The amount of IT business going through parliament has rocketed, but the number of computer-literate parliamentarians to handle it has decreased. The last general election was expected to bring in vast quantities of young wired MPs into the Commons. Some energetic new ones, among them Derek Wyatt, (profiled in Working It Out, Online, Jan 20) did appear, mostly on the Labour side. But the new arrivals hardly replaced the many Tory nerds, who lost their seats. The expulsion of the hereditaries from the House of Lords, has, paradoxically, removed a lot of IT expertise. It has cut the number of peers on the parliamentary IT committee (Pitcom) from 33 to 21. This will reduce the quality of Lords debates on IT matters, which had been better informed than the Commons. (Check HansardÕs internet pages, www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld/ldhome.html)
It will also blunt scrutiny at committee stage of the Electronic Communications Bill, Freedom of Information Bill and Interception of Communications Act, and all the other Bills with an IT content passing through parliament this session. Peers are also useful for setting up associate parliamentary groups, where industry can meet parliamentarians of both houses, without brown envelopes changing hands. Hereditaries have been more adept at doing this than lifers, or even MPs. They have more time on their hands, while MPs are off nursing careers and constituencies.
Lord Renwick, an unassuming hereditary, did just this. Six years ago, he founded Eurim (European Informatics Markets), which intercepts IT-oriented directives on their way from Brussels, and makes sure that they are acceptable to UK plc, before they are set in concrete. Harry Renwick did not persuade enough of his Tory peers to join the magic 92 survivors. So, IT loses a parliamentary champion. Viscount (Jan) Chelmsford, another hereditary IT champion, who died in December, added to the list of parliamentary groups with one for Transport Telematics. So, with Eurim, Derek WyattÕs internet group, and the 18 year old Pitcom, the IT industry is not badly endowed with pressure groups at Westminster and Brussels. Jan Chelmsford, a hereditary, was a model for what can and should be done by peers, senators or whatever you might call them in a reformed house. He took up his seat in 1991, on retiring from a career in Lloyds. His last job had been to set up the London Insurance Market Network. He then hit Westminster as an e-commerce evangelist, years before the internet took hold.
He became director or president of various e-commerce associations and standards bodies, not to provide a title on their letter-heads, but to shake them up. This he did, with the aim of getting the UK to speak about e-commerce with one voice. He also heightened their profile at Westminster to an extent that astounded some of them. The result was that they could help to extricate the government from its floundering about the Electronic Communications Bill. Jan was doing another essential lordly task: bringing the IT business view to the ivory-tower dwellers in Westminster and Whitehall.
All this he did in under eight years. How could someone, over retirement age, whose main qualification was that his great grandfather won the Zulu War of 1869, have such an effect on the technology of the moment?
Unless you believe that blue blood is best, the answer has to be pure chance. It was also pure chance that the very big swings in the last election brought in three or four IT professionals to the Commons, with wafer-thin majorities, who are proving the most effective IT-MPs.
Will the Wakeham report improve the chances of getting a more IT-friendly House of Lords? I doubt it. The elected element will throw up political hacks who will push last yearÕs technology. I would favour a system where professions elect their own peers, but I cannot see that being accepted.
As IT is essential to our industrial survival, perhaps at least 10% of new peers should be IT-competent, just as Wakeham says 30% have to be women. I donÕt see that happening either.
I suspect, whatever system is chosen, we will continue to rely on pure chance. In the meantime, we will regret the loss of the hereditaries, the most effective of IT peers.
