If asked what Tech City needs, few people would answer ‘More government’. So it’s not straightforward to work out the role of government in making Britain the world’s leading digital nation – the vision at the centre of Labour Digital’s Number One in Digital report published this week.
Britain is doing ‘fine’ in digital. We are 14th on the Booz and Co index of digitisation. We have a fast-growing internet industry in Shoreditch, and areas of deep science in Cambridge and elsewhere. Nobody would doubt that we will naturally end up somewhere in the premier league, or at least high in the first division.
However, if that is all we achieve, future generations will be justified in feeling let down. Labour Digital believes that it is entirely achievable to make Britain the leading digital nation on earth. If we manage it we will position Britain for the same disproportionate global influence that we enjoyed when we were first in the industrial revolution. Booz and Co also estimates a GDP uplift of £63bn per annum, which would be more than handy.
Of course, this sounds audacious. But no nation yet has a defensible claim on the top spot. The United States might seem the obvious choice, but it has weak connectivity (slow and overpriced broadband and mobile access) and its public and third sectors are no more digital than ours.
Britain has tremendous advantages. We are already pretty digital (we have the highest proportion of adults using the internet in the G20, and ecommerce is the highest proportion of GDP). Our timezone is convenient for both east and west. Our outlook is international. We have several cities that talented foreigners are delighted to move to.
However, these advantages alone will not make us the most digital nation. In the 20th century, Japan and Korea showed what it takes to achieve technical outperformance. It takes a plan.
For this reason Labour Digital is calling for a national programme to make Britain the world’s leading digital nation, monitored by a ‘Digital Board’ of Britain’s digital great and good, reporting to the prime minister at least quarterly.
There are 82 recommendations in ‘Number One in Digital’ which we believe would be appropriate for inclusion in the plan. If you add up the cost of implementing each recommendation, the total – single-digit billions – is tiny in comparison with the benefit of winning in digital. This is an investment which Britain cannot afford not to make.
The two most costly recommendations are two of the most impactful. First, we argue for 1Gps broadband to all homes and offices, with 10Gps connections for business hubs like Tech City. It is an aggressive goal, but the global leader in digital of the 2020s will not be a country which was conservative about bandwidth.
Second, we recognise that, while the private sector has some capability for financing risky innovation (business angels and so forth), the public and third sector has none. However, even failed innovation generates significant public benefit because it helps to educate those involved (who approach their next project with enhanced skill). So we propose the creation of a National Fund for Digital Creativity to fund a large number of risky experiments in digital across private, public and third sectors. Those experiments that succeed would be scaled using private capital or government departmental budgets.
Our other recommendations include free basic internet for all citizens, open APIs for 50 per cent of government transactions and retail banks, tax incentives for corporate venture capital and personal investment, ‘Programmers Passports’ for non-EU programmers, a digital Magna Carta to define citizens’ digital rights, a national public data infrastructure, a national federated ID framework, and online voting in general elections, local meetings and even for House of Lords votes.
These ideas were crowdsourced online by Labour Digital’s 300+ members following a launch event addressed by Martha Lane Fox. We have already changed how policy is developed and Jon Cruddas has declared that the UK should become the leading digital nation. We can get there, if we have a plan.
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George Bevis coordinates Labour Digital, the Labour party’s network of over 300 digital policy professionals. He is a London-based digital entrepreneur and currently the CEO of Groovy Bananas, an internet incubator. Download ‘Number One in Digital’ here