The government launched UK Online in September 2000 with the goal of ensuring access to the internet for all who want it by 2005. Since that time, the demise of some high profile dot.coms, together with the international slow down in the electronics and telecommunications sector, have caused some to question our aim of extending access and bridging the digital divide.
As Tony Blair told Labour’s conference last October: ‘If globalisation works only for the benefit of the few, then it will deserve to fail.’ But, at an international and domestic level, few would question seriously that in this global economy, access to information remains unevenly distributed.
Manhattan today has more telephone connections than the whole continent of Africa. Here, the latest figures indicate that almost half of UK households are now connected to the internet. Yet delve behind these figures and it emerges that those on lower incomes and older people are far less likely to use the internet. Eleven percent of citizens in the poorest income group, for example, have home access, compared to 78 percent in the highest group.
For these reasons, our vision for a socially just and opportunity-rich society means we will continue to act to bridge the digital divide. An uneven distribution of the social and economic opportunities provided by advancing technologies, unless addressed, would restrict opportunity and entrench existing inequalities.
That is why we are investing more that £200 million in a network of 6,000 UK online centres in communities across the country, where people can surf the internet and get advice and training whilst doing so. We are connecting all public libraries – the biggest single investment in the UK libraries network since it was created in the middle of the nineteenth century.
It is also why we are providing low-income families with low cost, recycled PCs and piloting initiatives to wire up all of the homes in some of the poorer communities in the country.
The internet has not, of course, re-written every law of economics. Nor has the ‘new economy’ proved to be as distinctive from the more familiar economy, as some initially suggested. Yet amidst all of the recent economic headlines, the information and communication technologies are systematically transforming products, services and every sector of the economy. Indeed, the great expansion of international capital flows that we have witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s, together with the technological advances that accompanied them, are set to continue reshaping every part of the global marketplace.
The challenge for government is how best to assist our communities and equip our companies in the face of these challenges. Those governments that can maximise the use and distribution of information, and draw on the capabilities of all its citizens, can add real competitive advantage. Appropriate government action will not only strengthen social cohesion, but also strengthen economic competitiveness.
That is why we are investing more than £1 billion in e-learning and why we are putting ICT at the heart of the curriculum and ensuring that every school is connected to the internet by the end of 2002. We already have 99 percent of secondary schools and 96 percent of primary schools connected and are increasing the number of computers in schools.
We are also targeting late adopters, particularly those who are less well-off and the not-so-young who may not have been exposed to the new technology yet. We aim to help them get their first experience of the internet, all the way through to getting a qualification in IT or another course. And, through Learn Direct, we are providing free UK online computer training for the unemployed helping them acquire the skills they need for the jobs of the future.
In the economy of today, and tomorrow, governments do have a vital role – balancing the countless private choices of individuals and companies with public choices that we as a society make. That is why to extend opportunities in today’s world makes both social and economic sense. To bridge the digital divide is not a bridge too far – it’s a bridge to a fairer and more prosperous Britain.