Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has for funding initiatives to support the growth of cooperatives, mutuals and wider social businesses.

The Government is actively supporting social enterprise through:

• £425million of dormant assets have been distributed to Big Society Capital. This has leveraged around £1.7billion in private capital from external investors. It has been used to support thousands of charities and social enterprises across the country to grow their impact and scale their operations.
• A further £60million has been allocated to The Foundation for Social Investment to make charities and social enterprises in England more financially resilient and self-reliant.
• The Government is also working to enable more social enterprises to participate through the Public Services (Social Value) Act and a new central government Social Value Model, launched in 2021.