Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
4. What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the adequacy of the time available for provision of information to the public on the forthcoming referendum on the alternative vote system for elections to the House of Commons.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon)
The Electoral Commission believes that there is sufficient time for it to provide factual information to the public on the alternative vote and first-past-the-post voting systems and for campaigners to put across their arguments effectively. The commission has been preparing for the referendum since the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was introduced in Parliament last summer.
Fiona Bruce
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his reply. However, in response to an earlier question he indicated that the Electoral Commission will not even designate the yes and no campaigns until the end of March, or thereabouts, leaving only April and five days in May for the campaigns. Is that really long enough?
Mr Streeter
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The designation of the yes and no campaigns will happen as soon as possible after 15 March—anyone can bid to become part of those campaigns before then—and in any event by 29 March. The Electoral Commission is confident that the campaign period is adequate for the purpose.
Big Society
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I welcome this debate, highlighting as it has the excellent community work done across constituencies that are represented on both sides of the House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has recently returned to his place, on securing the debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister who has remained steadfastly in his place throughout the almost six hours of this debate.
I hope that the debate will serve to deter critics of the big society from making political points by wilfully misunderstanding what the big society is all about. Such attitudes denigrate and disrespect those who, day by day, help to make our society worth living in by giving communities a quality of life that would be otherwise unattainable. I use the phrase “quality of life” advisedly. For some years in the recent past, we have increasingly associated quality of life or success or someone’s individual value in our society too closely with material accumulation, social status, fashionable glitz and glamour, brash business attitudes, career ladder climbing and so forth.
Some of those measurements of success are not necessarily bad in and of themselves. If, however, they are used as disproportionate yardsticks of what it means for an individual to be successful and to have value in our society and for us to be a strong, healthy and successful society together, then I suggest that it is time for a robust re-evaluation of what quality of life means. The current debate about the big society across the country offers, if we grasp it, a real opportunity to do so. For that reason, I welcome today’s debate.
Striving to attain today’s so-called aspirational lifestyles, which are held up as exemplars particularly to our young people, sadly all-too-often involves not only disposable material possessions, but also disposable relationships. That poses the often raised question of whether, as a result, we are any happier or more fulfilled as a society today.
High levels of alcohol and drug abuse, self-harm, a lack of self-esteem, relationship breakdown and profound loneliness across every generation provide at least part of the answer to that question.
I believe that somewhere along the way, we have lost something of the essence of the values which really make a society work: values like care, commitment, sharing and a place where every individual is given the opportunity and the capacity to play their part, whatever it may be—a part for which they are uniquely skilled and that only they can play.
Somewhere along the way, too, we may have forgotten that our most basic human need is to be loved and to feel that we matter to someone or, ideally, to a group of people. Linked to that is the need for us to feel that within that group of people, we have a purpose and a role. Is a premier league footballer worth any more or less as a person than, Dave Mairs, who several times a week coaches in the Cheshire boys league and has for years supported, encouraged and cajoled—and sometimes had to discipline—a football team of young boys? I do not think so.
Why do I say all this now? I say it because I believe that the big society holds the key to many of our contemporary challenges. Our understanding of what success means in a strong, healthy and positive society, and the positive contribution that each individual can uniquely bring to it, is, I suggest, largely what the big society is all about.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 1 month ago)
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Tony Baldry
Salmaan Taseer was an incredibly brave man and his death is a tragedy for Pakistan. We would all do well to remember the words of Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, who said in terms that
“you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship”.
What I suspect every Member of this House hopes for is that there shall be freedom of religion throughout the world, and I am sure that, as a Chamber, we will continue to campaign for that wherever we have the opportunity.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
4. What steps the Church Commissioners are taking to help support Christians in Sudan.
Tony Baldry
The Church of England supports the Episcopal Church of Sudan. The dioceses of Bradford and Salisbury have diocesan links to Sudan and have done great work in the region to support the Christian community, as has Christian Aid.
Fiona Bruce
I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. It looks as though there will be a new state of Southern Sudan, but it will face enormous challenges. Meanwhile, Christian minorities in the north of Sudan will face continued persecution, as organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide have highlighted during many years of work across Sudan. Will the Church of England do what it can to support and protect Christians and other minorities in the north of Sudan, while also helping, where appropriate, in Southern Sudan?
