(9 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard, in slightly altered circumstances than would normally be the case in Westminster Hall. I hope that this debate will be a cross-party event with a lot of different perspectives offered on the subject and, although it will not be entirely consensual, I am sure that many points will unite us when speaking about the social economy. I hope that the fairly adversarial nature of the seating will not condition our behaviour and that the debate will be consensual.
First, I welcome the Minister to his post. This is my first opportunity, and the first opportunity for a number of colleagues, to debate with him. I am sure that he is already finding that the areas of his responsibility are surrounded by people of great good will, innovation and creativity. It is an exciting, dynamic area of policy and I know that he will enjoy it and that he will guide and shape it.
Secondly, but equally importantly, I pay tribute to the former Minister for Civil Society at the Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for—
Mr Nick Hurd (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner.
Hazel Blears
Absolutely. My knowledge of the geography of the south is not as good as my knowledge of the north.
I pay serious tribute to the former Minister, because for the past two years we have been working quite closely together on a range of areas, including social enterprise, social value and social investment. He has brought great vision, clarity, leadership and energy to this area of policy and without his drive and personal commitment I do not think that such progress would have been made over the past few years. I place on the record my thanks and appreciation for the work that he has done.
I also thank my Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) and my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). Perhaps other hon. Members will join us. Each hon. Member present has a distinctive, important contribution to make; perhaps I will mention that later.
Hazel Blears
Very good.
At one point I would not have thought that we would be having a debate on the social economy, because it is a fairly new idea that has emerged from some quite longstanding ideas. The idea of the social economy is beginning to develop as a way of bringing together sections of the existing economy—it is an exciting development—and about working out what a new economy might look like. One of the main drivers for me has been the financial crisis—the crash—and the resulting lack of trust in a range of organisations, including, unfortunately, some in our financial sector and some big businesses, which has led to the emergence of ideas about what a more responsible capitalism would look like. Although a lot of speeches have been made, there has been too little detail mentioned, and too little thought and analysis, about real, practical measures we could take to make capitalism more responsible and to have more of a social mission, and for us to feel that—as well as making money and creating jobs, which are really important in our economy—businesses can embrace a social dimension that allows them not just to do good in the community, but to be more successful.
One of the exciting things about a responsible capitalism is that it is not simply about altruism or philanthropy, but about saying that a business that recognises, at its heart and in its mission, the impact it can make in communities is likely to be a much more longstanding, successful and competitive business in the marketplace. Bringing those two things together is an exciting concept.
I came to this issue originally 20 or 30 years ago, supporting social enterprise, so it is not new in those terms. When I was a Minister I did the first cross-Government social enterprise strategy, to see how the whole of Government could help make social enterprise flourish, become more mainstream and move out of its niche position and into providing mainstream services. We have seen a step change, partly because of the financial crash and the move to responsible capitalism, and partly because of a recognition in the social sector that it needs to have confidence and big ideas—to move, perhaps, from the margins to the centre of our economy. I am seeing in many social enterprises now a new-found dynamism and confidence, which is moving them to the centre.
All the players on the board were at one time playing separately and individually, in their own small area, but I now see the private, public and voluntary sectors, including co-ops, mutuals and social enterprises, in a massive burgeoning of many different organisations playing a part in the mainstream economy in Europe and indeed globally. If that is not an exciting idea, I do not know what is, so I am pleased that we have secured this debate.
I want to talk about social enterprise, social value and social investment, which I see as the three building blocks of a social economy. I will start with social enterprise, because it has been around for a long time. As I said, many of us have supported the growth of social enterprise for 20, 30 or 40 years. I am delighted that there are now some 75,000 social enterprises in this country that employ more than 1 million people. They make a huge contribution to our GDP and include some of the most innovative, creative and far-sighted individuals and organisations that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. That is partly because they sit slightly outside the mainstream, so they have the space and flexibility to come up with solutions to some of the most pressing social problems that we face.
Social enterprise increasingly offers a range of solutions to some of our most pressing social problems. Certainly, the Government have begun to explore some of these areas, such as the rehabilitation of offenders, getting long-term unemployed people back to work and health and social care issues. There are programmes to tackle the most troubled families in our communities, including a programme that started seven or eight years ago, when I was in the Home Office, that this Government have taken forward. Increasingly, social enterprises rather than conventional organisations are able to provide innovative solutions to some of our most pressing problems because they have the freedom to think differently and the ability to do so.
It is interesting that the recruitment organisation of choice for many teachers now is Teach First, which has a fabulous reputation and is not a conventional organisation. It takes the brightest and the best to work in some of our most difficult and challenged schools, to give our youngsters the chance of a decent education.
Place2Be is a social enterprise that works in Salford in my constituency and nationally. It works with children whose families are some of the most troubled—with drug and alcohol or mental health problems—and operates six primary schools in Salford. Against all the odds, with the support of Place2Be and through counselling and support in their schools, children of the most troubled parents are progressing at the same rate as children who are progressing at the average rate in the rest of the school. That, for me, is almost a miracle. That social enterprise, which is now being funded by social investment as well, is making a massive difference on the ground. I know that all colleagues will have examples of similar organisations operating in their own areas.
Bounce Back is a social enterprise that trains people who are ex-offenders. It costs some £95,000 to keep someone in prison, but about £3,000 to go through the Bounce Back programme, get ready for work and take up an opportunity in the future. Bounce Back and Blue Sky, which are similar organisations, say, “The only qualification you need to come and work with us is that you must have been to jail.” It would be quite interesting to see that in a job advert; I do not see many such adverts.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is this in the financial services sector?
Hazel Blears
Not yet. They tend to do grounds maintenance or logistics, but who knows?
That work is refreshing. In conventional job recruitment, it is difficult if someone has been to prison and has a criminal record. It can be so hard for them to get a job, but all the evidence is that the one thing that can keep someone out of jail is if they have a job, a home and some relationships with their family.
Emerging organisations, such as Bounce Back and Blue Sky, are doing an absolutely fabulous job. We also have SMaRT garages, which operate in four or five different places across the country, including in my constituency. They provide help to people with serious mental health problems, but they do not do it through social workers and psychiatrists; they do it by getting people hands on, servicing cars, doing MOTs and doing practical work. The only way someone is judged in that organisation is on whether they turn up, whether they do a good job and whether they are polite. They are learning social skills, as well as practical skills, which will stand them in good stead. I went to the SMaRT garage in Salford, and they let me—I am not sure I did the whole thing—help service a Volvo. I did worry about the man or woman who would drive it afterwards, but they kept a close eye on me.
