Social Enterprise

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I have not seen the White Paper or the Green Paper. I am sorry, but I cannot answer that at the moment.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

When the Minister made his first response, I think he was quoting from Social Enterprise: Market Trends, a publication from BEIS on issues relating to social enterprise. He dwelt on all the good news, but I draw his attention to the bad news, which is that social enterprises,

“continue to struggle with accessing the finance they need”,

relative to SMEs and other businesses. It says that,

“Forty-nine per cent had difficulty … obtaining finance from the first source they approached”,

and that, overall,

“Thirty-one per cent of social enterprises got none of the finance they required”.

What is he going to do about that?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

In order to increase the flows of capital to social enterprise in the United Kingdom we are strengthening the infrastructure of the market; for example, by setting up organisations such as Access that bridge the gap between social enterprises and social investors. We are working to open up social investment products to individuals by setting up an advisory group made up of senior representatives of the investment industry.