consider the new issues that come with this new technology.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, artificial intelligence has the potential to significantly empower us as humans, but comes with the worries that have been expressed. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, mentioned parents. What plans do the Government have to engage children in this discussion about their data and their rights to the privacy of that data?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
That is of course important, and the data protection Bill will include measures to protect children and to allow data which is held by social media companies, for example, to be deleted. As for engaging children in considering these ethical issues, that is something that the data commission can consider but, as I said, we have not yet been specific about the structure, function and remit of the commission.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the ethics and governance council for UK Biobank. Does the Minister agree that the potential value in health of the use of big data—in the development of new medicines and other fields—is enormous? In view of that, will he ensure that the interests of medical research are included in the commission’s terms of reference, given that it is essential that the public have trust in the systems governing the use of their information?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. One issue that the commission can consider is whether, as data increases exponentially and individuals give data which can be used by data-mining companies and others, what is considered private data, even if it is anonymised, can be used for the greater good. We have to consider exactly such things. The Royal Free Hospital, for example, was in trouble under the Data Protection Act for allowing data, although anonymised, to be used by another company. We have to consider such things because a tremendous amount of benefit can be obtained for the general public from that data.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, much of this data is held outside the UK. In fact, we are not sure where quite a lot of it is held. How will we be able to regulate people when we do not know where they are?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I think it has been discussed in many multinational organisations—including the EU, I completely agree. One point of the data protection Bill is to try to get equivalence in data flow across borders after Brexit, but the point that the noble Lord makes is right: it is not always easy but we have to lead the way to show that an ethical regime is the way forward.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, are all non-classified reports or reports back compiled by officials—for example, reports back on trade missions around the world—in the public domain?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I do not know the answer to that, but I am sure that not every report is in the public domain.
Youth Services
Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Gardner of Parkes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the need for youth services and how they propose to fund those services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)
My Lords, local authorities are responsible for assessing local need for youth services and allocating funding. The Government recognise the importance of activities and services outside formal education settings that can help young people develop skills, improve well-being and participate in their communities. The Government are investing up to £80 million through the Youth Investment Fund and the #iwill fund in voluntary and community organisations that work with young people and are continuing to back the National Citizen Service.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Of course, I do not think that that is too little, but local authorities are all cutting back. The Avenues youth centre on Harrow Road has been in existence for 40 years. For the first time, the council has cut all grant to that body. Not only is this a time when young people need to have their outlooks broadened and some joy in life, but we and they need to be protected from knife carrying and the terrible occupations that can easily fill in work for idle hands. How does the Minster think the voluntary sector will cope with that?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
As I said in my previous Answer, local needs are best addressed by local authorities. It is not the ideal position of central government to look at local needs such as those to which my noble friend referred. However, it is not just a question of local authority spending. That is why we are spending £200 million on the National Citizen Service, £40 million on the #iwill fund—looking after a third of its running costs—£40 million on the Youth Investment Fund and £10 million from LIBOR fines for uniformed youth groups. Importantly, we are spending £700,000 on the Delivering Differently for Young People programme, which gives local authorities technical and legal support to help them develop new models for delivering youth services.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, it is all very well saying that decisions are best made locally, which of course they are, but if the Government reduce the funding to local authorities by more than two-fifths, it is inevitable that youth services and other non-statutory mainstream services will suffer. The Government have a responsibility. What are they going to do about the fundamental issue underlying the noble Baroness’s Question, which is that there is a problem in terms of activities for young people which should be properly resourced and funded?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
When local authorities have to make difficult choices, who would noble Lords rather did that—the local authority or central government? We have provided additional money to enable local authorities to look at sustainable models. There are very good examples of local authorities which have grabbed the opportunity, looked anew at how to provide youth services and done it with local partners. I can give the example of Knowsley.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said about additional investment, but going beyond the local and thinking about national security—in terms of preventing the radicalisation of young people and the creation of gangs—does he not think it vital that we invest in youth services? These have been cut to ribbons in the recent cuts arising from the economic crash—they have been decimated. I welcome the money, but so much more work is needed. Will he and colleagues consider putting youth services on a statutory basis so that they are protected over time?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The noble Earl may be aware that such services are on a statutory basis, and local authorities have a statutory duty to provide them. If we just take specific examples from recent years, Unison reported on the cuts to local youth services. For 2014-15, it reported that £85 million was cut. In the meantime, the Government spent £170 million on NCS, £10 million on the Uniformed Youth Social Action Fund, £300,000 on the British Youth Council, £500,000 on Delivering Differently and £270,000 on the Centre for Youth Impact. That is some £128 million against £85 million of cuts. My central point remains that difficult decisions should be made locally. It is not true that, for the reasons that the noble Earl expressed, the Government are doing nothing—let alone the National Citizen Service, which the coalition started in 2011 and which now has about 100,000 young people going through it.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, it has long been clear that voluntary agencies deliver more effectively and at lower cost youth services such as those discussed and as a result keep children out of crime. What are the Government doing to encourage and support the voluntary sector in this vital area?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
For example, there is the National Citizen Service, which I keep mentioning—
Lord Ashton of Hyde
I do so because I think it is vital. When the National Citizen Service Bill went through the House, it received virtually unanimous support because it was regarded as a good thing. I encourage noble Lords to visit the NCS during the Summer Recess. They will be impressed. We deliver 80% of that service through local community action groups. The money that central government allocates is spent through local charities, authorities and voluntary groups in the various regions of the country.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that cuts to youth services, public health, libraries and education all hit hardest young people in the poorest and most vulnerable communities? What assessment have the Government made of the impact of these cuts in such communities? What are they going to do about that?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
The Government looked at these particularly disadvantaged areas and set up the Youth Investment Fund, funded by DCMS and the Big Lottery Fund. It will award £40 million to the most disadvantaged areas in the country.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister accept that those of us who believe in local government in England despair at the way Westminster and the Government appear to be determining priorities? It is no good saying that local authorities have a statutory duty to provide when there is no quantity attached to that. The Minister keeps referring to local authority choice, but there is none in England: Westminster decides what can be spent and therefore determines what is needed. When will those of us in the English local authority system get the sort of money the Government appear to be spending per capita in Northern Ireland?
Lord Ashton of Hyde
It is not true that it is just a question of local authority cuts. That is why central government is spending £40 million on the Step Up To Serve #iwill fund, £40 million on the Youth Investment Fund and £200 million on the National Citizen Service. They are providing real money to help youth services all around the country.