Mr Sheerman
May I say what a relief it is to some of us who have a long-term interest in transport safety, and road safety in particular, to hear my right hon. Friend talk about a safe vehicle, rather than the motorbikes she is usually associated with?
Hazel Blears
Everyone has to have a bit of fun now and again. I am sure they kept a close eye on me when I helped to service the Volvo. I did not realise until afterwards that the young man who helped me had very serious mental health problems. He had been detained at Broadmoor for a significant period of time, yet that organisation, because it was prepared to take risks and believe in people, was able to do something that virtually no other organisation could. Ronnie Wilson, who runs that organisation, does a fabulous job.
Having said all that—those organisations are brilliant—there is much more that the Government can do to bring social enterprises to the mainstream. On each of my three issues, I will go through a couple of specific points, for the Minister and for my Front Bench team, with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss some of this. At the next election, the manifestos of all political parties need to have some specific and concrete offers to social enterprise, social value and social investment, if we are to build the social economy we want to see.
On social enterprises, I want to see the social sector established with a clear corporate identity. I want it to have respect and to be seen as the place to go to for creative, innovative solutions. That is the first point. The Government say, “There are lots of problems that we cannot solve. We need you to come into this space and begin to help us do that.” That is starting to happen, and it needs to happen more clearly.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
On a point of clarification on social enterprises in the right hon. Lady’s constituency, are there any links between further education colleges or educational institutions and young people who have difficulties?
Hazel Blears
The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely good point. We have some links. We certainly have some enterprise models in some of our schools, academies and FE colleges. In the past, that would have simply been a small business option, but a social enterprise option is increasingly coming through. I find—I am sure we all see this—that more and more young people want values. They want to go home at the end of the day and be proud of what they have done and who they work for. That is why one in three start-ups across Europe is a social business. Young people with the best talent want to work in those organisations. That brings me back to my first point, which is that there is a business case for social enterprise. If a business wants the best talent, it has to have a social mission at its heart, so that young people are proud of what they have done at work.
First, we need a real recognition that social enterprise is a corporate form that can solve problems. Secondly, we need to look at financial incentives that can help to grow social enterprises—such as tax reliefs or looking at business rates again—so that we can incubate and grow the kind of organisations that can help us. Thirdly, we need to work with the European Union and look at state aid issues. An exemption for social enterprises and charities would make a huge difference and lift the burden of reporting requirements from this sector, which often cannot cope with some of the bureaucracy that bigger businesses can cope with. I will come to Europe in a minute, because Europe is doing great things in this arena, but the exemption is one more thing that we could do.
Moving on to social value—I am conscious of time—I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington. He has done an absolutely superb job in taking through the social value legislation in the House. The legislation will be game-changing. It will last and be hugely influential. We will look back in 10 years’ time and say, “Why did we not do it 30 years’ ago?” It is a market leader for many other countries across Europe and the world, which are now talking about doing similar things. I went to the Isle of Man to talk to some people about social value. Their Parliament does not half work quickly. I went to a Saturday conference and a Saturday night dinner, where I made a speech. On Monday morning, one of the Members of the Tynwald came up to me with a draft four-clause Bill. He said, “Would you like to come with me to Parliament, and we will present it?” It was amazing. I hope the Isle of Man will get a social value Act as well.
I was pleased to be associated with the legislation, which is incredibly important, but there is more we can do. I held a round table this year with people from the private sector, local authorities, social enterprises and the voluntary sector. We presented the then Minister for Civil Society, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, with a lengthy report on the issues that had been highlighted. I am more than happy to talk to the new Minister for Civil Society, the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) about that round table and some of the practical things we can do. I am delighted that more and more local authorities are putting social value clauses in their contracts and their procurement. That always used to be completely forbidden under European Union law. The EU has done a 360° turn and is now saying that not only can these social clauses be put in, but that they should be put in. That is amazing. I went to a procurement conference in Brussels with 1,000 procurement officials from across the European Union—it shows my dedication to duty that I went to a Brussels procurement conference—and to see those officials enthused by the possibility of being able to do good in how they use procurement was heart-warming and amazing.
In the European Union, Commissioner Andor has been hugely instrumental, as has President Barroso, and the whole agenda has been embraced. Commissioner Andor is coming to Salford on 22 September, where we are organising a round table for him to look at what more can be done in Europe to take forward the social value provisions on procurement and the social investment agenda. We are running with the grain, but there is more that we can do on social value.
One of the big issues is measurement and data, because everyone is doing the social economy now, but there are 57 varieties in how it might be measured. While there is inconsistency and uncertainty, it is difficult for people to get on a level playing field. I am not in favour of rigidity or one-size-fits-all. Part of the beauty of the agenda is that things develop and grow, but we need some core agreement on consistent principles for measuring social impact and social value, so that those who are tendering know exactly what they have to put in and so that those who reply to those tenders and provide services know how they can shape those services to have the best chance of winning a tender. This is a plea to the Minister: we have to have consistent principles and grounds for the measurement of value.
Guy Battle, who used to work for Deloitte and now has the Sustainable Business Partnership, has done some great work in setting up a social value portal, looking at measurement, metrics and developing the whole agenda. I think that he is someone who the Minister would want to meet and consult. The manifesto asks for social value including trying to ensure that we have some consistent principles and standardised measurement. Secondly, can we look at ensuring that social value clauses are included and given equal consideration to other criteria, or at least some clear weighting? People are saying to me, “We do not know whether the weighting is five points, 10 points or 15 points. We are very unsure about how to design our contracts.” The third ask—this is perhaps slightly more radical, but I believe it is essential—is to extend the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 from services to goods and infrastructure. The big spend in the next 15 to 20 years will not be on revenue, because we all know that money is tight; the big spend will be on big infrastructure projects, such as High Speed 2 and a new airport, wherever that might be, whether it is in the estuary or not. It is about the big rail developments and all those big infrastructure projects. If we can include social value clauses about local labour, using local supply chains and having a social impact in all those big infrastructure projects, imagine the prize that awaits. Now that Europe says that we can do it, we should extend social value legislation to include infrastructure and goods.
My final points are on social investment and I draw attention to my unpaid interest that is in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests with regard to Big Society Capital. Social investment is an exciting area of development. We had a G8 forum this year on social investment and Britain is clearly a global leader. We have more social investment than anywhere else with 15 in operation and 50 in development. The US and Australia have five each only. It is fantastic to be a global leader and to be better than America for once, much of which is down to the former Minister.
