Mr. Chairman, and distinguished participants in this Conference … .
Introduction
A keynote address at the end of something may seem a contradiction in terms. But though Information Technology Year 82 is now ending, the Information Technology Era is just beginning. It is for that era, and the opportunities and challenges it brings, that Governments and industries must plan. And it is on that era that this Conference must focus. [end p1]
We do so, Mr. Chairman, with optimism. This country is in as good a position as any of its competitors to benefit from the new possibilities Information Technology has to offer.
The UK and Technology
That is no mere Prime Ministerial rhetoric. It is fact.
Look, first, at our track record in new technology. Our scientists have led the world in major discoveries for the benefit of mankind, from Newton and Faraday to the sixty-two Nobel Prizewinners in Science who have been British. [end p2] And the one outstanding quality in our scientific history has been vision: the vision to see how the ever-expanding frontiers of science may be applied to our everyday lives. That is why we are world leaders in fibre optics, and in medical scanning with nuclear magnetic resonance. That is why we have research centres in biochemistry, and telecommunications, that are the envy of the world. That is why we have been able to make ourselves self-sufficient in oil, drilled from one of the most hostile environments on Earth. [end p3]
The UK and Information Technology
And take the development of Information Technology in particular. Until recently, I might have said to you that, while you in this hall know all about it, the wider audience at home might not. But thanks largely to British developments, more than half a million homes in this country now have their own computers.
There are many recent achievements of which we can be proud. Look at the successes of some of our great British firms. [end p4] In 1979, the turnover of Racal was £220 million; today it is £650 million, a threefold increase. Plessey has increased its business from some £650 million to nearly £1 billion over the same period. That's good news for jobs throughout the UK. There are outstanding successes by smaller firms too. In 1979, the turnover of Sinclair was half a million pounds. Next year it is expected to be £50 million, a hundredfold increase. Good news for jobs in Dundee. [end p5] Our success story is not just a domestic one. Quantel, for instance, which performs wonders with its mixing of pictures on the television screen, is now exporting no less than eighty per cent of its electronic products, many to the United States. Perhaps even the most down-to-earth of Prime Ministers will be allowed to do a bit of star-gazing. Next time you look up at the stars on a clear night, there's just a chance that you may see a satellite passing overhead. British Aerospace is now leading a consortium to build the largest and most powerful satellite in the world. [end p6] It will be crammed with equipment for better telecommunications and television. And we are building no less than nine others, and will soon be starting on the first privately financed one in Europe. More and more of the value of Information Technology products will rest in the software—the programmes that make thinking machines think more clearly and more quickly. Here again we are a major producer, with skills and ingenuity second to none, and sought after throughout the world. [end p7] We are world leaders in the writing of software. We have developed what is effectively the world standard for Teletext, which enables information to be read from a television screen. British software has helped London to become the most efficient financial centre in the world, through the City's ability to process vast amounts of information quickly and accurately. Two students from Liverpool started writing programmes for micro-computers a couple of years ago, and their company now has a turnover of more than half a million pounds a year. And a British schoolboy of sixteen is earning thousands of pounds a year in royalties from a [end p8] programme he has developed for making the most commonly used computer language more efficient.
The Role of IT'82
Mr. Chairman, Information Technology Year has made an important contribution to these achievements. On behalf of all of us here, I pay tribute to your work, Mr. Benjamin, and that of your Committee, and all your helpers in industry and elsewhere. You have succeeded in generating enormous enthusiasm throughout the country.
In fact, you have been so successful that, according to the results of an opinion poll I have just received, more than six out of every ten of the population have heard of information technology. [end p9] At the beginning of the year, fewer than two in ten had heard of it.
And your success has penetrated further than you may have thought. I have just introduced into my own office a computerised system for filing and retrieving my correspondence with members of the public—though not, alas, for answering it. Fortunately, there still is no substitute for the human touch.
Within the Cabinet Office there is now a fully automated “Office of the future” . Perhaps that's what the newspapers mean when they keep referring to a Prime Minister's Department. [end p10]
The Winners And The Losers
But, Mr. Chairman, I do not have to tell you that the hardest task lies before us. For the benefits of new technology are of two kinds: benefits to those who make it; and benefits to those who use and profit by it.
We could all sit back and enjoy the Information Technology era, and play no part in bringing it about. Indeed, that is what we have done, quite literally, in front of our video-recorders. But such a luxury would not last for long.
For losers in that game will become merely a market for the products and enterprise of others. Indeed it could be worse than that. [end p11] Sooner or later, those who make little, can only buy little.
That will not happen here. This Government intends that Britain will be among the winners. Our traditions point that way; our skills lead that way; and our policies are taking us that way.
The Government's Distinctive Approach
Mr. Chairman, I want everyone to understand the nature of the Government's distinctive approach to this challenge—what it is, and why we are doing it. Why, if only we harness our inventive British genius as we have in the past, we can get ahead and stay ahead once again. [end p12]
It is an approach with three ingredients: free enterprise, competition, and the responsibilities of Government. Together, they ensure that the boundary is properly drawn between the activity of the private sector, and the authority of Government. They will ensure that individual effort can grow into small business; and small business into big business.
