Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill

Debate between Baroness Coffey and Richard Fuller

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller]

The right hon. Lady is much more familiar with, and expert in, this area than me, but there is a difference between mechanism and consideration in local accountability. We have the mechanism. It consists of our local councils and our democratically elected councillors, who are there to make these judgments. However, we want to enable them—and the Bill would do this—to have consideration of the factors and features that she mentions, rather than the sole consideration of lowest cost, on which they often focus their efforts and attention, particularly at times of budget concerns.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

Following on from the intervention by the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), one of the concerns expressed to me by some of my constituents is not so much that profits could be made out of public assets, but about how, if companies fail, which they sometimes do—it is one of the essences of the market—those assets will be recovered, so that services do not go away or get stripped. That needs some consideration in Committee.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I agree that we want the opportunity to discuss these issues in Committee.

Where will the Bill lead? The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles—I apologise for referring to her again—talked about this being a relatively modest-sounding Bill that could have significant consequences. From my short time looking at politics, that often seems to be the way. The Conservative Government in the 1980s, when they started with their approach to privatisation, were probably not aware of what a significant wave of change they were unleashing and that it would be a model around the world. In a different way, this Bill and the additional measures that I hope the Government will introduce, building on the work of previous Governments, could have the same significant impact.

To make that happen, however, we need a couple of additional efforts. First, we need to recognise that many social enterprises and charities are institutionally small and consist of few people—perhaps 10 or 20—a lot of whom might be volunteers. They might have a lot of spirit, but the procurement process will be quite complicated for them, so we need to enable them to come together to procure efficiently and compete effectively with the very efficient and knowledgeable for-profit procurement companies. I hope that the Minister will, either today or in the months ahead, come forward with suggestions for how that can be better enabled, so that the window opened by the Bill can be taken advantage of by these social enterprises.