Social investment is exciting because it is new, but I recognise that money will be tight for whoever is in government after the next election. There will not be much public money around, so if we are to continue to reform, transform and improve public services, as well as the private sector, we will have to find new sources of finance to facilitate some of that transformation. I want to give one quick example. I do a lot of work on dementia and I have an idea that we could get social investment into dementia care to support community-based interventions to keep more people at home, so that they do not end up in the acute sector, which is the worst possible place for them. Dementia sufferers stay twice as long in the acute sector as people without dementia, they get readmitted twice as often and they die more often, all of which costs the NHS a fortune. If we can get social investment in and keep people well in the community, their lives will be better, their families’ and carers’ lives will be better and the acute sector will save money. The reason why that does not happen is because the money of clinical commissioning groups is all tied up in the acute sector. If we can get social investment, which would allow some headroom for double-running, community interventions, such as gardening, singing, befriending and buddying, can be scaled up. There is an emerging evidence base that such activities are effective and can lead to a virtuous circle.
I am meeting the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) next Tuesday with Big Society Capital and the Social Investment Business and I hope that we can do something here. It will require courage and determination from the whole system, but the prize is worth having. We had a G8 forum on social investment and we had a G8 forum on dementia, which is the biggest global health challenge. It would be amazing if we could use this new global finance to tackle that challenge. We must cross our fingers and watch this space and see how far we get with that. It is exciting and is an illustration of what we could do.
I have some more manifesto asks. I have discussed them with my Front-Bench team and I am more than happy to send the Minister some detailed analysis. On social investment, we could look at charitable trustees’ investment decisions and give them the confidence that they can perfectly properly take social considerations into account when investing money. It is ludicrous that charities are not allowed to consider social impacts. We could make it clear that pension funds can also consider social reasons for investment rather than always having to get the best price and the most money. If we start to motivate charitable foundations and pension funds, the amounts of money could be massive, but we are not utilising them to their fullest extent. We could have a social investor exemption from the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, so that retail people can learn about social investment. When we get a social investment ISA, we will have broken through all the bureaucracy and it will be an everyday thing. I want such an ISA because I want my investment to do good as well. That is where we need to be. On tax incentives, we have the social investment tax relief, which is a great step from the Government, but let us ensure that it is broad enough to enable collaborative funding and new structures, such as social investment bonds and funds. We could also simplify the community investment tax relief to ensure that intermediaries can quickly get money and get it out to those who need it.
The previous Labour Government started a plan, which has been carried on by the coalition, to use money in dormant bank accounts. There are other funds to which we could extend that idea, such as insurance, long-term investments and unclaimed gambling winnings. There is a lot more money out there that we could bring in. Instead of lying dormant and being wasted, it could be used to tackle some of our biggest social problems, so I ask the Minister and my Front-Bench team to consider that.
Finally on social investment, I want to discuss local impact funds. The Social Investment Business has been developing local funds to enable relatively small amounts of money to go to local organisations. The money that comes from social investment can sometimes involve big numbers, but there are many small organisations that need small grants. The first local impact fund was launched in Liverpool some two months ago, and of the 39 local enterprise partnerships, 11 have already said that they want local impact funds. This is a fabulous opportunity. The next round of European Union structural funds is coming with the proviso that 20% must be spent on social impact. Wow! What an opportunity to use EU funds to do good. That would rehabilitate the European Union in many people’s minds and even some of our not-very-pro-EU colleagues may think it a fabulous thing to do.
I am conscious that I have spoken for a long time, but I say to the Minister that I am delighted that he is in his role. He has a fabulous job. I have no doubt that he is raring to go and I am willing to give whatever help I can and the whole sector is willing to do the same. There are excellent companies out there in the marketplace. This is no fluffy public sector agenda; Fujitsu is examining its whole supply chain in terms of social impact and Interserve has recently invested in a social investment bond to fund a social innovation centre, which is amazing. Chief executives and chairmen really get this. The synergy of public, private, voluntary and mutual social enterprise is a powerful and irresistible idea. I ask the Minister to go with the grain and make his name—his mark—on this agenda.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Order. I will call the Front-Bench spokespeople at 10.40 am, so I ask the three other Members who want to speak to share the remaining time respectfully between themselves.
Mr Nick Hurd (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
As I speak, phones will be ringing in garages across Salford with anxious Volvo drivers seeking reassurance that their cars were not serviced by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears). I do not know how good a mechanic she is, but she is a brilliant politician. I congratulate her on securing a debate on a subject about which we are both passionate, on her track record of supporting social enterprise for many years, on keeping my feet to the fire when I was a Minister and on sending a strong signal to the builders of the social economy that there was strong cross-party support and interest in sustaining the work.
For me, the debate is about two important things. First, how do we find better solutions to the social challenges that undermine this country and carry unacceptable costs—both financial and, more importantly, human? Secondly, as the right hon. Lady herself asked, how do we help British business to sharpen its competitive edge in the modern world, to build trust—a crucial but fragile ingredient of value creation—and to generate social value? Those two opportunities come together within the social economy.
I want to make three brief points to complement what the right hon. Lady said. First, there is a substantial global movement here. We must seize the moment. We spend a lot of time in this place observing the waves on the surface of the ocean, which means that we sometimes miss or are slow to pick up on some of the substantial shifts in the current beneath the surface. What we are discussing today is such a shift in terms of how we think about the economy and its future. I see stars realigning across the three pillars of our society in a way that I have not seen in my lifetime, which suggests that people are now prepared to think and work in different ways—above all, critically, in government.
Government has to change. Across the world, Governments in developed nations face the same challenges of economic recovery—not only getting economies going, but ensuring the fairness of the recovery and its sustainability. There are also the issues of how we shape the competitive future of our countries and, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, how on earth we meet the public’s demand for better public services when we have substantially less public money. We are only halfway through the cuts, whoever wins the next election—let us be clear about that.
As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge said in their excellent latest book “The Fourth Revolution”, countries in the developed world face the same challenges in the global race to redesign government. The greatest political challenge over the next decade is fixing government. In this country, government has to work in different ways; gradually, that penny is beginning to drop, at the central Government level and at the local authority level, but it is hard, because we operate in a risk-averse environment. Doors and minds are open to doing things in different ways, however, and that has simply not been the case for the previous 25 years.