I—Free Enterprise
The first ingredient of our approach is a passionate belief in the virtues of free enterprise and individual endeavour. Innovation and initiative cannot flourish if they are smothered by a state that wants to control everything. We shall not blaze again the trail that Brunel, [end p13] Morris and Marconi found, if we consign their successors to the consensus of committees and excessive and irksome regulation. We must allow private endeavour to flourish; we must let the vision of the inventor, and the flair of the businessman, create the wealth and jobs of tomorrow.
This is nowhere as true as in the field of advanced science and Information Technology. Many of the greatest innovations and applications have stemmed from personal initiative. [end p14]
The development of the cheap home micro-computer is an outstanding example today. I was pleased during my recent visit to Japan to be able to present to Zenko Suzukithe Japanese Prime Minister, in the very temple of high technology, a Sinclair Home computer conceived, designed and produced in this country. Out into the market, ahead of its Japanese rival.
There has been in the past rather too much of British industry in the hands of the State. Investment programmes have had to be determined by Governments as a matter of general policy, competing with other claims in the public sector. [end p15] Moreover, decisions have had to come to Government Departments, who themselves have little experience of enterprise. If business is to flourish, business decisions shouldn't be taken by politicians.
That is why we are putting into private hands such important enterprises as British Aerospace, Cable and Wireless, and, shortly, British Telecom—the hands of those who have the right skills for steering them into the future.
II—Competition
Encouraging private endeavour also means encouraging competition. For a private monopoly is just as bad as a state monopoly [end p16]
Innovation, more responsive services, and a better deal for customers all spring from the spur of competition. That is why we have ended the monopoly of British Telecom. Waiting lists for telephones should soon be a thing of the past. It is absurd for one organisation to have a monopoly of telephone appliances. People should be able to choose what they buy.
Thanks to competition, other British firms are already making and marketing new telephones, new equipment and new services. This month we shall at last be ending the monopoly of car and vehicle telephone services. [end p17]
And next year the Mercury Consortium will lay an entirely new network for telecommunications. This will offer businesses a real choice between Busby and Mercury. It will be the first competitive network in Europe. Britain leads again.
Our proposals last week about cable television mean new competition in the field of broadcasting and telecommunications. We are determined to encourage cable systems. This is not just for more entertainment, but eventually for a huge range of two-way services. [end p18]
It's possible to do mail order by cable; to read a train timetable by cable; even to choose your holiday—complete with colour pictures of the surf breaking outside your hotel.
I notice that cable is being resisted in some quarters. Just remember that the same arguments were put forward against ITV over twenty-five years ago. They were wrong then and they'll be wrong again.
By our broad acceptance of the recommendations of Lord Hunt, we believe that the best traditions of our existing broadcasting services can be maintained. Exactly the same standards of public taste and decency can be applied to cable and that is where the new authority will have teeth. [end p19]
And our proposals for the design and technical standards of cable system will encourage rapid development of the most advanced technology while—rightly and properly—leaving the key choices to the private sector itself.
I hope that, when our detailed proposals are made available next spring in a White Paper, cable development will proceed as speedily as possible.
It will create many thousands of new jobs in making cable, in laying it, in producing equipment for the studio and the home, and in making programmes.
So we are giving the green light to the cabling of Britain. [end p20]
III—The Government's Direct Responsibilities
If such enterprise is to flourish, the Government itself also has a job to do. It must nurture, not nanny; stimulate, not stifle; it must not plan for people, but enable them to plan for themselves.
First, we shall continue to encourage people to accept the new technology. To know what it offers, how to use it, how it will benefit them and their businesses.
We are setting an example ourselves: the Government's proposals for modernising the social security system will be Britain's biggest Information Technology project of [end p21] the next decade.
Second, we shall ensure that Information Technology will be as commonplace to tomorrow's generations as television and pocket calculators are to today's. This is why our support for Information Technology in schools and higher education is so vital. —We are the first country in the world to put a computer into every secondary school—and many primary schools too. And we are seeing that those who teach in them are properly trained and equipped to do so. [end p22]
There is much concern about the ability of our education system to equip young people leaving school with the skills required by industry and commerce. We have therefore launched an imaginative new scheme of technical and vocational education for young people at school in the 14–18 year age group. This will give them the chance to take a four-year technical or vocational course directly related to the needs in firms in their area. We hope to see ten projects started next September, each catering for about 1,000 young people. This is an attempt to restore the practical achievements of the old technical schools twenty years ago. [end p23] — And the Information Technology Centres, which we established in co-operation with private industry, have already shown remarkable success in training young people, mostly unemployed and unqualified, in computer technology and electronics skills. A year ago there was one such Centre—at Notting Dale. Now there are forty in operation, a further twenty approved, and we expect one hundred and fifty by the end of next year. I am told that early results show that 80 per cent of the youngsters emerging find jobs where they can use their new skills. [end p24]
—Keith Joseph will soon be announcing that more places will be available for Information Technology training in universities and polytechnics too. I am also happy to announce today that the Government and Racal are sponsoring a Chair in Information Technology at Surrey University. —From school to workplace, this investment in young minds will pay dividends many times over in shaping our future.
