Election 2015 : the digital manifestos – Labour and Tories promise broadband for all (again!), but differ on detail
- Summary:
- With little over 3 weeks to go until the closest run General Election in living memory, the UK’s various political parties have been busy launching their policy manifestos for the consideration of the electorate. Here we look at Labour and the Conservatives plans for digital government
While it’s the populist pledges that grab the mainstream media headline - the Conservatives extending the right to buy state-owned properties, Labour freezing energy bills, the Liberal Democrats pitching on education and the Green Party outlawing pet bunny rabbits in cages - there are digital economy implications in all the manifestos, with broadband for all a key theme (again!)
Below, we round up the main digital commitments of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, with commentary from Julian David, CEO of the UK’s main technology industry association techUK, and some personal comments from me.
The Labour Party
The manifesto - here - says:Labour’s longer-term approach will drive innovation and build on our strengths as a leader in digital technology. We are just at the start of the internet revolution.
For Labour, the main digitally-related commitments are:
- High speed broadband for all by 2020 via increased private sector investment and reduction of ‘not spots’.
- Support for high-tech clusters around the UK
- Increase the number of citizens online with help for “those who need it to get the skills to make the most of digital technology”
- Use tech to improve public services and create a “more responsive, devolved, and less costly system of government”.
- Release open data ‘by default’
- The creation of a “Small Business Administration” to ensure government contracts are accessible to small firms and ensure regulations are designed with them in mind.
- Possibly forcing firms to disclose cyber security breaches, while any firm working with the Ministry of Defence will have to sign up to a cyber security charter.
techUK’s take
The world is being transformed by tech and any successful vision of the UK's future must have the smart use of digital technology at its core. We are pleased that the Labour Manifesto recognises the need to build on the UK's strengths and the sector will welcome the focus on raising productivity, using digital technology to reform public services, continued investment in communications infrastructure, a commitment to long-term science funding, and proper democratic oversight of investigative powers.
My take
The 'broadband for all' theme is welcome and one that we’ll hear from all the main parties. It’s an admirable and essential ambition, but as we’ve seen under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, it’s one that’s constantly held back by inherited reliance on a sloppily privatised telco sector. A couple of years ago, I was told by a BT employee that broadband is “not a utility and never will be”. There’s a big part of the problem right there. I’d have liked to have seen a commitment to more state subsidy around broadband rollout and I’d have excepted it to come from Labour.
Elsewhere I’m uneasy about Labour’s intention to scrap the SME inclusion targets in favour of what sounds like a new layer of bureaucracy. That can surely only work if it comes with teeth that are prepared to bite. More detail needed here. And the absence of any reference to work of the Government Digital Service (GDS) makes me distinctly nervous. Labour produced a very thorough digital government review last year. I’m disappointed overall that we don’t see more of that in this manifesto.
The Conservative Party
The manifesto - here - says:We have already created 20 high-quality digital services, which include apprenticeships applications and tax self-assessments…rolling out cross-government technology platforms to cut costs and improve productivity – such as GOVUK.
Well, there's the GDS reference I was looking for in the Labour manifesto. As for the rest of the Tory agenda, well, it’s more 'broadband for all' rhetoric, despite the singular failure to deliver on this to date.
Cynicism aside, the Tories have a bit more flesh on the bones of their broadband commitments, even if it remains to be seen how this would be realised in practice. They’re promising:
- Delivery of superfast broadband to provide coverage to 95% of the UK by the end of 2017.
- Subsidising the cost of installing superfast capable satellite services in the very hardest to reach areas.
- Releasing more spectrum from public sector use to allow greater private sector access
- An ambition that ultrafast broadband should be available to nearly all UK premises as soon as practicable.
- Mobile operators will be held to a new legally binding agreement to ensure that 90% of the UK landmass will have voice and SMS coverage by 2017
- Rural Britain to get “near universal” superfast broadband by the end of the next Parliament.
Elsewhere, the Conservative’s digital thinking includes:
- Raising the target for SMEs’ share of central government procurement to one-third.
- Supporting a network of University Enterprise Zones, to allow universities to make money from the technology they develop.
- £29 billion for a Grand Challenges Fund, which will allow us to invest in major research facilities of national significance, such as the new Alan Turing Institute for data science.
- Public libraries will be given free wi-fi while remote access will be provided to e-books, “without charge and with appropriate compensation for authors that enhances the Public Lending Right scheme”.
- New communications data legislation to strengthen the ability to disrupt terrorist plots, criminal networks and organised child grooming gangs, "even as technology develops".
techUK’s take
This document contains encouraging detail and points to a future where every area of government policy is underpinned and enabled by the smart use of technology. Beyond commitments to back the UK’s digital economy and further develop the Eight Great Technologies campaign, this Manifesto makes it clear that the whole of the UK is benefitting from the digital revolution.
My take
The broadband commitments are more of the same in the main, with the possible exception of the use of subsidised satellite tech to deliver to remoter parts of the UK. That's something that needs a lot more detail about how it would actually work in practice however.
The upping of the SME inclusion target to 30% of central government procurement is very welcome. There’s been much progress made here, but there’s still a hell of a long way to go to change the culture of central government procurement culture. Backing away from the targets at this stage would be an error. Similarly, GDS needs to be given the support to carry on its good work. (The Lib Dems actually do a lot better at this in their manifesto as we'll see.)
Free wifi for public libraries is a nice touch - assuming of course that those same public libraries are able to stay open with austerity funding cuts all round.