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 3 months ago)
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Tony Baldry
The CCT is supporting some 340 church buildings, all of which are of considerable historic or architectural interest. We are grateful for the co-sponsoring by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on a 30:70 basis. This is an issue that is bigger than just the Church. Some 45% of all grade 1 listed buildings are churches, and those buildings represent an important part of the social history of our nation.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
9. What steps the Church Commissioners are taking to support the work of the Church of England in rural areas.
Tony Baldry
The Church of England has a presence in almost every rural settlement and village in England and plays an important and intricate role in rural community life.
Fiona Bruce
Village congregations play an important part in community life in my constituency. What can the Church Commissioners do to support the widest possible use of church buildings?
Tony Baldry
My hon. Friend raises an important point about the use of church buildings. The cathedral and church buildings division of the archbishops’ council has been working for the last five years to help congregations do everything that they can to work with communities to identify how church buildings can be used creatively to serve the widest community use. We now see extended use of church buildings, including as post offices, shops, libraries, internet cafes, benefit advice centres and citizens advice centres. Wherever possible, we want to see churches as living buildings where as much community activity as possible takes place, and the Church Commissioners will always support such activity.
Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 3 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
It gives me great pleasure to support my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) and his Bill. One of the main features of the debate has been the contribution of social enterprises to our local communities. We must interpret as broadly as possible the organisations that can fall within the ambit of the Bill. My hon. Friend mentioned more socially responsible businesses, and in that regard my view runs counter to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), who suggested that we should substitute “charity” for “social enterprise”. I suggest the opposite, because far more local businesses are contributing to our communities than has been recognised, certainly by the previous Administration. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to highlight the contribution that those businesses make.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) said, many people are in business not just to make a profit but to contribute to their local communities. Walking down our local high street, we would be hard pressed to find a retailer who was not contributing to the community in one way or another. For example, in my constituency, there is a traditional menswear outfitter called Davenport’s. Members might wonder how Davenport’s could make a social contribution, but it is Davenport’s that donates props and clothing to the Daneside community theatre, which in turn makes a wonderful contribution to community life in Congleton. During the school holidays, dozens if not hundreds of young people who might otherwise be at a loose end spend their time creating theatre shows for the town. That is an excellent example of one small business contributing to the community as a whole and making a positive difference.
It would be wonderful if our town council, with its small budget, had the freedom to place high on its agenda a recognition of the contribution made by businesses such as Davenport’s to our community well-being when it is awarding the relatively modest contracts that can nevertheless make a real difference to the welfare of small businesses, especially at a challenging time on the high street.
I understand the point about the concerns that the Federation of Small Businesses might have about the proposals. Speaking as someone who has run a small business for well over 20 years, I, too, was concerned when I initially looked at the Bill, because I knew that many small businesses operated on the margins—on tiny margins, as I experienced when I set up my business. I declare an interest as someone involved in running a socially responsible business. It took many years before my business made any real profit, but if I had been able to consider even small opportunities for contracts with our local authority, it might have made a difference.
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)
Given that the purpose is not to subsidise for-profit enterprises that are operating at the margins, but to encourage businesses or organisations that operate as a business—they may have a turnover and may have a surplus—surely the primary objective should be contribution to the community rather than to the shareholders.
Fiona Bruce
I believe that “community” comprises many different factors, one of which is having flourishing businesses. If the awarding of public contracts can make a difference to flourishing businesses, large or small, that should count as social or public value. It is not, as many people mistakenly claim, about offering public service on the cheap; rather, it is about adding value to our communities.
Like many of my colleagues, I will have knocked on thousands of doors on a political journey. One key theme that came across to me again and again, particularly when I campaigned in a large town during a previous general election campaign, was a yearning for community life. I am fortunate that I now represent a constituency comprising mainly smaller towns where such community life still continues. Government support to businesses that, in turn, contribute to the maintenance and, indeed, the strength of community life will be valuable.
Steve Baker
Does my hon. Friend agree that all enterprise is necessarily social because it seeks to create value for other people?
Fiona Bruce
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as that is exactly what I am saying. I think that we will find very few organisations that do not merit consideration under the Bill when public contracts are awarded. We should therefore think carefully before narrowing the definition of the enterprises that we want to include.
I would like to highlight some clear examples of where a social enterprise in my constituency has been less well served than it could have been under the current criteria for awarding public contracts. I mention an enterprise called Visyon. It is an excellent organisation in my community; it provides counselling and support for young people who need social or emotional help. Visyon has given me two excellent examples of where it believes it might have benefited if the Bill had been in force. First, it bid for a contract against a private tenderer, but the criteria for the tendering process included such elements as credit checks, the evidence of significant surplus of funds and high net asset value. Visyon says:
“If criteria had… included… social outcomes and values, we may… have… scored more highly based on such criteria.”
