The Data Poverty APPG’s State of the Nation Report

The State of the Nation Report - Accessible here

Digital inclusion matters more today than could have been imagined even just five or ten years ago. 

Our access to data affects every aspect of our lives – our ability to learn and to work, to connect with online public services, to access necessary services from banking to healthcare, and to socialise and connect with the people we know and love. 

It follows, therefore, that ‘data poverty’ matters. Those of us who are unable to afford the data that drives so much of our new, hybrid lives are left profoundly disadvantaged – economically and socially. And that disadvantage is compounded over time because the disconnection that even a brief period of data poverty can bring also makes it harder for someone to access support. Someone in data poverty because of unexpected unemployment, for example, may find it harder to find new work because of data poverty. As with other forms of poverty, data poverty can all too easily become a complex and vicious cycle; the disadvantage entrenches further disadvantage. 

The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Data Poverty was set up in early 2021 to identify the causes of data poverty and to advocate for interventions to prevent and to mitigate it. As COVID-19 continued to spread - and with most of the country restricted to working from home and prevented from socialising in-person – the effects of data poverty were stark and obvious. Many organisations stepped up to ensure that children were not prevented from accessing home-schooling by the lack of equipment or data and a great deal of political attention was focussed on what could be done to prevent the disconnection of people at a time of national crisis. It is our mission now to ensure that we do not lose that sense of urgency on this important issue as we emerge into a ‘new normal’ of hybrid living. The pandemic highlighted the importance of data poverty for many, but data poverty has not been resolved nor become unimportant simply because public health restrictions have been lifted. 

The pandemic accelerated the trends in online living and working that were already in train; we must accelerate, therefore, efforts to define and alleviate data poverty so that the ‘new normal’ does not leave anyone behind. If we fail to do so, then we will have failed to create a socially equitable and just settlement, and we will also have failed to capitalise and benefit from the wealth of untapped human talent that we must harness if we are to grow and prosper as a country. 

In this State of the Nation report, the APPG has gathered evidence from its own members, other politicians, industry stakeholders, trade bodies, regulators and third sector organisations to gain an incisive, in-depth understanding of the issue of data poverty. This report aims to give the first state of the nation perspective on data poverty and what needs to be done to eradicate it in the UK. 

In particular, we explore: 

• What data poverty means and looks like in 

the UK today; 

• What measures are in place to tackle data poverty; and 

• What needs to happen next to eradicate data poverty. 

The APPG on Data Poverty thanks everyone who has supported our work – in Parliament, government, industry and the third sector. We aspire, through our work, to bring all stakeholders in this area together to eradicate data poverty in the UK, declare our work done and disband.