Election Day Technology Special
Posted by Nikki Marshall on Thursday 6 May 2010The day has come when everyone across the country is casting their vote in the general election. All three parties touch on IT and Technology, below are some of their claims along with links to their websites so you can read their manifesto’s and decide for yourself which one would benefit you.
Conservative: Claim they will give Britain the fastest high speed broadband network in Europe, helping to create 600,000 additional jobs. They will make the British government the most technology-friendly in the world, and meet their ambition that the next generation of Googles, Microsofts and Facebooks are British companies.
In addition, they plan to open up government data and spending information which will not only help us to cut wasteful spending, but according to new research by Dr Rufus Pollock of Cambridge University, the lead author of the HM Treasury report on the economic value of open data, it will also create an estimated £6 billion in additional value for the UK.
They state: “This boost to British jobs will come from the synergies and positive spillover benefits that result from businesses and social entrepreneurs building new applications and services using previously locked-up government data.”
http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Technology.aspx
Labour: Claim they will build a high-tech economy, supporting business and industry to create one million more skilled jobs. Investing in science and research, Britain is among the best places in the world to do science, having massively increased investment in research and development as a proportion of national income. Labour are committed to a ring-fenced science budget in the next spending review. To help us do better in turning research outputs into innovation, they will provide focused investment for Technology and Innovation Centres, developing technologies where the UK has world-leading expertise.
Broadband Britain - Britain must be a world leader in the development of broadband. They are investing in the most ambitious plan of any industrialised country to ensure a digital Britain for all, extending access to every home and business.
They state “We will reach the long-term vision of superfast broadband for all through a public-private partnership in three stages: first, giving virtually every household in the country a broadband service of at least two megabits per second by 2012; second, making possible superfast broadband for the vast majority of Britain. in partnership with private operators, with Government investing over £1 billion in the next seven years; and lastly reaching the final ten per cent using satellites and mobile broadband.”
http://www2.labour.org.uk/vote-labour
Liberal Democrats: Claim that the Labour government spends £16bn a year on IT, but has a very poor record on IT procurement and has regularly been criticised by the National Audit Office. The Liberal Democrats will improve government IT procurement, investigating the potential of different approaches such as cloud computing and open-source software.
The Liberal Democrats say they want to supply 40Mbit/s broadband to the vast majority of the country by 2017.
They state: “ High-speed broadband will be vital to the future prosperity of the UK economy, and will enable consumers to access exciting new services. We believe that some public investment will be needed to ensure that remote and rural areas of the country don't miss out. We support the principle of the broadband tax proposed by the government, but we have some concerns over how it will be implemented and the government's plans for using the money. We believe that further exemptions should be offered for pensioners and the least well-off members of society, that the money raised through the tax should be used solely for the purposes of rolling out broadband services and the tax removed once this purpose has been fulfilled, and that investment should be targeted first at those areas least likely to be provided for by the market.”
