Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill

Steve Baker Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris White]

I do not know whether the deputy policy director has had the opportunity to discuss the Bill with the rest of her organisation, but all I can say is that we have had a clear statement of intent from the FSB that it supports the Bill in principle.

The Bill is intended to create the right future for our public services. Across Government, Ministers are talking about engaging VCSEs in delivering public services. They want to mutualise and localise. I welcome that, as I am sure many Members do, but it will not be achieved through mere rhetoric. Those providers have been bidding for contracts for years, yet many still fail to break into public service delivery. Why is that? It is partly a question of cost. The cost of bidding for public services contracts in this country is far higher than that of bidding for contracts in the private sector. A report by the think-tank ResPublica highlighted the fact that the average cost of bidding for a public sector contract was double that of bidding for a private sector contract. The cost puts civil society organisations off, and if we want them to be more involved in delivery, we have to reduce that cost.

The failure to break into public service delivery is also partly due to the complicated nature of bidding. Many organisations simply do not know how to bid for contracts, and even if they do, they often feel that they lack the necessary expertise to bid successfully. Given the prohibitively high average costs, they are worried about failure. The Bill does not address those points directly, although I hope they will be considered in good time. However, it is important that they be raised, and I believe that we need to do much more to remove those barriers.

What would be best is a widening of the concept of value. At present, “value” is a word that is often purely associated with financial cost. If one buys a box of eggs from one supermarket for 20p less than the price at a competitor supermarket, one is deemed to have got value for money. It has often worked that way in public service delivery. Sadly, the means of delivery and the potential benefits to communities are all too often ignored when it comes to considering the word “value”. I know that many colleagues feel that that is as it should be; after all, if it is cheaper to use one provider than another, why should the taxpayer pay for something that, on the face of it, appears more expensive? However, by focusing purely on short-term cost, we ignore the potential long-term benefits that other organisations could deliver, particularly VCSEs.

Let us take the example of a local authority seeking to hire an organisation to renovate some social housing. There are two bidders. One will simply renovate the social housing, but another will not only do that but take on long-term unemployed people and teach them skills in the construction sector. It will go out to local schools and provide hands-on training so that children learn about the sector. Yet provided that it costs less, the first bidder will often get the contract. That is simply narrow-minded. If we take people who are long-term unemployed off benefits and put them into work so that they can learn valuable skills, and if we teach young people how the sector works, and maybe inspire some to develop related trades, we will bring not only environmental but economic benefits to the wider community. Surely that is better value for the community and better value for money.

In the long term, that is far more valuable than merely paying to renovate a few houses, it is more cost-effective for the taxpayer and it is more beneficial to our communities. In short, it is a better deal, but to get that better deal, we must be willing to consider all the aspects of value, not merely a narrow few. Of course, some bodies and organisations have noticed that. It would be unfair to mention merely one or two at the expense of others, but forward-thinking commissioners across local authorities and the public sector have been considering the wider social, economic and environmental benefits that such contracting attitudes and approaches can generate, which is a big step forward in realising truly intelligent commissioning.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend draws a distinction between values and price and that he recognises that great tapestry of rich value that comprises our lives. Does he agree, however, that a scale of values is absolutely intrinsic to individuals and that each of us values different aspects of our lives differently? With that in mind, why is it necessary to encode such scales of values in not only legislation, but central and local plans?

[Chris White]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. He has talked about two separate issues: the values of individuals and the values of our authorities and the commissioners in them. I think we would agree that those are different types of values; one involves people’s personal interests, while the other involves the interests of the taxpayer and wider society. The second is where the Bill will come in to make sure that the taxpayer gets best value for money and that the community is more involved. Social enterprises, in particular, have a great opportunity to bid for public services and to provide that better value for money.

Commissioning that takes a more holistic view and reduces demand on future services, commissioning that engages with, rather than dictates to, communities and commissioning that drives standards upwards—that is the method of delivery that VCSEs are best at providing. When given the opportunity to do extra, to engage with communities, to work with local businesses and to generate true value for those communities, VCSEs do so and thrive in the localities in which they operate.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on two counts: on being successful in the ballot at his first attempt, and on deciding to pursue such a course. At first sight, the measure appears relatively modest, but I genuinely believe that it is a small Bill with a big intent. He introduced the Bill with characteristic quiet determination. As it goes through its various stages, some of that quiet determination will doubtless be needed.

I broadly welcome the Bill. The hon. Gentleman generously acknowledged that the idea of extending social enterprise and involving communities in helping to run, manage and govern services is not new. It dates back many years, and a range of community groups throughout the country have pursued such work in their communities for decades, making a difference and ensuring that voluntary organisations are well supported. The Bill tries to formalise that position and use the power of public procurement to ensure that community groups, which are often fragile and lack sustainable resources, can have a sustainable future. That is at the heart of the Bill.

If the hon. Gentleman succeeds in ensuring that we use the power of public procurement at national Government and local government level to give people some stability so that voluntary organisations and social enterprises can plan for the medium and long term, he will do a great service to many of our groups, which unfortunately currently spend the majority of their time going round with a begging bowl and living a hand-to-mouth existence looking for temporary grant funding instead of getting on with the job they are there to do—serving the community. If he can provide that sustainability, it will be a welcome step forward.

