Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Letwin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

2. Whether private sector organisations will be able to make applications to the big society bank.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

The big society bank will provide finance for the voluntary and community sector through funds to social lenders and investors. It will provide funds only to bodies that are onward lending or investing in the voluntary and community sector, charities and community groups.

[Lindsay Roy]

I thank the Minister for his response. In the light of that, can he please indicate how the bank will define social enterprise, as currently there is not a legal definition? How will he ensure that all social enterprises have access to funding but that no organisation that exists for private profit has such access?

[Mr Letwin]

Social enterprises can take a wide range of different forms, but the common feature is that they do not seek to make a profit for shareholders. I think there is a widely understood definition of voluntary and community sector groups, and the big society bank will be organised in such a way that it can identify those and make sure that the funds that it is providing to social investors and social lenders go only to those groups.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I commend the intellectual ideas behind the whole concept of the big society? May I also commend to my right hon. Friend an article by Tim Montgomerie that appeared on ConservativeHome earlier this week entitled, “Conservatives can win the poverty debate but not if the Big Society is our message”? Is the big society more accurately described as a label for a collection of policies rather than a policy itself?

[Mr Speaker]

I hope that the Minister will answer with particular reference to private sector applications and the big society bank.

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Speaker.

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the big society is an idea with a very wide application. The big society bank is a fund that will have a very wide application, because we believe it is extremely important that it should be able to foster all sorts of voluntary and community enterprise which, in one way or another, enormously support the alleviation of poverty—the subject of the article to which he refers.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The idea of such a bank to help to develop the centre of civil society is a good one, but effective government requires a mix of big ideas and getting the details right. In this connection, has the Minister seen today’s report by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which suggests that if the big society bank lends purely on commercial terms, it will be

“failing to support those that it is set up to support”?

What can he say to ensure that the lofty rhetoric of the big society bank does not founder on the rock of inadequate administrative detail?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right to say that the big society bank could not operate as it is intended to operate if it were lending, or investing, on purely commercial terms. It will have what is often described as a double bottom line: it will seek to achieve the highest possible social returns alongside reasonable financial returns. Indeed, part of the point of the big society bank is to show that there is no conflict between achieving high social returns and achieving modest but reasonable financial returns.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

3. What recent representations his Department has received on the big society initiative.

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[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

11. When he expects the first payments from the big society bank to be made.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Oliver Letwin)]

The first payments will be made in the next few months. The exact timing and amounts will be decided by the Reclaim Fund once it has assessed the amounts that it has received from the banks and the amounts that are likely to be reclaimed from depositors.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We hear constantly from businesses and social enterprises that high street banks are unwilling to back innovative or new ventures. How will the Government ensure that the big society bank is different and that it assesses applications in such a way that it does not exclude start-ups and innovative organisations in favour of only the established players in the social enterprise and charities sector?

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that issue. The whole point about the big society bank, as I tried to indicate to the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) a moment or two ago, is that it will be entirely different from a commercial bank. It will be set up precisely to achieve social return as much as commercial return. The other vital point is that it will operate through social lenders and investors already in the marketplace, so it should be able to reach out to the smallest community and voluntary groups and not just be restricted to the large groups that also play an important role.

[Jack Lopresti]

Is the latest estimate of money to be raised from dormant bank accounts still £400 million, and what progress has been made in securing an additional £200 million from the UK’s largest banks?

[Mr Letwin]

Yes, the estimated amount to be raised from dormant accounts remains at £400 million. The Reclaim Fund will now assess the exact amount that it can release in the first year, and the current estimate is somewhere between £60 million and £100 million. Then there are, of course, the negotiations that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is having with the four main lending banks that were party to the Merlin agreement about another £200 million of funding. Altogether, there should be a considerable amount of funding coming through this year and in following years.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The NESTA report referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) stated that the big society bank

“should not expect to achieve commercial returns on all its investments”.

By far the majority of demand for capital is for soft capital and patient capital. Why, after two months of intense talks between the banks and the Treasury, do we still not have an agreement? The banks are saying that they want commercial returns. Will the Minister confirm today that the big society bank will not be about commercial returns for the banks but about genuine support for social and community enterprises?

[Mr Letwin]

The right hon. Lady is confusing two levels of lending and investment. There is the question of what the big society bank demands of the investments that it makes, and as I have said, that will be both a social return and a modest financial return, but not the type of commercial return that one might make with a hedge fund or in another such way. Then there is the relationship between the big society bank and the main commercial banks that are party to the Merlin agreement. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is currently discussing the exact terms on which that investment will be made. It will have to be compatible with social objectives and the social returns that the big society bank is intended to make.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

10. What recent progress his Department has made on establishing public sector mutuals.