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Millennium Bug
12.32 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): As I promised the House on 15 December, I am reporting back on an event that was unique in human history--the millennium date change--and its effects--
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): What about the year 1000?
Mrs. Beckett: The whole House will agree that the effects of the millennium date change on central Government and the national infrastructure in the UK were a unique event. The unprecedented feature of the date change is that it stimulated an IT project that met its deadline. I am pleased to confirm that so far, as predicted, it is business as usual in the United Kingdom. In what is believed to be the largest co-ordinated project since the second world war, thorough and detailed planning across government and the national infrastructure, both publicly and privately controlled, ensured a smooth transition over the date change.
There is no doubt that the work had to be done. The millennium bug was shown to have the capacity to wreak havoc among services which, though essential, we take for granted. The Government's objective in that work was always to ensure that the bug resulted in no material disruption to essential services. That objective has been achieved.
No Government Department has reported any significant problems. The alert status, contingency arrangements and staff cover of Departments and agencies over the date change meant they could deal quickly with the minor Y2K bug problems that were discovered. Across the national infrastructure, electricity, gas, water and telecoms as well as offshore oil and gas industries continued to operate as normal, and the markets and financial sector successfully resumed full trading on 4 January.
The Government spent an estimated £380 million on tackling the millennium bug in our own systems, although without needing to make special further additions to Departments' budgets. The investment made was both necessary and beneficial. Continued payment of benefits, pensions and child support could be ensured only by essential and major system changes. Many of MAFF's internal systems, such as those for processing common agricultural policy payments on time, required corrective action or replacement.
In the wider public sector, NHS trusts and Government agencies found problems that needed to be fixed. Problems in gas repayment meters and electricity prepayment meters were found and fixed. Elsewhere in the private sector--everywhere from finance to food and transport to telecoms--major potential problems were found and fixed, in time. There were, and no doubt will continue to be, further minor glitches.
Here in the UK, a retailers' card reader problem before the date change affected about 5 per cent. of terminals in shops, and hence the public. Although such problems needed to be rectified, there have been no further reports in either public or private sectors of problems which have caused a significant inconvenience to the public.
The sorts of failures experienced typically have been incorrect date displays appearing on internal reports and read-outs. They have had no impact on customers. Those problems were corrected swiftly and had no impact on operations precisely because organisations were on the alert for problems and had put business continuity plans in place. The same pattern has been evident internationally--no material disruption, but concrete problems. For example, both France and the United States experienced problems with military satellites.
However, the relief that success creates should not obscure the very real difficulties that have been faced and overcome--problems whose nature and scale could indeed have caused major disruption in our economy and society. The failure of many critical systems within a short space of time over the date change would have been disastrous, and literally thousands of faults--many of them serious--had to be dealt with before the date change. The work of Government Departments, of Action 2000 and of service deliverers was vital in ensuring that the infrastructure continued to work as well as it did.
A huge amount of preventive work was done on the bug across the world, including in Russia, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Those who came late to the work benefited from the advice and experience of those already prepared. However, not one of the 173 countries which attended the largest-ever special meeting in the history of the United Nations in June last year failed to recognise that all faced some serious problems.
The investment made will yield real benefits. All organisations have probed their operations in depth, and replaced or discarded much that was out of date or no longer needed. Many have discovered long-standing flaws that were not fully recognised in the past. For example, as part of the work on assessing critical services that might be affected by the year 2000 problem, the Dutch Government identified a resources issue in their emergency call-handling posts--their equivalent of 999--which potentially could have caused the entire system to crash if as few as 140 or so simultaneous calls had been received.
There has been global co-operation in which knowledge has been freely shared. We look forward to that co-operation continuing in many fields. Moreover, there are other lessons to be learned. This was recognised early on as a management issue, and not just an IT issue--and was so handled. That may well be why it came in on time.
Prioritisation of business-critical systems worked. That is why the public experienced little disruption, despite the problems that have arisen. Business continuity planning was successful in working around those problems that did occur and millennium-operating regimes meant they could be and are being fixed. The breadth and depth of that experience will have continuing value.
Similarly, proper and wide-scale planning ensured that 3 million people--by the police's estimate--attended the millennium celebrations in London alone without serious incident, and similar celebrations throughout the UK passed off successfully. I will be publishing in February detailed returns from Departments on the impact of the millennium bug, and this will be followed by a more detailed report on lessons learned and benefits captured.
I would again like to pay tribute from the whole House to the vast number of people in the UK across the public and private sectors who have worked tirelessly to ensure
no material disruption in the UK as a result of the date change--not least those who staffed the Government's millennium centre, which kept the media and the public informed. Our success in meeting the threat of the millennium bug is testimony to all their efforts.
The UK rose to the challenge of the millennium bug. As one of the world leaders in the field, we successfully advised others on how to meet it and assisted them to do so. For that work, and that of all who made the celebrations possible and successful, we owe a debt of gratitude, and we have together earned the right to pride in what has been achieved.
Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton):
I thank the right hon. Lady for the early notice that she gave me of this statement and for coming back to the House with a follow-up report on the millennium bug, as she promised to do in December. I join her in congratulating all those in the public and private sector on the work that they have done and the smooth transition that has followed.
Although the Leader of the House paid tribute to many of the organisations and individuals involved, I noted that she did not mention the fact that the project was begun by the previous Government. Given the generosity of her remarks, I hope that she will accept that I wish to pay tribute to those of my colleagues who were involved at an earlier stage in the preparations for that smooth transition.
I hope that the Leader of the House will recognise that, in the final phases of the preparations for the year 2000 change, we were pleased to receive the information that she supplied. That is especially true of the information that she shared with me personally, and I wish to place on record my thanks. The information was both helpful and constructive. I shall miss our exchanges across the Dispatch Box on the subject, but I am sure that there will be other occasions.
Mrs. Beckett:
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As she says, these exchanges will no longer take place, but they have been constructive and for the general good. As she will be aware from the briefings that we were able to share with her, because so little went wrong in practical terms, compared to what might have happened, the real danger--with the benefit of hindsight--that had to be overcome was a public reaction that might have caused problems that could otherwise have been avoided. The approach that was taken by Opposition Front Benchers under her stewardship was helpful in ensuring that we did not exacerbate a potentially difficult situation. I appreciate that assistance and I am happy to put that on record.
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