Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Oliver Letwin

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

My hon. Friend has a distinguished record in financing voluntary and community groups, and the big society bank will make a difference to that area. The bank is a quite a complicated proposition, and we have to organise it and find the funding for it, but my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General is at work on that at the moment. Although we hope to be able to progress it at a reasonable rate, I certainly do not want to give my hon. Friend the impression that it will happen overnight, but I anticipate it being up and running in the not too distant future.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

What reassurance has the Minister given civil society organisations that the big society agenda is being driven not by marketisation principles and the desire to see the voluntary and community sectors bid for public sector contracts simply to reduce costs, but by the desire to enable genuine community empowerment?

[Mr Letwin]

If the Speaker will permit a little essay, I would say two things in response to the hon. Lady’s important question. First, this is not all about money, in any dimension. The Localism Bill that we are bringing before the House has a huge effect on building social capital, and it does it by empowering people to make decisions about really important things such as their neighbourhood planning. That has nothing to do with saving money and everything to do with building social capital and empowering people.

Secondly, I fear that the hon. Lady shares the error that many of her colleagues have exhibited in thinking that the issue is one of services versus money. We are actually trying to find ways of getting more for less, and we believe that the innovation, enterprise, intelligence and social capital in the voluntary sector will enable us to do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Oliver Letwin

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

The sort of case that my hon. Friend raises is relevant to our concerns, and we are very focused on that. It is one reason for our introducing the big society bank, which will be partly funded in just the way that he describes, and can, in turn, fund social enterprises and voluntary and community service organisations that require funding in the interim.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

According to research by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, third sector organisations that provide education and training opportunities could be the most imperilled by public spending cuts. What is the Minister doing to ensure that training opportunities in the third sector remain? Has he pressed the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury on that?

[Mr Letwin]

I think that the reverse will turn out to be the case, in the sense that the Government are planning a huge and terribly important Work programme, which will focus heavily on not only getting people into jobs, but training them for jobs. We are also greatly enlarging the programme of apprenticeships, and there are various other elements, about which hon. Members will hear in the spending review announcement. Consequently, we anticipate more, not fewer opportunities for voluntary and community organisations to participate in training and employment.