Secretary of State delivered a speech at
Bloomberg on the government's ambitions for UK tech.
Good morning, thank you all for coming here today - and thank you
to Bloomberg for hosting this morning.
I am really delighted to be here, opening this event, and as
Digital Secretary, to be in charge of what I think is one of the
most important portfolios in government.
Last year, this small island became just the third country in the
world to have a tech sector valued at over $1 trillion - behind
only China and the United States, and first in Europe by some
distance.
Our sector is worth more than double of Germany’s and three times
more than France’s, and is home to hundreds of unicorns -
including household names like Deliveroo and Monzo.
And perhaps most importantly, we are world leaders in the kind of
tech that is going to dominate our future, like AI.
And this didn’t happen by accident.
We got here thanks to the people in this room - thanks to your
ideas, and your passion and your entrepreneurial spirit.
We also got here because we have a clear vision for where this
country is going, and a government that is prepared to match that
ambition with action.
I believe that Britain is uniquely placed in the world to become
the world’s number one when it comes to tech.
Now that we are outside of the EU, and with our proud history of
being a nation where we offer measured, proportionate regulation,
that sparks and enables innovation, where we also really value
and encourage the entrepreneurial spirit,
One where entrepreneurs have both the stability, but also the
freedom, to invest and innovate.
And that’s why in the decade or so since the start-up scene first
began springing into life, the UK has seen a sustained explosion
of investment and growth.
It happened because we brought together a potent mix of four key
fundamental things:
The right people.
The right money.
The right ideas.
And the right regulation.
Which is why all of these four things underpinned the
government’s Digital Strategy.
And if we want to take things to the next level - to the very top
- then we need to double down on all of those four things.
To double down on people - through things like addressing the
skills gaps, which is the theme of one of my roundtables.
And having spent three years in the Department for Education
prior to this, I have first hand seen how the skills element
really can play a key role.
And for me just two stats illustrate the urgency of that
challenge very clearly:
Firstly: digital roles are now increasing four times faster than
the workforce as a whole.
And secondly: there are an average of 173,000 vacancies per month
for digital occupations in the UK. Those unfilled roles are
costing us up to £150 billion a year in lost GDP.
So we need to continue to focus on people.
This is a country that has on average produced a Nobel Prize
winner every year for the past two decades, and we need to keep
it that way.
We need to continue as well to focus on money: to keep venture
capital investment flowing through, prioritise our science and
tech budget and work together to drive investment in our 5G and
gigabit networks.
On ideas - we need to continue to foster investment in research
and development, to help our world-class universities even more
world-class graduates, and skills that will drive the tech sector
forward even faster.
And we need to keep providing the right regulation - to create
the kind of competitive and innovative environment where people
can start the next Deliveroo or DeepMind, and can scale it up,
and go on to become global success stories.
So we already have the right list of ingredients. We just need to
double down on them.
And I will just finish by saying I think it is the perfect time
to be so ambitious and bold.
There is no doubt that this is an extremely challenging time for
our economy.
We have just been through a once-in-a-century pandemic, we are
experiencing war in Europe, soaring inflation and an increase in
the cost of living across the globe.
But let’s not forget our world-renowned tech ecosystem sprung up
in the shadow of the 2007/8 financial crisis.
And if any country has the brain power and ingenuity to repeat
history, and use tech to drive us out of another challenging
period, I genuinely believe it is this one.
The Business Secretary, the Chancellor and I will work closely
with all of you over the coming months to make this happen. We
will ensure that your views and your ideas are represented as
your voices in government.
And on that note, I would now like to hand over to the Business
Secretary, .
