Public Services (Social Value) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Friday 27th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be speaking from these Benches in support of the Bill. I should begin by declaring my interests and relevant experience, first, as honorary secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Enterprise, under the wise chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I am also an ambassador to sporta, the trade body for the many leisure and sports trusts that have already been referred to in the debate. I am, of course, a lifelong co-operator—I am Labour and Co-operative. I was founding chair of Social Enterprise UK and for many years served on the board of Social Enterprise London. I was a trustee of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen foundation and Training for Life, and I am now a patron of the Manningham Mills Community Centre—of which I am particularly proud, given that I am Baroness Thornton of Manningham. The centre is opposite the infant and junior school that I attended.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that at this stage of the Second Reading debate just about everything that can be said in support of the Bill has been said. However, it is important that from these Benches we record how grateful we are to Mr Chris White MP for choosing this subject following the Private Members’ Bills ballot. I confess that it puzzled me as to why and how a Bill that started life as a Bill for social enterprise now makes no mention of it at all. Indeed, two of its major aims were dropped. That presented some of us with a problem—having called it the “Social Enterprise Bill” for a large part of its life, we have had to rename it. As someone who has been working with social enterprises for many years, I went to find out what people thought about the fact that two parts of the Bill had been amended by the removal of provisions for a national social enterprise strategy and a duty on local authorities to engage with social enterprises.

I shall make one or two points about that. The first is that we should not lose sight of those aims and objectives and there is no reason at all why, nationally and locally, they cannot be done anyway. It is worth quoting what Mr White said about this. He stated:

“The social value section was the most important section of the bill. It is important that social value is included in as many contracts as possible. My bill is aimed at practically supporting socially responsible business practices. This is a step on a journey and I believe that the sector should be commended for taking a long term view of the benefits of this bill and not taking the view of ‘all or nothing’”.

We have indeed been on a journey in this sector for many years. I read with interest what Allison Ogden-Newton, the chief executive of Social Enterprise London, had to say about this issue because, like me, she was struggling with the idea of what one should call the Bill. She took, as she would have done, soundings among social enterprises in the London area. June O’Sullivan of the London Early Years Foundation wisely said that what she would like from the legislation was anything that removed procurement barriers such as a mandatory £20 million turnover to tender. She added that,

“getting the concept of social value into their”

—local authority—

“heads wouldn’t hurt”.

Amen to that. Mark Sesnan, the director of GLL, which manages 100 leisure facilities across the country and has one of the Olympic legacy contracts, said:

“Having social enterprise in there was powerful, but removing it is not terminal. We welcomed the bill because it asked for government to look for more than just price in contracts. If it still does that then that’s great, continuing to describe such activity as social enterprise would have been the icing on the cake”.

My noble friend Lady Hayter was right, as ever, when she said that we need to get a move on with the Bill because it is a progressive measure that we would like to see on the statute book before the end of the Session. We on these Benches will do nothing to hinder that process and we will be happy to do anything to help the Bill’s progress.

I have been supporting co-operatives, mutuals, social enterprises and voluntary organisations all my life—from joining the Bradford Co-op when I was 16 years old to helping to steer through this House legislation on the right to request in the NHS, as well as legislation on industrial and provident societies, charities and companies. I should like to draw attention to two examples of organisations where contracting and working with local government and the health service really works.

The first such organisation is just across the river. The Blackfriars Settlement, which many noble Lords will know, is a small community-based organisation that is surviving against all the odds. Its Art2Print social enterprise employs people with mental health problems and trains them in design and print. It is a partnership of funding from local authorities and money that the Blackfriars Settlement organises. It is doing a good job of building local print and design services for other local community groups and, more importantly, getting people who have had serious mental health problems back on the employment pathway.

Secondly, I mention my home town of Bradford, which has many social enterprises, many of which go back for many years. The Lighthouse Group in Bradford provides support for children and young people who have fallen out of the education system, and Urban Biz, which was formed in Bradford, is aimed at marginalised and disadvantaged groups, particularly those from African or African-Caribbean roots. Both those organisations depend on local government contracts and bodies such as the late, lamented Yorkshire Forward. Both are struggling at the moment, but offer the kind of value to their local communities that we have been discussing today.

All those bodies welcome and support the Bill, as do we. As I said, we will do anything we can to progress the Bill and add it to the legislative and policy framework that is helping to create a larger and more powerful sector in our economy for social businesses and businesses that add enormous social value.