Labour reveals plan to ‘take everybody into a new digital era’: ‘It’s a difference between us and Tories’

The Labour government has launched a plan to break down barriers to digital inclusion, which it promises will “put more money in people’s pockets” and help millions gain skills and access to the online world.

Figures show that 1.6 million people in the UK are currently living offline, meaning they lack digital devices, digital skills or internet connection. Meanwhile, a quarter of Brits struggle to use online tools and risk being left behind as the country becomes more digitised.

Health services including GP appointments, job applications and other daily tasks are increasingly accessed online.

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Digital skills could also save people money. For example, home insurance, train travel and even food can be cheaper when purchased online, with those who shop in person paying up to 25% more than those who shop online.

As part of Labour’s first steps to tackle digital exclusion, charities and local authorities will get funding for programmes which boost communities’ access to digital skills and tools, including for digitally-excluded groups such as elderly people and low-income households.

The government will also partner with the Digital Poverty Alliance to provide laptops to people who are unable to afford or access digital tools.

Its plan is backed by companies including Google and BT, which have pledged to deliver intensive digital skills training to help thousands of adults. Vodafone has committed to helping one million people by donating technology and connectivity, providing affordable services and upskilling communities.

Peter Kyle, technology secretary, said: “The technological revolution we are living in is not only transforming everyone’s lives, but is advancing at breakneck speed, and will not slow down any time soon.  

“Leaving people behind in the process could threaten our mission to maximise technology for economic growth and better public services, which is central to our Plan for Change.”

Big Issue spoke to Chris Bryant, minister for data protection and telecoms, about the government’s plans to “bring as many people as we possibly can into the digital future”.

Why was digital inclusion something you wanted to prioritise?

The day Peter Kyle and I arrived in the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, we said: ‘Look, one key difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government is that you want to take everybody with you into a new digital era, and that must mean you’ve got to address the fact that so many people are excluded.’ 

One in four people in the UK struggle with online services. Lots of people have no access to the internet in their home. Lots of people can’t afford it. Lots of people feel completely unskilled and inadequate when it comes to dealing with these issues. 

It’s a fundamental difference between us and the Tories, who didn’t do anything about digital inclusion for 10 long years, that we’ve wanted to start this process of looking at digital inclusion and trying to bring as many people as we possibly can into the digital future. 

We want to be able to do lots of things digitally. We’re even talking about a digital driving licence on your phone. Well, you’ve got to have a phone, and you’ve got to understand how all of that works. You don’t want to exclude people, and that’s why we want to weave this into everything that we’re doing in government.

Are there specific groups of people this will help?

Digital exclusion can affect a whole series of different people. It might be older people who simply haven’t ever thought or wanted to take part in the digital economy. They might never have bought anything online. They might distrust banking apps.

There’s some people for whom language is an issue, either because they’re not digitally competent, or they find it difficult to maneuver their way around these things. 

There’s another set of people who simply haven’t got the finances to be able to pay for yet another bill on top of the electricity and the gas and all the rest of it. There are people who can’t afford to have a kit, whether it’s a smartphone or a laptop.

How exactly is this digital strategy going to ensure these people have access to technology?

This is the first step. This is not everything we intend to do over the whole of this parliament or over the lifetime of this government. But we’re setting up an Innovation Fund, which people will be able to bid into if they’ve got good ideas in their local area around how they could extend digital inclusion. That might be skills-based training in a particular area or if it’s a geographically-isolated area it might be more to do with [telecommunication] masts and things like that. But we’re conscious that one size will not fit all across the UK. 

Number two, and we’re really pleased that we’re backed by lots of private sector companies on this, we want to have a really serious device donation scheme. It’s good to recycle kit, but also because a lot of that kit is perfectly usable in a second generation.

And thirdly, we’re getting all the ministers from all the different departments to have a responsibility in this area. I’m also the culture minister with responsibility for libraries. Libraries are bound to be part of the equation. It’s a key part of the work of the Department for Work and Pensions. It’s important for local government and the health service. 

We’re bringing all those ministers together, and on top of that, we’re creating a specific, more independent group, led by Baroness Armstrong, who’s a bit of an expert in this field, to make sure that we’ve got all the strategies we need to bring everybody into the digital future.

