Government Ability To Achieve UK Online Internet Goals Under Question 26/9/2000 A new survey conducted for the World Internet Forum has found that the faith of MPs in the Government's ability to meet its Internet goals has declined significantly in the last six months. The survey by MORI found only 61% of 101 MPs questioned agreed that the UK Government's goal of having 100% of its services available online by 2005 was achievable. This represents a drop of 13 percentage points since MPs were asked the same question in January. The divide between the views of the Labour MPs and those of Conservative MPs is marked. At the beginning of the year the figure was 79% for Labour and 63% for Conservatives. These figures have fallen by 25% for Conservatives and by 10% for Labour in the summer 2000 survey. The survey also found that 89% of Labour MPs and 72% of Conservative MPs are concerned that citizens who do not have access to the Internet will be at a disadvantage. One of the main aims of the UK online is to make the UK the best environment in the world for e-commerce. However, when asked their opinion on whether the UK is leading the world in new technology and its adoption of e-commerce, only 41% of Conservative MPs and 60% of Labour MPs felt that that the UK was. This news follows the recent launch by the Prime Minister of the £1 billion UK online drive to get all government services online by 2005. The first prong of the campaign will involve getting people online - with the creation of 6,000 UK online centres where anyone can get training in how to use the Internet. The second element will focus on getting business online, with £25m earmarked to help complete the task. The third prong of the campaign centres on getting government online, with £1bn investment to ensure all government services are online by 2005. The World Internet Forum is the international summit taking place in London on November 13-15 to help government and business face the realities of the Internet. According to Robert Blaney, CEO, "The World Internet Forum supports wholeheartedly the aims of all governments to provide the best environment for e-commerce to flourish. However, viewing UK online, we can find no explanations as to how these figures are going to be achieved, or indeed how these figures were decided upon at all by the UK Government."