Furthermore, as the right hon. Lady said so powerfully, social attitudes to business are changing at the same time. In a transparently connected world, values matter much more to business. How businesses behave matters much more, and that will arguably be a source of competitive advantage in future. More and more of us are choosy as consumers about who we do business with; more and more of us, as savers and investors, are choosy about whom we invest in.
To correct the right hon. Lady, I should say that there are social ISAs at the moment, in response to that trend, and the socially responsible investment market is worth trillions of dollars now that savers are becoming more discerning. Employees in a tight labour market are clearly much more discerning, too, and want to feel prouder of where they work. We hope that commissioners, people spending public money, will also be sending strong signals to the market about the competitive advantage potential of being able to demonstrate social value.
No more powerful sign of social change is evident than in the surveys of young people and the generation coming through at the moment. Survey after survey tells us the same thing: coming through now is one of the most socially responsible, entrepreneurial generations that this country has ever seen, with different attitudes to the workplace, to businesses and to what their place in society is. The young generation will underpin the social economy.
The right hon. Lady talked about one in three start-ups in Europe being social; in this country, 15% of SMEs are social enterprises—15% and growing. There is not only change in government and in social attitudes to businesses, to which business is responding, but the social sector is having to change its attitudes as it is buffeted by change on all sides, which carries both risk and opportunity. Now, minds are much more open to working in partnership with different types of organisation and to seeking different funding models, such as social investment.
I see the stars realigning in a way that gives a fantastic engine to the move towards a more social economy and more collaborative models, which must be part of the future.
Mr Sheerman
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech and I am absolutely rapt. As he was speaking, it came back to me that we are sometimes a little precious—not him personally, but those in the social economy. A lot of entrepreneurs have come to life through social enterprise. They may stay with social enterprise, but they get their training and become successful private entrepreneurs. There is a big move between the two.
Mr Hurd
The hon. Gentleman anticipates exactly my next point. What is so exciting is the signal that we can send about supporting social entrepreneurship across the sectors. He mentioned the private sector, but one of the things that excited me most in office was the evidence of the entrepreneurship within the public sector, unlocked by the opportunity to spin out and run mutuals inside the public sector. There are fantastic examples in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. It is amazing what happens when we give people the freedom to pursue their dreams as what I define as social entrepreneurs—people who run their own businesses spun out of the public sector. Those values and instincts and that creativity exist across all the sectors of society and need to be nourished.
This is a big idea whose time has come, with the opportunity for collaboration to unlock the spirit of innovation and social entrepreneurship in the country. This country is built on our success in innovating in the process of wealth creation and in the building of our cultural heritage. That is less evident in the area of social innovation, but this is the time to unlock that potential.
Secondly, to reinforce the point made by the right hon. Lady, we lead the world in this area. One of the things that struck me most in office was how many visits I got from representatives from a bizarre range of countries, from Canada to the country that I still call Burma, who said, “We notice what you are doing. We are interested in social enterprise and social investment, and for us the place to come and learn is Britain.” We must not surrender that lead, because if we are right about the movement, it will be a source of competitive advantage for this country as we think about how we shape the future.
My third and final point is to reinforce the right hon. Lady’s message to our Front Benchers—both individuals have earned a great deal of respect and admiration. Let us seize the moment and not lose momentum. I am conscious that for the two gentlemen who aspire to be the next Prime Minister of this country the agenda is full and cluttered, which is daunting, but let those of us who believe in this continue to make noise, saying, “This matters. We have something very valuable and important growing in this country. We must nourish it.”
The right hon. Lady is quite right. We had to compromise to take the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 through Parliament. Respectable voices inside Government were saying, “Be careful here, because we are trying to make the procurement process leaner and more efficient, so what are we doing cluttering it up?”, so we compromised. No voices in the procurement business now say that the Act gets in the way.
Now is the time to look seriously at whether we extend the scope. Such a review needs to happen, but in parallel with a fundamental approach to raise the quality of commissioning throughout the public sector and a modest investment in the kind of learning networks that bring people together and make them ask, “How can we make best use of this?” That is how the system can be helpful. Things such as the Commissioning Academy, which is low cost and high value, are very important.
I also support the right hon. Lady’s comments about the pursuit of other dormant assets. So much time was spent in setting up Big Society Capital and making the system work with the reclaim fund, that we did not have the time to start conversations about pursuing other assets, in particular in the insurance industry. However, they are there, so let us go for them. Let us start those conversations now, because that is money sitting on the table.
I make a plea for cross-party support for the important public sector mutual movement. We must continue to send signals and say, “It is okay, we will support you in this process.”
On social impact bonds, let us be clear that we are at the bottom of the S-curve of the development of that instrument, which is so important because it creates space for social innovation in a system that is risk-averse. They are clunky, take too long and are too expensive to set up, and we have to change all that, but let us be clear that we have only just started and are at the bottom of the S-curve. We now need to find a different gear of ambition to make many more of those things in the marketplace, so that we can test whether the instrument is as valuable an influence as we think it is.
My appeal is fundamental: let us keep the level of ambition, because through that agenda we have the potential to improve so many more lives and to find better solutions to problems that impose unacceptable cost—both financial and human—on this country.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard.
The debate has reminded me that I became a social entrepreneur a long time ago in Wales, where I set up the first co-operative development agency when I was a young academic at Swansea university. That was a long time ago. If I confess all, Mrs Thatcher made me a social entrepreneur. I spent 18 years in opposition, with 11 years as a shadow Minister, always disagreeing with what the Government were doing. There had to be more to life, so I developed something that I was passionately interested in. I started setting up co-operatives —working ones, rather than retail ones—and I have been at it ever since. I am told that I am on about my 48th social enterprise, which is quite a number. Most of them have survived. Some fulfilled their goal and then we wound them up nicely or merged them with somebody else’s enterprise.
As I said in an intervention, social enterprise is enterprise—it is entrepreneurial. People have to be good at it. Social enterprises need to have people in their trusts and on their boards who know about numbers and finances because they have to pay wages, watch their cash flow and do all the things that any other enterprise does. They also need people with vision, who can say, “This is the trend. This is what is happening.”
I agree with everything my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) said. I do not want to stroke her feathers too much today because we learnt yesterday that she is the Prime Minister’s favourite parliamentarian. I cannot add to that, but the fact is that she is a great champion of the social economy. We come from slightly different sides, only in the sense that I have got much more in to a particular way of raising money than her. I learn from her all the time and I think she learns a little from me, as we have different kinds of specialism.
