Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman cannot raise that at this point. It should have come before, and it did not. What is required now is an indication of “now”.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Now.

Second Reading.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I beg to move that the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163), and negatived.

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[Harriett Baldwin]

That is an extremely low rate, but in fact the annualised default rate has been just over 1%. The case has been proven that a portfolio approach can be taken to investment in such social enterprise organisations.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) is no longer in his place, because he and I have enjoyed many lively debates on many different topics and I would have pointed out to him that we do have an arrangement in this country whereby the Government spend money on behalf of taxpayers—and that is an accepted fact. This Bill would helpfully draw to the attention of the procurer who spends public money the existence of social enterprises, which might offer an attractive alternative to the state building its own apparatus or to a private sector provider.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on introducing this Bill. Two Fridays ago in Stratford-on-Avon we held a big society day. Local government attended and we had standing room only. Two things emerged. First, what Government can do is to provide—in business terms—the mission statement. Secondly, that mission statement then needs to be implemented locally in, perhaps, diverse ways. That is where the gap in the debate may occur.

Another point that emerged from the big society day was the overlap between social enterprises and voluntary providers. We need to send a message to them that in such cases it would be of benefit to both if they worked together more closely, which could make them more successful in bidding for some of this money.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that informative intervention. I, too, represent a constituency that has many shining examples of big society organisations. From my perch on the investment committee at the Social Investment Business, I have been able to see many different social enterprises across the land that are flourishing—from Salford to Stratford—and that would be helped by being brought to the attention of public service procurers in other areas. By outlining the need for a national strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington has introduced a very helpful Bill.

As we all know, there is allegedly no money left, so it will probably not be as easy as it was to help the social enterprise sector. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles would agree that even had her party been elected to government it would have found it difficult to provide similar amounts for funds such as the Futurebuilders fund as they did before. Therefore, we need to emphasis the role that foundations, philanthropists or people who would like to invest in an ethical individual savings account could play by providing a portfolio of funding to help to draw on the experience that Government money has developed over the years, as well as the low default rate and good rate of return.

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[Mr Hurd]

It is a little early in my speech to give way.

Once the right hon. Lady had recovered sufficiently, she expressed her admiration for the quiet determination shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington. She knows a great deal about determination, quiet or otherwise, and she was entirely right in what she said. I wish to add my sincere congratulations to him, not just on his good fortune at the ballot box but on his subsequent tenacity in building a coalition and the way in which he presented his case today. It is a considerable demonstration of his commitment to improving public services and trying to get a better deal for taxpayers.

I also wish to confirm from the start that the Government are happy for the Bill to go into Committee, if that is the will of the House. We will seek to amend it, in ways that I will explain, but we support the core proposition of the Bill that we should place a firmer requirement on commissioners—those who do the very difficult job of shaping and purchasing public services on our behalf—to consider the potential to maximise the social, environmental and economic impact of every pound they spend on behalf of the taxpayer. In doing so, the Bill builds on the principle of the best value duty, as my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) said.

The Bill is also consistent with what the Government are trying to achieve with the big society agenda. I genuinely hope that that issue becomes less partisan over time, not least because—as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington and the right hon. Lady, the former Secretary of State, said—the message builds on the aspirations of, and actions taken by, former Governments. Given the problems and challenges that we face as a country, it must be right to challenge all of us to think about our obligations and personal responsibilities beyond just paying taxes and obeying the law. It must be right to work together to try to find better ways to do things and, in that process, to try to tap into the skills, talents, ideas, experience and entrepreneurial energy that exists in our communities, but which too often feels shut out from the system. It must be right to encourage and support people to come together to try to solve problems and improve life for themselves and their communities.

I am lucky in the job that I do—and the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) will find this, too, as he now shadows me—to visit every week communities and community organisations in which people are coming together to try to make a contribution and to do some good to improve life in their area. It is genuinely inspiring and gives me great confidence that we have a firm foundation on which to build this bigger and stronger society, if we can do more to encourage and support it.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend makes precisely the point about which the shadow Minister was confused. The procurement officers will not be compelled to do something from the top down, but will have the same choices before them as they have always had. Rather, they will be asked to look imaginatively at those choices. We are talking about benevolent libertarianism and a nudge forward—not what the shadow Minister was confused about.

[Mr Hurd]

I do not think that the Opposition were confused in any way: I think that they knew exactly what they were trying to do. However, my hon. Friend is right. This is not a heavy-handed approach: it is a requirement to consider, where relevant and proportionate. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) suggested that it was a catalyst—a good word—to try to open more minds to a better and more intelligent way to commission, which considers the opportunity to achieve multiple outcomes through the transaction.

The big society agenda is not a Government programme, but the Government have an enormously important role to play. The Prime Minister has been clear about the three strands of action that people can expect from the Government, one of which—a very important one—is public service reform. Early in the new year we will publish a White Paper on public service reform that will make it clear what we are trying to achieve and how we intend to achieve it. Our desire is that public services will be built on stronger relationships with the communities and citizens they serve, and that they will be, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, more local, more personalised and more responsive. We want to devolve power to people on the front line who know how things can be done better, including extending the right to provide that was initiated by the previous Administration. We want to try to encourage and unlock that energy that sits inside the public services, which we feel has been constrained and stifled by a regime of overly oppressive targets and bureaucracy.