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The Rt. Hon. Patricia HewittIntellect Launch |
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| Thank you David for that kind introduction.
It really is an enormous pleasure to be here, having spent so much of my almost three years at the DTI working very very closely with so many of you here this evening. Both as E Commerce Minister and as Secretary of State – on the E Commerce Bill (which served as my initiation into the DTI); the Information Age Partnership (working with David (Jordan), David Brown (his predecessor), John (Higgins) and Anthony (Parish)) and more recently in discussions on the draft Communications Bill (which Tessa Jowell and I published for consultation last week). I am however very conscious that I am the only thing standing between you and the cash bar – a very uncomfortable place for a politician to be. So I will try and keep my comments brief. It is a testament to our close links that Douglas Alexander and so many of my senior officials are here tonight. And also so many of my parliamentary colleagues, Martin O'Neill, the Chair of the Trade and Industry Committee, and also John Whittingdale, who is normally being horrible to me from the other side of the despatch box. But tonight we are all here to celebrate your new identity – and this underlines your huge importance. From DTI, I hope our numbers here tonight prove something of our new determination to listen and really respond to you, our partners, our customers, better. The excitement and energy endemic here tonight has been really thrilling. We all know about the speed of change in your industries. I think in particular of mobile phones, and the first time I used one in the 1987 General Election – when I was working with Neil Kinnock on the campaign. Mobile phones then were big extraordinary things – the size of a brick. And they needed about eight hours sleep to recharge – which was about twice as much as we were all getting at the time. Miniturisation solved that. Quite extraordinary. I remember Neil Kinnock saying about mobile phones that it was the only time you saw men standing around boasting about who's got the smallest. Anyway, your industries really are hugely important. And it is very much in the interests of this sector that you have a louder, more effective voice. The value of the ICT and electronic industries to the UK economy is huge - employing over 1 million people with salaries somewhere around £24 billion – (I should say that is in total – I don't want to get into a fat cats row tonight) - and a GDP share of around 10%. And we've had huge success in attracting inwards investment – with world leaders like Intel, CISCO and Exodux all making huge investments here. We remain the number one destination in the world for inward investment. And, with your active assistance, we have received some powerful endorsements. Bill Gates has called the UK the best place in the world to do E business and Ralph Averbuch, UK producer of Yahoo, has called the UK "…by far the most mature on-line market in Europe". And when I met Steve Case, the CEO of AOL recently, we talked about Broadband and he said that, despite disappointments, we definitely had the right Broadband Strategy. And we are now seeing prices falling and demand rising. And I know that times have been tough recently because of the downturn global economy – which no country can insulate themselves from. But we have turned the corner now. My own reality check is what's going on in my own constituency in Leicester. In Leicestershire, - we provide home to four of the 500 fastest growing European IT firms in Deloitte and Touche's recent survey : Intercede Group, Tectonic, Shepsheds and Compass Software. Compass Software (a CSSA member) has, in the last year, increased sales by 80% to £4.3 million; profits up 65% to £570,000; the number of employees doubled from 34 to 75. Our responsibility as a Department is to see more firms grow and become big world leaders. The first thing we did on coming in to office was to ensure economic stability. This took some tough decisions. A complete change in monetary policy. But this has delivered the lowest interest rates, lowest inflation and lowest unemployment we have seen in decades. Now the priority is to deliver productivity growth – building on that platform of economic stability – and this sector has such an important role to play in this. Raising value added. Finding new ways of delivering service. And we are key partners in helping you to do this – working closely with business, consumers and employees to deliver prosperity for all. I recently put in place of Review of the Department. This has created a major transformation in the way we work within the Department – harness the full potential of all our employees – and making sure that we as a Department achieve our full potential in Whitehall. And, following this review, we have just recruited our new Chief Economist and we are now recruiting a Director General to head up the Department's new Innovation Group. We're also determined to communicate with our customers better. And let me echo what David said about how we can achieve more working together. For example, both the FEI and CSSA lobbied to extend the R & D tax credits - John (Higgins) and Anthony (Parish) saw the fruits of this with the Chancellor's Budget statement just a couple of weeks ago. We also work together on the Information Age Partnership. I chaired the last meeting last week and as I'm sure David, who's Chair of the Executive of the IAP, will confirm that this group is really going from strength to strength. We're working together on tackling really important issues, like getting SMEs into E Commerce, building on our R&D strengths and moving into international markets. The IAP has also just sponsored a new DTI hosted Innovation and Growth team – focussing on the future of software, digital content and related services sectors. These Innovation and Growth teams really are the way of the future. Government and Industry working together. But industry led. Looking at the challenges and opportunities for the industry. This morning I launched a new Innovation and Growth team for the Aerospace industry – investing £45 million into it. Building on the strengths in this industry. The CSSA have also worked closely with us in developing UK Online. And last week we published the draft Communications Bill. Despite the media fuss about the reform of media ownership rules, the Bill is about much more than this. The Bill also puts five Regulators into one – getting the structure right to create a dynamic and competitive communications market. We are consulting for 12 weeks - – on www.communicationsbill.gov.uk. The International Scene We've got to get it right here. And we've got to get it right in Europe as well. More than half of our exports are with Europe with 3 million jobs linked to that trade. And this is another area where your new organisation can give you real strength. We really need to keep E-Europe on track. And this is not really a matter for governments to do or even lead on. Douglas and I have been struck by the need for a more energetic and visible partnership with governments and the Commission, to reinforce the EU's strategic thinking on e-commerce and the information society. My speech tonight would not be complete without me mentioning something about getting more women into IT. Although women make up almost half of the UK's workforce, only one in five techies are women. In the past five years, the number of jobs in the computing industry has grown by 50%, compared to an 8% growth in the general workforce, creating 336,000 more jobs. It's been a key part of our strategy since coming into office to make sure that every part of society has the opportunity to fulfil their full potential – be it in employment or self employment. It's really important – not just that business realises the full value of the national pool of talent – but also that society benefits from fairness and opportunity. So, to wrap up, let me congratulate all of you on your excellent work – creating growth in our economy. We'll continue to work closely with you, increasing our strong and effective partnership. Now to the launch. |
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Other speeches by The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt
(the following are available from the archive) |
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