I agree with the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) that we are at an interesting point, with real lift-off. I was looking at some figures this morning. This year, 250,000 new businesses have been set up using crowdfunding. I am an unashamed champion of crowdfunding. I found that it became really difficult to use the conventional ways of raising money for social enterprise after the financial collapse of 2008. I am told that I am a very good fundraiser, and I raised a lot of money for different things, including around £2.5 million to £3 million for the John Clare Trust, when things were rather better, but most of the sources for social enterprises suddenly dried up. Let us be honest: a lot of good social enterprises have gone to the wall. Certainly a large number in the environmental sector did so simply because there were no longer sources of funding. That is a cause for concern and it would be worth conducting an analysis of what happened in the environmental sector.
The fact is, however, that a new opportunity came around. I started reading e-mails and tweets about crowdfunding. I said to the wonderful Library here, “Could you brief me on crowdfunding?” and, for the first time, the response came back, “We do not know what that is about, Mr Sheerman, so we cannot brief you.” I confess that I tweeted to ask who could teach me about crowdfunding, and suddenly my room in Portcullis House was full of really exciting, interesting people saying, “We are doing crowdfunding. We think it is important and it is the future. We want a forum for it.” A group of us therefore formed the Westminster forum on crowdfunding, which now has more than 150 regular participants.
It is impressive that there are so many bright young people in this area. They are not all in social enterprises: as we know, crowdfunding runs across a number of areas, one of which is simply starting a business. We had a long conversation with the former Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who has just changed job, in which he said, “I go up and down the country and people tell me that the big banks do not lend to start-up businesses. When I come back to London and interview the big banks, they say they do, but I believe the people who tell me that the banks are not lending.”
There is a real problem with start-up finance in all sectors, but the social enterprise sector rewards crowdfunding—there are rewards for investment. People do not get the investment back but they see a good project take off and succeed. Some of the organisations mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles started in that way. There is also straight crowdfunding: justgiving.com has raised nearly £3 billion and has just started a new organisation. I am jealous, because it has been called Yimby—yes in my back yard. There is also CrowdPatch, as well as other grass-roots social enterprises that are starting little businesses, opening a local shop or clearing up the local pond. Those enterprises then get bigger, more exciting and more adventurous. Some are very big players indeed.
In a few months—certainly in the past 18 months—Britain has become the crowdfunding centre of the world, and London is now the crowdfunding hub of the world. That has tremendously exciting potential for the social economy. In the past, when people wanted to start something they struggled to find the seed finance, but I have to give some credit to the Government, including the former Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, and the current Minister—I get along well with him and am sure he will do a very good job. The Prime Minister was nice to my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles yesterday and I am going to be nice about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have had a good conversation with the Treasury and with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, and they have been positive about crowdfunding and the social sector.
I would never have believed that in my lifetime I would see the seed enterprise investment scheme and the social investment tax relief scheme. That is amazing. I hear that there are rumbles of discontent—[Interruption.] The Minister is right to claim some kudos for this. We now have a system that I understand has caused real discontent in silicon valley and places around the world where people set up enterprises because we have an almost unfair advantage, as our tax system is so good for start-up businesses. No doubt that is true.
In the previous Budget, that advantage was expanded to the social sector, which is very good news. Quite honestly, if someone is going to invest in something, and somebody comes along and says, “You are going to get a 30% tax break and will probably get your money back if you invest wisely”—wow! To extend that to the social investment sector—wow, wow, wow! We will not be content, of course—we are Members of Parliament—and will be talking to the Treasury about expanding the scheme a little more. As the Minister knows, the tax relief for social investment is not quite as big as that for the private sector, so we will want to get it slightly closer. I am not going to ask today for a full step towards parity, but getting a little nearer would be very good indeed.
There are three aspects to this cultural change. Strangely, it is also an historical change—we are going back. Two hundred years ago, in my constituency of Huddersfield, people created a social economy. They created their own little co-ops, burial societies and holiday clubs; and they invented housing associations to buy decent homes. They created a whole world supporting ordinary working people in doing what they had to do. They did all of that, creating a culture and a real alternative social structure.
Funnily enough, social media will enable us to rebuild that, through the crowd element and being able to talk to a crowd of people with a similar view. That may be local and quite parochial, or regional, but it could be worldwide. I am involved in a crowdfunding enterprise that is planning something that will involve every supporter of rugby league in the world. Perhaps that will not appeal to you, Mr Havard, as a rugby union man, but just imagine 7 million crazy—I say that in the nicest sense, meaning, “crazily passionate”—rugby league fans all contributing to something wonderful for the game of rugby league.
Crowdfunding can be global or local. I am more interested in what it can do in this country, both for social enterprise and to change the culture of our economy. Although not everything about it is good, there are some wonderful companies. We have the social impact investment taskforce, across the G8, chaired by Sir Ronnie Cohen. That is the way for the future. The intersection between social impact investment, social enterprise and crowdfunding is the future. It is exciting and we can change the whole landscape of what happens in our communities and our society. We have the tools: let’s go for it.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
Having listened to the past three speakers, I think this is probably more of an annual general meeting than a debate. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), not least because she will leave the House, come what may, next May. It sticks a bit to say it will be disappointing to lose a Labour Member, but it will be disappointing to lose her expertise. The support she gave me with the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 was singular in making it progress through the House and ensuring it had the cross-party support necessary for any Bill to achieve success.
I will break with convention slightly and say how disappointed I am to see so few Members in the Chamber. I can only assume that they got lost on their way here. Those who understand what social value and the social economy are about will realise that these are some very radical, new and revolutionary ideas, but, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, some long-standing ideas have also newly re-emerged. As the author of the Act, I recognise that this is not day one: a lot of knowledge and work has been put into this field already. However, as Members have discussed, we have found a new period of momentum to do some great work.
To comment on what the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), said, when the Act started on the Floor of the House, there was a certain nervousness as to what its repercussions would be and what burdens it would place on businesses. I think this initial anxiety has been replaced by a level of confidence. Local authorities have become better and more successful at ensuring there is consideration of the wider benefits that their services can provide. The right hon. Lady mentioned Liverpool as one of the great examples. It was one of the first places I visited in my former role as the social value ambassador. I still hold a great memory of the Furniture Resource Centre. Rehabilitation, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, is an area where we can make the biggest difference through such work.