It did not succeed in winning the contract. In another case, it bid for the provision of mental health advice and support in schools in the Cheshire region. It gave evidence that it could provide such advice at one third of the cost of its competitor for the tender, the educational psychology team, but it lost that one, too.
I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) is not in her place, because I wanted to pay tribute to the work that she and her local authority did in the north-west region. Salford council in particular worked closely with organisations such as B4Box. I met Aileen McDonnell and also pay tribute to her work. It is worth noting that through her organisation, people who have been unemployed for some time go into work and are sustainably employed. That is to her credit. I look forward to seeing B4Box’s work growing and flourishing across the wider region.
I would also like to highlight the work of the Message Trust. I know that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles spent some years supporting it, as has Salford council and the police. It is important to remember that when we talk about awarding public contracts, we are not talking only about local councils. The Salford local authority and the police have supported the work of the Message Trust over many years, and it has proved extremely beneficial. I would like to spend a few moments to describe it to hon. Members.
The Eden project, which is run by the Message Trust, organises groups of 10 young people, perhaps in their 20s or 30s, who commit for a period of five years to living in a deprived area and to giving 25 hours a week of their time—most of these people are also working—on the streets, getting alongside young people who are suffering through fractured families, drug problems, lack of self-worth, joblessness and so forth. That helps such people to understand how to engage positively within their communities, perhaps initially through voluntary groups, and subsequently helps them into training and work. It has proved enormously successful over many years.
I endeavoured to engage with another local authority regarding this scheme. I took representatives from the Eden project to meet council officials and I had several meetings and obtained support from local volunteers. I was aware that a recent local authority report had expressed the concern that its youth work was not hitting the mark. Frustratingly, however, it was impossible for that local authority to commit to an Eden project of its own, despite the fact that providing 10 youth workers on the streets cost only about £40,000 a year. That is not much more than the salary of one youth worker—plus add-on costs, overhead and supervisory costs—employed by a local council.
Although some local authorities are connecting well with organisations such as the Eden project, others are still reluctant to alter their mindset and change from an approach that allows them greater control towards one involving more trust, albeit perhaps with an element of risk. The trust might have to associate with organisations with which it has not connected previously or not worked with previously. As I say, it might not have the same degree of control. None the less, if we do not move in this way, we might miss the opportunity to change so many of our particularly deprived communities or those with real need. I believe that the Bill will provide a greatly needed catalyst for a change in the mindset of the many authorities that need to start looking outward rather than inward in deciding how they will provide, contract and procure local services.
Fiona Bruce
May I invite the Minister to meet representatives of the Eden project and the Message Trust? I believe that they have much to offer local communities: indeed, they aspire to engage with up to 60 local communities across the nation.
Mr Hurd
I should be happy to do that. I have written to all Members of Parliament offering them the opportunity to bring in representatives of voluntary community sector organisations in their constituencies. I understand that there is tremendous enthusiasm out there, and that organisations are anxious to understand the big society agenda better and what it could mean for them. The invitation is open to all Members on both sides of the House.
We consider social enterprises to be valuable in terms of making a social impact and our determination to promote enterprise and private-sector growth. We are making it easier to run a social enterprise by establishing a taskforce to reduce bureaucracy and red tape for social enterprises; reducing the small-profits rate of corporation tax to 20% from April 2011; offering a one-year temporary increase in the level of small business rate relief from October 2011; and taking a different approach to regulation by introducing the one-in, one-out rule, whereby we will not introduce any new regulation without abolishing existing regulations with a net cost to business.
Secondly, we are ensuring the resilience of the social enterprise sector by developing a big society bank to help grow the new market of social investment that is seeking to blend financial return with social impact. It is a real market, but also an embryonic one and we want to accelerate its growth. We think the big society bank can be a catalyst for that, such as by making it easier for social enterprises to access the capital they need. That will come on stream in quarter two or quarter three of next year.
As has been said, we have—at a time when there is very little money around—set up a £100 million transition fund to support voluntary community organisations and social enterprises delivering front-line services that stand to be affected in the short term by reductions in spending. We have also included social enterprises in the offer to access a £1.4 billion regional growth fund to invest in projects and programmes with significant potential for growth and employment.
Finally, we are making it easier to do business with the state by opening up markets for social enterprises, as I have discussed. There will be a fundamental reform of public services with an explicit commitment to try to create more space for social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations to help us deliver better public services.