And third we shall maintain British scientific and technological excellence by supporting the Research and Development that must be [end p25] carried out if industry is to bring successful products to the market.
Fibre optics is an outstanding example of this. It was a British breakthrough in the Nineteen Sixties that created this exciting new revolution. We are now helping industry to carry it forward into the Eighties. Only last week Kenneth Baker increased the Research and Development grants for optic cable, especially submarine cable in which we have a world lead.
The Potential Benefits of the Government's Approach
Mr. Chairman, those are the foundations of the Government's distinctive approach: private endeavour and free enterprise, competition, a role for Government. [end p26] Let me now turn to the benefits we may expect to flow from them.
The microprocessor revolution offers countless opportunities to enrich and improve our national life—provided it is used with skill, vision and good sense.
It can help the elderly and the disabled to cope with their infirmities in ways never dreamed of a few years ago. Deaf children, for instance, are being taught to speak by using a pattern of sound waves on the screen. [end p27] The Open University is developing a microcomputer with a synthetic speech output for the blind.
It can help manufacturers to produce, suppliers to sell, authors to write, and teachers to teach. It will not replace their human skills; It will enhance them.
Let me give you another example. Under our “Micros for GPs” scheme, a large number of medical practices will get computers which will lighten the administration load, giving the doctor more time with his patient. [end p28]
It can speed up our communications; improve the quality of our products; and make available to a much wider public at home what has hitherto only been available to a few.
And, Mr. Chairman, it will create jobs. I have no doubt whatsoever that, in the cut-throat competition of the modern world, Information Technology will mean new wealth and new jobs. I know that there will be difficult changes and some problems of adaptation. I fully recognise the very understandable fears that people have about the impact of new technology on their lives and jobs. [end p29]
But unless we successfully develop and harness the new technology in our factories and in our offices, we shall simply not be able to compete with those countries which do. And if we lose this race, we shall be priced out of not just particular products or processes, but out of whole industries. Then, jobs really would be lost.
So Information Technology is friendly; it offers a helping hand; it should be embraced. We should think of it more like ET than IT. [end p30]
Behind every word processor that replaces a pen in the human hand—behind every microchip that replaces an hour of the human brain—there stands an army. It is the army of those who research, develop, design, produce, market and maintain the products of this revolution; and it is the army of those for whom new frontiers are opened by their access to better ways of doing business.
There is, of course, a threat—the threat that our competitors may use it better than we do. The country that has most successfully maintained high employment over the last [end p31] decade is the country that has most readily harnessed IT and related technology. The Japanese electronics industry alone is now producing goods to the same value—more than £9 billion—as its massive motor car industry.
Nothing can stand in the way of a similar success story here—except ourselves. Already there are in Scotland more people employed in the electronics industry than in steelmaking or shipbuilding. [end p32]
Fortunately, the industries of Silicon Glen have not been afflicted by the Labour practices of Fleet Street. They have no tradition of restrictive practices. They know that wages have to be earned by output. They are opening a whole new chapter of co-operation in which the two sides of industry are both on the same side.
But if we stand idle while we watch others become more efficient, the time will very quickly come when what happened to British typewriters, and British cameras, and British motor cycles will also [end p33] happen to the British Information Technology Industry.
There are still tremendous opportunities which have not yet been grasped. We are not, for instance, gaining the market we should be in modern office equipment. For example, the market for word processors is expanding at over thirty per cent a year. Please do not tell me there is no demand.
We have in Britain the skill and inventive genius to harness Information Technology for our future jobs and prosperity. [end p34]
There are glittering prizes for success; but severe penalties for failure. We shall be failing our children and grandchildren if we shy away from this revolution, merely because the changes are uncomfortable or the decisions too difficult to face. [end p35]
Peroration
Mr. Chairman, we must pick up the challenge while it is there. The Government is doing everything that is possible to create the atmosphere of success that has for so long been lacking in this country.
For years we have envied the success of others, while taxing our own out of existence. For years we have been a market for the success of others, while losing faith in our ability to meet our home demand ourselves.
But there are now fortunes to be made by people who can get new products into the market place. The door is wide open for today's technologists to [end p36] become tomorrow's tycoons.
In the end, Mr. Chairman, the new technology, for all its power and its wonder, is no more than the creation of man's ingenuity. [end p37]
When I was in Japan recently, I visited a factory where most of the processes were managed by robots, and very impressive it was. But I was reminded vividly of those lines which Kipling ascribed to modern machinery, in his poem ‘The Secret of the Machines’, and which in some ways are still so apposite today—
Some water coal and oil is all we ask
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play
And now if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day[end p38]
But in the end Kipling reminded us that it all comes back to human beings.
Though our smoke may hide the heavens from your eyes
It will vanish and the stars will shine again
Because for all our power and weight and size
We are nothing more than children of your brain
Our task, Mr. Chairman, is to foster, nourish and tend the children of our brains as they develop into the great industries of the future. The information technology revolution is our revolution: let us make the most of it.