I am pleased with the role the Government have played. Obviously all Members who have got a private Member’s Bill through will know it is not possible to do so without the support of all Departments. Departments have made great strides in service commissioning and procurement. However, as the right hon. Lady said, there is potentially time for review. I think that 18 months is a long time—we dream of the Isle of Man—but it is still long enough that we can look at what has been achieved and whether these initiatives can be extended. Not only are the nation, its local authorities and Government Departments, adopting the initiative, but the world sees us a leader in the concept.
I have long believed that the closer to the community a service is, the better it is. Localism is key to this. It is a broad principle, based on the belief that we should devolve power to the lowest possible level. How we deliver everything, from our services to our local plans, should be considered by speaking to our constituents. We should ask our communities what they want, but what they really want perhaps is to be able to take on more authority. That is one of our greatest challenges. There are few Members present, but as people who believe in this concept, our task is to ensure our communities better understand what the social economy, social investment and social value are all about. These are simple ideas that we have managed to make quite complex.
Hazel Blears
The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely good speech. He has really hit a nerve on that point. We talk glibly about social enterprise and the social economy, but these words mean very little to ordinary people. The work he has done to make this come alive has been really impressive. Would he agree that one of the things the Social Economy Alliance—a whole range of organisations, ably led by Peter Holbrook of Social Enterprise UK—can do, working with hon. Members, is try to make those terms come alive to ordinary people? It is about getting people back to work, keeping them out of jail and those kinds of things. That is one of the biggest hurdles we need to get over.
Chris White
I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. Peter Holbrook, amazingly enough, has the one signed copy of my Act. What he has done with it goodness only knows. I agree that there are many players in this area, because of the alliance, Social Enterprise UK, and all the charitable bodies and their umbrellas. Our local political representatives are key players and do fantastic work on the ground supporting their constituents. I believe we should make these things more accessible to them. I would not denigrate anything they do, and certainly not as a former councillor myself, but we are coming towards local elections. Whatever party people support, they should be able to put in their manifestos what they are doing to help local community organisations.
Mr Hurd
I support that point on accessibility. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) is right: if I stopped people in Ruislip high street and asked what they knew about local social enterprises, I would get even more blank expressions than usual. Would my hon. Friend join me in supporting quite simple initiatives, such as the Buy Social Directory and the imminent Social Saturday initiative? They are designed to give people more information about the social enterprises on their doorstep. Giving them access to what is going on in their area seems to be a simple step we can take and support.
Chris White
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Days such as Social Saturday will create great momentum. It is something we should consider having yearly. I still maintain that we have work to do. As suggested, one piece of work is to put these issues strongly and firmly in our manifestos, so that these organisations can feel confident that they will continue to have the support and investment they need, whoever forms the next Government.
Mr Sheerman
We must of course ensure all the major parties get this in their manifestos. However, there is one small danger with accessibility: we create our own language in the social economy. It can sometimes be a bit cosy. People outside do not understand things and have to fight to get in. The reason I like the word “crowd” is that it is a new way of expressing an old idea: that the crowd is empowered. I ask the hon. Gentleman to use “crowd” with “social” when he talks about accessibility.
Chris White
The hon. Gentleman always talks great sense.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, the former Minister, for his support with respect to the direction of travel that social value has taken. I look forward to the comments of the new Minister, who has picked up his responsibility with alacrity. I look forward to a commitment from him to growth in the area we are considering; an increase in its momentum and an extension of its scope; and attention to reviews, which would be helpful and appreciated.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Order. You have all been so disciplined that the two Front-Bench Members have half an hour to share; so no doubt we will have comprehensive answers and comment. As the Minister prepares, I call Chi Onwurah.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard—particularly in this debate. I congratulate and thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) who secured this important debate and has worked hard to push the agenda forward so constructively.
The debate has indeed been constructive so far, and there have been passionate speeches on both sides, from the former Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles. I shall try to maintain that constructive manner, but I do not guarantee that I shall succeed as well as my right hon. Friend did.
We recently witnessed one of the biggest crises of capitalism that the world has seen. Many ordinary people are still coping with its consequences, particularly for the cost of living. Yet with any crisis comes an opportunity, and in this case it is the opportunity to rebuild the economy into one that is more focused on long-termism and value creation, with social enterprise and social value at its heart. Some in the Government may be keen to get back to a business-as-usual approach to the economy, but the Labour party wants social enterprise and a social economy to be at the heart of things. Social enterprises help to build and sustain communities, and their hearts beat to the same pulse as that of the Labour movement’s founders—namely voluntarism and collective action, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield eloquently described.
We in the Labour party believe that genuine social enterprises can offer examples and incentives to both the private and public sectors. They can offer improvements in the delivery of some public services. Unlike some large contractors such as Serco and G4S, social enterprises are embedded in the heart of their communities, and as small organisations they can pilot and test small-scale incremental innovations in service delivery while developing new skills in the communities where they are based. By being strongly rooted in communities, enterprising and properly regulated, social enterprises can identify new and more socially effective ways of delivering public services, thus providing an example to Government. Indeed, they can be the innovative front line of the public sector.
The leader of the Labour party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), was, in government, the Third Sector Minister. He championed the transformative potential of social enterprises and began putting in place the infrastructure to enable them to thrive. That included the legislation for the foundation of Big Society Capital. I am pleased that the present Government have carried some of that work forward, although not surprisingly they are not doing so with the same scope and ambition that I would hope for.
Building and supporting the social economy is not something we can do overnight. It takes hard work. I thank all the organisations that have been involved in generating ideas and pushing them forward to Parliament and the public. We all know how much work that takes, including talking to different people and groups—the social economy is a broad church—to develop positive and constructive ideas. Indeed, we are going through that process now, and I welcome the input being given.
Despite the time at my disposal, I cannot respond in detail to every point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles; many ideas are currently being considered as part of our policy review. However, I shall touch on as many as I can. My right hon. Friend spoke of establishing a social sector with a clear corporate identity. I share that aim. One of the things that has surprised me about the sector is the way it has been able to defy definition for so long. If we want to promote the role of social enterprises—and that will be a key aim of the next Labour Government—we need to understand what they are, and ensure that they have the skills to take up their role in a new economy, which they champion.
For example, we must not allow what I would call para-third sector organisations to brand themselves as social enterprises to win more contracts or qualify for incentives. It is unfortunate that the Government have so far been seen to load the procurement playing field very much against genuine social enterprises in favour of private sector companies that often parade as social enterprises.
