Home Computing Initiative

During the debate on the Finance (No.2) Bill, Brooks Newmark condemns the scrapping of the Home Computing Initiative and the effect that will have on low-paid workers' access to home computersthe country's IT capability and competitiveness.

Mr. Newmark: This year, the Chancellor presented a Budget for Britain's future, a Budget which will supposedly equip this country for the increasing challenges of global competitiveness. Unfortunately, clause 61 will do anything but that. The foreword to the HCI guidelines published in 2004 had no hesitation in stating that the scheme was an extremely powerful catalyst for an organisation that wants to exploit the clear and indisputable link between individual learning, workplace productivity and overall competitiveness.

The then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, now the Secretary of State for Health, has fallen on hard times since the heady days when she was able to add her signature to a statement, alongside those of the director general of the CBI and the general secretary of the TUC. If only the Royal College of Nursing were as co-operative. The strength of Government support was also indicated by the fact that the guidelines were issued by three Departments: the Department of Trade and Industry, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education and Skills, with-I stress the word "with"-the backing of the Treasury.

8 pm

Sadly, Members have not been surprised by the lack of consultation before the scrapping of the HCI, but the contrast between the close co-operation of 2004 and the chaos of 2006 is particularly stark. No longer is there joint authorship; the DTI itself was busy investing thousands of pounds in a scheme for its own staff, unaware that just across the road in the Treasury, Ministers were planning to axe the very same scheme.

We should also contrast the flamboyantly named Office of the e-Envoy, which existed until 2004, with the present e-Government Unit. The first had a responsibility to get the nation online, and, with the HCI, piloted a project that actually worked. Its successor focuses on

"delivering and transforming public services through information technology."

We now have the paradox of a Government investing in online services-an example is the £340 million spent by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs on expanding electronic tax returns-while simultaneously cutting spending on a project that has successfully delivered on its promise to increase the uptake of personal computers by low-paid workers. There is a delightful irony here, which I know many of my hon. Friends will appreciate: in the long litany of disasters that have come about because of Government investment in IT projects there is one notable success, and it is being cancelled. Perhaps the Government will consider applying some of the £71 million compensation which has been paid as a result of the tax credits IT fiasco to the continuation of the HCI scheme. The subsidising of a success by a disaster would be a rather neat compromise.

On Second Reading, the Chief Secretary reminded the House that

"times have changed and are changing rapidly".-[Official Report, 24 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 368.]

Indeed they are, but they are not changing so rapidly that they excuse the total absence of consultation on the end of the HCI. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) was also helpful when he said that this issue

"seems to have become a big deal".-[Official Report, 24 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 410.]

I am sure that my constituent Mr. Jon Emin is grateful for that sage pronouncement. I should add, however, that the hon. Gentleman made some thoughtful suggestions in his speech today.

Mr. Emin is the director of a company which, over the past few years, has been working to deliver the NCI scheme to the NHS. To date, he has helped to provide some of the 15,000 personal computers for nurses. He wrote to me that the HCI was

"one of the few good things that this current Government"

have achieved. He continued:

"There are still millions of low paid workers-in smaller organisations which are now finally being reached by the HCI administrators-yet to take advantage of this scheme, not to mention all the nurses, council workers and teachers who have not yet been given the opportunity to take part.

Is this fair? We think not.

The Government claim that it's trying to help UK Plc become more IT literate, but this clearly goes against that claim."

My constituent enclosed a copy of a letter that he had received from the director of finance at the Public and Commercial Services Union. It stated:

"We were about to introduce the scheme to our staff and have over the last few months undertaken a considerable amount of work to get the scheme off the ground. Both PCS and its employees are therefore extremely disappointed"

that the Government intend to end the scheme. As I am sure the Paymaster General will tell us, taxpayers are often "extremely disappointed" by Budget measures that leave them worse off, but the Government have given no explanation for their decision, and there is a sense that the Chancellor may have believed that no one would notice clause 61.

Let me now deal with the question of definitions in amendments Nos. 2 and 17. On Second Reading, the Paymaster General gleefully challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) on what definition of computer equipment should be applied for the purposes of the scheme. She should have been a little less triumphant. In the Standing Committee that considered the 2004 Finance Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) asked her

"to clarify what is included as eligible equipment."

That was two years ago. If the Paymaster General had given an answer in 2004, she might have been able to prevent the two years of abuse-[Hon. Members: "Alleged abuse!"]-alleged abuse-that the Government are using as a justification for axing the HCI. Instead, she said that the Office of the e-Envoy

"will be monitoring take-up in the coming months. That information will demonstrate to us whether the £500 is reasonable, what type of equipment is being purchased and how wide take-up is."-[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 18 May 2004; c. 216-8.]

It is sad, therefore, that the Office of the e-Envoy was itself axed along with whatever evidence of abuse it may have found. The Government should have provided a definition of computer equipment back in 1999, and certainly when Ministers were pressed for one in 2004. A definition must be open to regular review.

iPods have been mentioned with some derision in debates, but the average iPod now has more memory than the average home computer did when the scheme was initiated in 1999. Furthermore, podcasting is increasingly being used as a business tool. That is why amendment No. 2 emphasises the need for industry and user consultation, with the aim of arriving at a workable, flexible definition that is not open to abuse.

The notion that people have been buying games consoles and iPods is as yet unproved, but I was interested to learn that "entertainment" was among the list of benefits that the DTI believed to stem from home computer ownership. It was mentioned in its 2004 guidelines, along with education, e-mail and e-government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) pointed out earlier.

It seems always to have been envisaged that

"most new computers support the latest video game, DVDs and other popular multimedia formats."

Why the Government's new-found technological puritanism?

Before I end my speech, I want to refer to the lack of evidence and the solution proffered by amendment No. 18. In 2004, the Paymaster General said:

"Since the exemption was introduced, we have not had exact figures on the take-up for obvious deregulatory reasons."-[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 18 May 2004; c. 217.]

Conservative Members are all in favour of deregulation, but it is unfortunate that this single example of obvious deregulation should have had the inadvertent effect of undermining a successful IT initiative.

The Minister for Industry and the Regions, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), admitted in a recent parliamentary answer:

"I am unable to provide a statistical breakdown of how many individuals have participated in the Home Computing Initiative Scheme in each year since 1999, broken down or by region."

Instead, he said only that

"A recent estimation provided by the HCI Alliance (BT, Intel and Microsoft) indicates that over 500,000 units have been loaned under the Home Computer Initiative Scheme since 1999."-[Official Report, 25 April 2006; Vol. 445, c. 989W.]

The Government's evidence base for axing the HCI seems to have been provided by the very organisation that is lobbying for its continuation. That is an absurdity. Perhaps the Minister will tell us where is the evidence, where was the consultation, and where is the need to scrap an IT project that has helped the lowest-paid people to improve their skills and prospects.