How will it put more money into people’s pockets?

There’s lots of ways in which you can save money by being part of a digital economy, and we know that shopping online can be a quarter less expensive than physically going to shops. And now that’s not because we want to undermine the high street. We’ve got strategies for dealing with that as well, but it’s simply true that lots of people will be able, for instance, to buy their insurance online much cheaper if they went online. So we want people to have access to those services, and that’s a way of putting money into their pockets.

A pensioner struggling to afford their heating bills or a single mum struggling to put food on the table might ask why they should care about digital inclusion. What would you say to them?

There are savings available. Insurance is much cheaper if you go online than to a local broker in a high street. Some of these things are more secure and easier to use, delivered to you rather than you having to physically go to them. And there are parts of interacting with the government which are much simpler if you’re able to do that digitally.

There are social tariffs available – a cheaper way for people on universal credit to be able to access the internet or mobile phones – and we want to encourage those. But also, we’re working with the private sector, many of whom are providing cheaper versions of their services, and in some cases providing amounts of data access for free.

There’s another cool idea which somebody in one local authority came up with, which is that in their social housing, they have a lot of people who aren’t digitally connected and they also know that they need to be able to monitor things like mould and problems in the building more carefully. And they’ve been able to provide free digital access to people in social housing. That’s a win-win for everyone.

Digital inclusion isn’t just about money. It’s also social life and healthcare and much more. Do you think that digital inclusion is a fundamental human right?

It’s really difficult to live a modern life safely without having access to a phone – a mobile phone that works and has some kind of digital connection. I represent an area in South Wales, in the Valleys, where we have poor connection in some places, and it means you simply can’t even ring for an ambulance. We’ve also faced issues around telecare devices for elderly people when they’ve been transitioning from the old system to the new which is more digital, and you need to. We’ve been working very closely with industry to make sure that that’s done safely in every single instance.

At the Big Issue, we have been giving our vendors digital skills, phones and moving to cashless systems, which makes a huge difference. But sometimes people face barriers such as cultural differences or struggling to move on from old ways. How do you plan to address those barriers?

One day, I will persuade my mother in law that it’s OK to bank online. But that moment has not yet come, I have to say. But actually, online banking is now remarkably safe. Of course, it provides difficulty for people. Businesses that literally have to take cash and so on to a bank, which is why we need to work with other organisations to make sure that alternatives to digital are available.

Incidentally, digital inclusion doesn’t mean everybody has to do it one way. I think that’s a really important principle, because there will be people, for all the reasons that you’ve laid out, who may not want to go down that route, and that is absolutely fine too.

Many will argue that digital inclusion will need to start with children in schools. Is that something you have been looking at doing?

Yeah, so one of the things that we’ve been looking at, along with the Department for Education, is how we make sure that kids have the right digital skills they need. And some of those skills are not just learning how to type, but some of them may be about how to recognise dangerous spots on the internet, how to be safe, and how to use social media in a way that is safe for you. So of course, that’s got to be a vital part of everybody growing up these days.

At the Big Issue, we’ve reported on how prison leavers are digitally excluded – often struggling to find employment because they’ve lost digital skills. Is there anything in the future that you could do with prison leavers to improve digital inclusion?

That is a really good question, to which I don’t know if I have an answer, but it’s a good point.

I was really struck that my patch in South Wales, 100 years ago, employed 120,000 men underground in the mines, digging out coal. And today, if you want to work in my patch, you will need digital skills, whatever job you are doing. Even if you’re working in the steel works, you’ll need to learn know how to how to work the computer so that it pours stuff properly

You’ve got a pretty big task on your hands, and it will no doubt take a long time. What do you hope to achieve in the long term?

Our aim is to make people’s experience of government in the digital sphere easy and simple and trustworthy. And we want to take everybody into that digital future in a way that they trust, that they have confidence in and, frankly, saves them money. And, for that matter, saves government money in terms of how we deliver our services. And the only way we can do that is if we take everybody with us. That is the fundamental difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government. You can’t have anybody left by on the side.

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