We have heard about social value in procurement, reporting and standards, and the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. I echo the tribute paid by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington for his work on that important measure. The 2012 Act builds on many achievements of the previous Government and, in fairness, earlier Administrations. It is a real and symbolic step forward, and an important one, despite the fact that many worthy provisions were removed from it. We would have gone further with it; we tabled amendments to improve it. Both the former Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington have spoken about the compromises necessary to get a private Member’s Bill passed. We would look to build on and extend the Act.
At £86.8 billion a year, the public sector’s overall procurement spending power rivals its legislative power. The Labour party recognises the power of Government spending and procurement in creating and sustaining social value. We have already announced that we will require suppliers to offer apprenticeship opportunities on all public contracts of more than £1 million. We have also said that private companies that win public sector contracts will have to be more transparent.
Hazel Blears
I am hanging on my hon. Friend’s every word; no doubt many social organisations want to know where we will be going with our manifestos, as that is the period we are in. She has talked about extending the 2012 Act, and that is welcome. I want to ask about extending it to infrastructure and goods. There are now many housing organisations—such as City West in Salford—that are renewing their whole housing stock and want to put social clauses into their infrastructure expenditure. City West has created social enterprises such as Gardening Guerrillas and Pirate Painters and a handyman service, and it is running sweat equity programmes. It is incredibly innovative, and housing associations throughout the country are doing similar things. Is my hon. Friend saying that we will extend the Act to goods and infrastructure as well as services?
Chi Onwurah
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and the examples of the many ways in which social enterprises can contribute to their communities. I will have to disappoint her as I am not in a position to give manifesto commitments in this debate, but we are looking closely at the measures taken out of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, as it made its way through Parliament, for ways to ensure that social enterprises can contribute to local communities more extensively than is currently allowed. I am afraid that she will have to be content with that limited answer.
Across central and local government, contracts are often offered on a scale that squeezes out social enterprises and charity providers, which means that, effectively, only established, vested interests can bid. That may drive down costs in the short term, but, in the long term, the number of providers dwindles, as value is extracted from communities and new burdens on the taxpayer are created elsewhere.
Government needs to be working as a whole towards delivering social good through public services and not simply shifting burdens around by cost-cutting in one area while creating new needs in another. Successive Governments have sought to support social enterprise in public service delivery, yet public procurement remains a significant and growing concern. At the round tables and meetings I have held throughout the country on social enterprise, access to public procurement has remained the No. 1 concern.
Many public service sectors are now dominated by what I would call private sector oligopolies: often large multinational corporations that are well versed in winning public sector contracts. They have become so large and complex that, like the big banks before them, the Government cannot afford to let them fail. In my city of Newcastle, the council is supporting local businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises by awarding contracts tendered below a certain threshold to local businesses. In nearby Sunderland—our arch-rivals in some respects, but here we are working to the same aim—the council has a similar system and, as a result, north-east businesses account for 68% of such third party spend overall.
We want to draw on the benefits and innovation of social enterprises in public services, which is why last month I announced that a Labour Government in 2015 will enable Departments and local authorities to offer some contracts exclusively to social enterprises and organisations with a public service mission. The social enterprises will have to demonstrate how they can add value and display the management skills in innovation that we expect from the private sector, so, to that end, we will explore the establishment of a centre of excellence to support social enterprises as contractors. The infrastructure necessary to support social enterprises is probably the second biggest issue I come across in my conversations with social enterprises: skills, governance, back-office, computing and IT all need further support.
I turn briefly to social investment. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield set out eloquently the potential for crowd sourcing as well as the importance of the social investment sector and how the UK leads the world in social innovation. We are looking at ways in which we can further support social investment. We want to see a comprehensive change in the social enterprise landscape, with services being less transactional, more focused on individuals and delivered at the most local level possible. We are looking to social enterprises to support that aim.
Social enterprise has the potential to be the innovative front line of both market competition and public service delivery, delivering social value and adapting to a world in which there is more emphasis on social value creation and retention. We look forward to working with social enterprises to enable that and, as part of that, I look forward to the first Social Saturday.
The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Brooks Newmark)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on securing this important debate, which is my first of the new parliamentary term and only my second as the Minister for Civil Society. I also pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), for his brilliant leadership when he was in this role. I have large shoes to fill, but I will do my best.
I cannot think of a more exciting subject with which to begin, because Britain’s social economy is indeed thriving. We have got to this point through the hard work and commitment to support the sector provided by successive Governments, including that of the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles. She continues to be a champion of charities and social enterprises as a member of the all-party group on social enterprise and shows commitment to ensuring that the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 achieves its full potential.
I take on board the right hon. Lady’s point about the importance of having measurables and consistency. Thinking about how to extend the social economy to infrastructure is a great idea. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) was absolutely right to say that, with £86 billion of public procurement, there is much scope for social enterprises to take advantage of what is out there. As the new Minister, I hope that I can try to facilitate that.
Chi Onwurah
I omitted to welcome the Minister to his position, but I would like to do so now. If he is going to carry on saying that I am absolutely right, long may he remain in his position.
Mr Newmark
The hon. Lady represents Newcastle, which is the home of my football team, so she can do little wrong in terms of representing that exciting city—it is second only to Braintree, of course.
I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles for her support of Big Society Capital through her role on its advisory board and her regular public appearances, as well as for her support for mutuals. Such contributions have been invaluable to a growing economy that includes organisations, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors who are committed to supporting positive social change.
I am grateful for the bipartisan approach to this issue and to the right hon. Lady for regularly reminding us how this work transcends party differences. It is about supporting those charities and enterprises who work tirelessly to improve people’s lives and communities. Members of all parties have the same agenda: we want to improve people’s lives, and the voluntary and charitable sector leads on that objective.
I think the right hon. Lady said that medium-sized social enterprises employ more than 1 million people; in fact, they employ 2 million people and contribute more than £55 billion to the UK economy each year—an enormous amount. The UK already has one of the most developed social investment sectors in the world and it is growing all the time. A few weeks ago, I visited the Repair Academy in Wiltshire, which transforms unwanted household goods into marketable, new products: upcycling as well us recycling. It is not only doing that to make a quick buck; it is equipping the young people who work for it with the skills they need for the world of work and working to change public attitudes to waste and recycling.
So yes, there is a business mentality, but it is also about public and social good. Too often, we think of those things as being mutually exclusive; allied together, they can be a truly powerful force, strengthening communities and changing lives, developing new solutions to seemingly intractable social problems and transforming the way we deliver public services to this country.