With the two conditions of our resistance to legislating for strategies both at national and local authority level, we support the Bill’s objectives. We think it is consistent with the big society agenda and our public service reform aims, and with our intention to make it easier for charities, voluntary sector organisations and social enterprises to deliver public services. We think it will help us maximise value for the taxpayer and improve the process of consultation with communities in the shaping of public services. It will support social enterprise, which in itself is a worthy aim. It simply proposes a duty to consider, where relevant and proportionate. It does not compromise autonomy or add additional burdens. It is about trying to turn best practice into standard practice and to deliver the best possible value to taxpayers, and it is on that basis that we are prepared to support the Bill.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend makes a good point. He is right to emphasise the riskier approach, because sometimes there is a risk. For example, in my constituency, the local council decided to let the contract for the running of the local leisure centre to a charitable trust based in Poole. It became apparent that the trust was not delivering on what was set out in the contract, and after several years the contract had to be taken back in-house. Subsequently, a couple of other projects that the trust was running were found to be financially unsustainable, and that was the end of that, I think. We must not get into a frame of mind in which we think that anything that calls itself a social enterprise is, by definition, a good thing. Such bodies have to be run along business lines.
To take another example, people in Verwood—a town that is no longer in my constituency, sadly, but was until the time of the last general election—have set up a community enterprise called the Verwood Hub, which is a community centre. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that they have not been applying business principles to the running of that centre, so they are having to go back to the local authority and say, “Please give us some more money.” The local authority is making it clear that it can go only so far in doing that, because there is a limit to how much it can be expected to use local taxpayers’ money to make up for the deficiencies in the business plan of what might otherwise be described as a laudable community enterprise.
Fiona Bruce
We must not let the example of one or two less successful projects restrict the opportunity for the public sector to enter into entrepreneurial projects with local groups. The spirit of enterprise does, of necessity, involve risk. We have seen that spirit in this nation over many decades, if not centuries, and it is the seed of the fruit of phenomenally successful community and commercial organisations. We can look back in the history of this nation at some tremendous businesses that have done social good, so it would be dangerous for us almost to sanitise public procurement, as we have done to a large extent,. It can never be risk-free. Without an element of risk, we will reduce the opportunity for those great potential benefits that have flourished in this nation in years gone by.
Mr Chope
Absolutely, and that is very much the theme behind the submission from the Federation of Small Businesses on the Bill, which a number of hon. Members will have received. It makes the point:
“The Bill describes social enterprises as businesses ‘carried on primarily for a purpose that promotes or improves social or environmental well-being’. While such organisations are undeniably valuable, micro businesses also serve such a function. What sets them apart from social enterprises however is that their primary purpose will be to make a profit and remain in business.”
That is the important part—remaining in business. They cannot do that unless they make a profit, as they are often unable to raise capital. That was the problem with the charitable trust that I mentioned earlier. It was not able to reinvest in the leisure centre, which as a result became rather dowdy and did not meet the needs of the customers.
Fiona Bruce
Staying in business may be the immediate aim of a micro-business, but there is often a greater end to that. The aspiration is that in time, it will be able to become an established small business and make a difference to its community and environment. We have to support and nurture micro-businesses in order for them to make that difference.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we all have examples from our constituencies of businesses that started very small and have become quite large. One such business in my constituency makes organic baby food, and now supplies it to major national retailers. It was based on the idea of an entrepreneur who asked, “Why are we not ensuring that people can guarantee that their children are being fed wholesome baby food at the most nutritionally important time of their life?” That enterprise struck a chord with the consumer, hence its great success. There are a lot of other examples that I will not trouble the House with at the moment.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Given time, I am sure that he would develop his argument in relation to north Somerset, as he has so ably on previous Fridays.
Localism is of great importance. When we talk about its importance, we should not be too fussed about whether we are talking about a local small business, a local social enterprise or a local charity. We must not create artificial distinctions.
Fiona Bruce
We must also not differentiate between a business being local and being big. It would be dangerous if we equated local with small. As a member of the all-party group on small business, I was a guest yesterday evening at an event at which one of the “Dragons”, Theo Paphitis, spoke powerfully about the impact of his chain of shops, Ryman. He took the group on when there were about 80 shops, and there are now about 260. He encourages local staff at each store to raise money for local community projects and he then matches it. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be dangerous if we started defining too narrowly the scope of even the businesses with which we want to engage? Local does not necessarily mean small, although as someone who has run a small local business, I fully emphasise the importance of what small businesses bring to local community life.
Mr Chope
I agree absolutely. There are so many examples. The local community may be dependent on the local post office, but the Post Office is a national organisation with a national network. None the less, it is ever so important that the local branch of that national network in a particular village is maintained and viable. The same is true of the local pub. It does not have to be owned as a freehold by somebody local; it may be part of a national pub chain. That makes no difference to the important role that it will play in helping to maintain the local community. We could go on with lots of other examples.
