King’s Speech (4th Day)

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome my new noble friend Lord Vallance to his place and congratulate him on his brilliant maiden speech. I also welcome my noble friend Lord Livermore to his job. I just say to my noble friend Lord Vallance how important his work during the pandemic was to this then Labour health spokesperson trying to hold the then Government to account.

As the last Back-Bench speaker in this debate on the gracious Speech, I know that it is often the case that everything has been said at least three times before and is going to be said again. It is possible, however, that my contribution, which concerns the place of co-operative enterprise, social enterprise, mutual enterprise, civil society in general and impact economy solutions in the task we have set ourselves of national renewal and fulfilling the missions on which our election was fought, might not have been said yet.

I am a Labour and Co-operative Member of your Lordships’ House; I am the founding chair of Social Enterprise UK and now its patron; I founded the social enterprise all-party group in 2001; and I am chair of the co-operative innovation trust and an associate director of E3M, which brings together the leaders of social businesses who contract to provide public services. The social enterprise sector has 131,000 social businesses, employs 2.3 million people and has a turnover of over £78 billion.

I welcomed with joy that, with the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party shares a manifesto commitment to double the size of the co-operative and financial and mutual sector, which includes, in my view, social enterprises and community business. It is a vital ambition to securing economic growth and ensuring that the benefits of co-operatives and social enterprises can be felt more widely across the economy.

I have a series of questions for my noble friend the Minister but, as I am the last speaker, I do not expect specific answers right now. However, it is important for the stakeholders that we have answers to these questions. The first is about the machinery of government, which concerns how we can deliver this. At present, the responsibility for social enterprise sits in the DCMS, alongside civil society—a result of the vagaries of the last Government’s neglect and lack of interest. If there is to be a drive to promote SMEs and businesses of all kinds, surely businesses which are established for a social purpose and those which are contracting to deliver public services—some very substantial ones indeed—need to be the responsibility of the Department for Business and Trade. Is that possible?

Indeed, the whole of civil society, much of which is delivering services and supporting communities, is part of the DCMS. To maximise its essential contribution to our national renewal, surely responsibility for it needs to be across government. Which Minister will be responsible, and how will the Government ensure cross-governmental delivery, given that no department or officials have responsibility for this at the moment?

Linked to the place of civil society is the potential of impact investing. As we face constrained public spending and pressing social challenges, we must look to innovative solutions. The impact economy—a coalition of philanthropists, impact investors and purpose-driven businesses—offers a way forward; it has the potential to contribute billions to our economy.

The Community Match Challenge, launched during the Covid years, successfully matched £85 million in government grants with funds from philanthropists and foundations, and supported charities and community organisations across the country. By providing crucial finding to community development finance institutions, the community investment enterprise fund is fostering economic growth and job creation where it is most needed. How can these initiatives, which are about boosting growth, be scaled up? Are we thinking of setting up an office for impact investment or a strategy?

Finally, the Start-Up, Scale-Up report addresses a plan for high growth and the issue of making public procurement work for start-ups and small businesses. It recommends that we create a procurement council of experts to review best practice and identify areas of improvement, and to review the barriers to better pre-market engagement. This is a very relevant matter to mutual social enterprises and the co-operative provision of public services. How will this link to the support of a proposed social values council? I am happy to say that a letter in the Library will suffice.