The right hon. Lady also mentioned three other great examples, including Place2Be and—was it Born Back?
Mr Newmark
Bounce Back, which I thought was a great idea. The qualification is that someone goes to prison, but there are people there who want to change their lives and help them transform back into the community. Bounce Back seems a great example of that.
For all those reasons, the Government have made it our mission to help strengthen Britain’s social economy. Just like any other business, social businesses need access to long-term capital. For years, charities and social enterprises had been telling successive Governments how hard it was to find affordable and sustainable finance. We listened to them and helped establish Big Society Capital, the world’s first full-blown social investment institution. Much credit is due to my ministerial predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner. People had talked about a social investment bank for the best part of two decades, and his leadership in Government made it a reality in less than two years. He made an excellent point in mentioning the discussions on having a collaborative approach between business and government, in terms of developing the social economy to unlock social innovation.
Hazel Blears
A lot has been said about collaboration, and I agree entirely with the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), that government needs to change. I suggested interdependent budgets for Cabinet Ministers when I was in the Cabinet and I believe that there is some interest in that issue now.
However, I should say to this Minister that I am seeing the Health Minister, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) with my social enterprise, Social adVentures, on the issue of dementia care. Collaboration between Ministers is essential. Perhaps this Minister could add his weight to some of our proposals with his colleagues across Government.
Mr Newmark
I think I am seeing the same Minister myself. I have a meeting with him, so hopefully we will be singing off the same hymn sheet.
I also pay tribute to the contribution that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles has made to Big Society Capital’s advisory board. Since 2012, Big Society Capital has made more than £150 million of investment commitments into the third sector, creating specialist intermediaries actively providing finance and support to front-line organisations. The beauty of that model is that it is self-sustaining. Big Society Capital is independent of Government, and because the money is provided on a repayment basis, it will constantly be reinvested in new projects, and in turn, will generate more cash.
In April, the world’s first social investment tax relief, which is important and which the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles alluded to, came into force. We estimate that it could unlock an additional £500 million of new finance into the social economy over the next five years. Taken together, these measures mark a move away from reliance on hand-to-mouth grants towards long-term affordable finance.
I like the idea that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) had about other ways of finding finance. Crowdfunding and the seed enterprise investment scheme, which in my previous life I was pushing very hard for, are excellent ideas. Creating a more level playing field when it comes to taxation is also an important point, which I have taken on board.
Of course, many smaller or fledgling charities and social enterprises could make use of the funding, but sometimes they need support to do so, so alongside Big Society Capital, we have introduced the investment readiness programme. That provides start-ups with the intensive support necessary to get off the ground. It also helps established social enterprises improve and expand their operations in a sustainable way, making them ready for investment or ready to bid for a public sector contract.
However, capital itself is not enough. We have also been working to make it easier for charities and social enterprises to provide services in both the public and private sectors. Over many years—and different Governments—traditional private sector organisations have dominated the outsourced public services market, a point made by many colleagues today. We have worked hard to change that, enabling staff to take control of their own services by spinning out into public service mutuals.
Freed from the bureaucracy of the public sector but instilled with the public service ethos and run by committed public servants, mutuals are improving outcomes for users, communities and commissioners across the country. There are already 100 live and trading, up from just nine in 2010, with even more in development. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles said that in her constituency a new one has now been launched—for adult services, I think—and I welcome that.
It is not only mutuals that are getting in on the act. Other forms of social enterprises and charities have an enormous amount to offer. Civil society can also do things that Government cannot do. It is often much closer to the people we want to help, so we are pioneering some really exciting models to allow it to play a more direct role in delivering front-line services.
Social impact bonds, for instance, enable private investors and philanthropists to invest in a project to address complex, entrenched social problems. The taxpayer only pays for what works, and because private investors are able to take on the risk, it means social organisations can get involved. There are now 17 social impact bonds across the UK, four of which were supported by the Cabinet Office’s social outcomes fund. From rough sleepers in London to NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—in Perthshire and Kinross, to children at risk of going into care in Essex, around the country we are going to see social impact bonds opening up serious resources to tackle long-term problems in new ways.
I welcome the work of the previous Administration on the first of these and the continued cross-party support that helps to ensure that such interventions have a transformative effect. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles has championed these as part of her impressive efforts to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and young people. We are starting to see how social impact bonds can focus capital towards those services that provide strong, effective support for those young individuals.
Because we want to weave innovation into the fibre of national and local government, the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 places a legal requirement on commissioners to consider the economic, environmental and social benefits of how they commission and buy services. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) has been absolutely resilient on pushing that point through, with the great support of the right hon. Lady. That will help shape the design of services from the outset, so that due consideration is given to innovative social delivery, which gets full social value from the taxpayers’ pound.
I am confident that we will see more and more public sector commissioners bringing communities, businesses and charities together to change people’s lives. Already, many private sector organisations are interested in how they can include social value in their supply chains, which is why, with Social Enterprise UK, we have created the Buy Social Directory, which lists over 10,000 social enterprise suppliers—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner.
I know it is still early days. We have made a start, but there is so much more to come. We want to encourage more investment in the sector and open up new markets. The Buy Social campaign, beginning in September—and we have Social Saturday coming up—will encourage businesses and consumers to buy from and invest in the social economy, so the great British public can invest in the causes that they believe in. We want to make social investment as easy as possible. We are also exploring how pension and insurance funds can participate in the social investment market, but we are also looking further afield, helping the sector export overseas as well as attracting inward foreign investment.
The UK is experiencing a rising wave of dynamic social entrepreneurship that seeks to improve people’s lives. Britain can be proud to be recognised as the world leader. Even in the few short weeks that I have been a Minister, I have seen first hand some of the fantastic opportunities that the social economy presents, for jobs and economic growth, for innovation and new ideas and for better public services.
I again thank the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles for her commitment. The social economy has much to contribute to her constituency and to the UK as a whole. I welcome her input and that of the hon. Members for Huddersfield and my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner and for Warwick and Leamington.
We are a nation of philanthropists and campaigners, time-givers and fundraisers, poppy wearers and marathon runners. We have a fantastic heritage of social innovation, from the great Victorian social reformers to modern-day social entrepreneurs, so the Government will continue to support the growth of Britain’s social economy. I am optimistic that by working together, we can build on the progress we have made to create the bigger, stronger society that we all want to be part of.