Office for the Impact Economy

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate. She raises a very important point, especially at this time of year when many people are considering their charitable donations. The UK has a proud tradition of charitable giving and philanthropy and I take this opportunity to thank our country’s faith communities for their generosity towards charitable causes. The Government are determined to create a more supportive environment for philanthropy and we will work to make giving as easy, compelling and impactful as possible. The new Office for the Impact Economy will work with philanthropic foundations and institutions, many of which are faith based, to explore how we can make this happen. For example, where I believe both the church and other faith communities can clearly assist is with DCMS’s efforts on place-based philanthropy. Noble Lords will appreciate that faith communities tend to have a footprint in every community and, when we are seeking to ensure impactful reach in disadvantaged communities, working with faith-based communities will be the most important way of achieving that.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, in launching this new office, Darren Jones noted:

“Change comes as much from the ground up as from the top down”.


He highlighted the crucial role of people who know their local area and communities, and know

“the problems and the opportunities inside and out”.

The issue is that these community groups may not recognise themselves in the term “impact economy”. Can the noble Baroness say how the office will tailor its approach to ensure it reaches not just people who have this kind of language available but are truly on the ground doing the work?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

This is a genuinely important point from the noble Baroness. There are several parts to this: it is about empowering local communities but also ensuring that there is training undertaken, so that community groups can genuinely access some of the funds. I used to run a national charity and am very aware of how challenging it can be for local charities to access some philanthropic pots of money. There are two schemes where I think that we genuinely will be able to work with communities. The first is the Pride in Place scheme, where we are seeking to deliver over £5 billion-worth of funding in 244 areas. We are talking in this space about £2 million per year for 10 years in specific communities; I should declare that my husband is on the board of my local Pride in Place scheme in Bentilee. We will also hope to work with them to ensure match funding to expand that £2 million to up to £4 million a year, which can genuinely make a difference at the award-based community level. There is also the better futures fund, which is an outcomes-based fund. It is government saying not what needs to be done but what ultimately we need to achieve, and leaving it up to local people to determine how to get there.