I turn now to the “residue” of the Bill, and I should tell my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington that I do not mean that disparagingly—perhaps “a distillation of the Bill” would be a better expression. When we get to clause 3, we are left with a duty on local authorities not to do anything, but to consider something. My hon. Friend said that that does not offend against the principles of localism and that it is legitimate for the Government to require local authorities, and thereby councillors, to consider particular things.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 4 months ago)
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Tony Baldry
The difficulty with the gift aid scheme at the present moment is that churches and parishes have to maintain enormous numbers of paper records, just in case there is any spot check from HMRC. It involves thousands of volunteer hours just to do so, and it would be perfectly possible to do it as effectively online, much more simply. That would be in everyone’s interests, not least those of HMRC. The Church and, I am sure, other charities will continue to pursue that with ministerial colleagues in the Treasury and with the Treasury itself.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
3. What account the Church Commissioners take of ethical criteria when making investments.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
7. What account the Church Commissioners take of ethical criteria when making investments.
Tony Baldry
The Church Commissioners are committed to managing our assets in a way that reflects the Church’s teaching and values and take advice on ethical investment policies from the Church’s ethical investment advisory group.
Fiona Bruce
How do the Church Commissioners use their substantial wealth to encourage responsible corporate practice?
Tony Baldry
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. The Church Commissioners seek positively to encourage responsible corporate practice by the businesses in which we invest. We are signatories to the United Nations principles for responsible investment. We vote our shares in line with the importance we attach to good corporate governance. We continuously discuss environmental, social and governance issues with our investment managers, and if ever we should have a concern about corporate practice in a company in which we invest, we engage with that company to seek to influence its corporate behaviour at board level.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Maude
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if there are any consultants being used, that will have been signed off personally by a Minister in the Department for Education and will be made public online shortly. He should address his question to my colleagues in that Department and scan the website for notification.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
3. What plans he has to reduce the regulatory burden on the voluntary and community sectors.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
9. What plans he has to reduce the regulatory burden on the voluntary and community sectors.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)
We thoroughly accept the implication of the question. Voluntary organisations are subject to much too much regulation and monitoring. That is why, in addition to the important work that Lord Young is doing on reducing the impact of health and safety legislation and the compensation culture on those organisations, we are about to launch a specific taskforce to examine the impact of regulation on small organisations. We hope to announce the chair of that taskforce very shortly and that it will complete its work by next spring.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the Minister for his answer. One of the key areas of the Government’s big society project is to encourage volunteering. However, it is accepted that in many disadvantaged areas there are lower levels of volunteering. For example, school governor places remain vacant. Will he consider how we can break down the barriers, whether regulatory or otherwise, that deter a broader number of people from coming forward to volunteer, particularly in disadvantaged areas?
Mr Letwin
The short answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes. She is absolutely right that we need to break down those barriers, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is currently looking at how we might do that.
It is important to note that the accusation that is sometimes made that school governors will need to have Criminal Records Bureau checks is not correct. Unless those governors are involved in working with children in school on a day-to-day basis, all that needs to be checked is the list 99 bar. We are, of course, also looking at how we can reduce CRB checks to a common-sense level and at the vetting and barring regime. I hope that all those things will help persuade people that it is well worth doing important voluntary work.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(15 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. I do not wish to be unkind to new Ministers, but answers are, frankly, too long. They need to be shorter.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
3. What assessment he has made of the effects on voluntary organisations of the Government's regulatory and administrative requirements.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd): One of our priorities is to make it easier to run a voluntary organisation, so we are committed to clearing the thicket of bureaucracy that too often gets in the way of doing good and to setting up a joint task force with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to look at how we can reduce red tape for small organisations.
Fiona Bruce
The requirements for people to obtain more than one Criminal Records Bureau check when working or volunteering with different community organisations is causing much duplication and expense, both to individuals and to community groups such as Crossroads Care Cheshire East in my constituency. Will the Minister consider reviewing the CRB check procedure and introducing one single registerable and transferrable check for each individual?
Mr Hurd
I welcome my hon. Friend to the House and wish her every success in following in some quite formidable footsteps. The point she makes is extremely important and that frustration has been expressed to me by a number of voluntary organisations. I hope that she will be pleased to know that, in the coalition agreement, the Government are committed to reviewing the criminal records and vetting and barring regime and I will make sure that the relevant Minister in the Home Office is aware of her concerns. She and I will be following that review very closely.