The hon. Gentleman recognises that the agenda is not new—Governments of all shades have tried to pursue such issues. I had a White Paper in 2008, “Communities in control”, which tried to take much of the agenda forward and suggested a national social enterprise strategy. I appreciate that strategies are not terribly popular, but something that applies across Government and affects every Department needs joined-up policy making. I ask some Conservative Members not to be quite so sceptical of planning and ensuring an integrated approach to the agenda, because that is the key to success.

The third aspect of the Bill is the most important—not the strategies, which are a means of delivering, but the commissioning for social value. It is radical, and I urge the hon. Gentleman not to limit that to the social enterprise sector. It is key that commissioning for social value applies to the public sector and the private sector when it provides public services, as well as the third sector. There is always a danger in this area of policy making that commissioning for social value becomes a nice thing to do for voluntary organisations, charities and the third sector, but we are considering mainstream procurement and commissioning and changing the value set of commissioning to ensure that from the public money that we spend we gain the maximum impact in social value. That is quite a new field.

How do we measure social value? What do we mean by it? A great deal of academic research is being done on it and there is no settled view. The hon. Gentleman gave one example: creating local supply chains. Evidence already exists to show that if we use our public money to support local businesses in a neighbourhood, we get a much larger multiplier effect—approximately £7 for every pound of public money spent—to sustain that local economy, support jobs and enable poorer communities in particular to thrive and develop. That work is still at a fairly formative stage and I hope that, in Committee, we can debate what is—and, indeed, what is not—social value.

[Steve Baker]

Listening to the right hon. Lady’s remarks, I am reminded of a book on social value that was written in the 1920s. Much as I would associate myself with almost everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) said, it seems that socialists have spent nearly 100 years trying, but failing, to define social value loosely. Socialists are no more likely to succeed today than they were in the 1920s. I ask the right hon. Lady to state in concrete terms how she would measure social value.

[Hazel Blears]

I have already said that there are many different views and that it is a developing subject. If the hon. Gentleman claims that the concept of social value is a socialist idea, perhaps he is inviting the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington to cross the Floor.

[Steve Baker]

Of course, we all value society. The right hon. Lady may know of the Cobden society. We gleefully reproduce Cobden’s words:

“Peace will come to earth when the people have more to do with one another and the government less.”

That is precisely the point: when the people have more to do with one another and the Government less. I fear that we are here today to discuss how the Government can have more to do with creating a strategy for that most delicate system of relationships—human social co-operation. Of course, we all value relationships and society, but we differ—it is a fine point, but probably the one about which we have argued most sincerely for more than 100 years—about the extent to which state power should be used to intervene in the dynamic process that is social co-operation. It seems to me that we have moved on—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that interventions, even when they constitute a kind of philosophical musing, must be brief?

[Hazel Blears]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker). If his idea of building a strong and vibrant society is leaving people on their own to get on with it and sink or swim, I entirely reject that. I genuinely believe that the best society is a partnership between active and enabling government—nationally and locally—and the ideas, innovation and passion that local people bring. When a commitment to support people from government and the passion and entrepreneurial spirit of local people are brought together, something really special is created. If they are divided, and we say, “Government must do this in a monolithic way” while local people are left on their own, unsupported and unsustained, we do not get the synergy that makes a difference to our communities. I therefore fundamentally reject the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

[Steve Baker]

I shall be very brief. The right hon. Lady paints a dreary picture of society as being entirely dependent on the state. I agree with much that she has said, but not with the key point that the state must act.

[Hazel Blears]

I am rarely accused of being dreary. I am usually accused of the opposite. If the hon. Gentleman will listen to my further remarks, perhaps he will revise his view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is my great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) in supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) and his Bill. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who spoke about the Bill with her characteristic upbeat breeziness. She was absolutely right to do so.

The Bill has three merits. First, it is a recognition of the coming of age of an institutional form. Secondly, it is a celebration of entrepreneurship. Thirdly, we must understand that the Bill is an enabler of very positive things that can be done to promote the support and funding of our social goods. It is therefore an absolute pleasure to support my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington.

On the point about the history of institutions, I shall avoid too much philosophical musing. [Interruption.] Well, I shall do a little. Each of us as an individual has motivations: things that inspire us and push us to achieve our goals and objectives in life. But most of us are very reliant on institutions to enable us to achieve our goals. That may be our local Church, a programme run by a local council, a trade union that is there to defend us and motivate us in a particular way, a small business that we work for or an entrepreneurial leader whom we follow in order to create our own business. Historically, we have had to give something up in return—our motivations have to be shaped by the motivations of that institutional form. In the military, people cannot make things up as they go along; they have to follow orders to achieve their objectives. Similarly, in corporations, there are certain guidelines intended to achieve shareholder value. I am quite doctrinaire about this. I think that it is important that institutions are clear on their purpose, which is why I welcome and celebrate the growth of social enterprises as a new institutional form.

Social enterprises overcome some of the concerns about trying to make for-profit companies adhere to non-commercial principles. I remember many years ago arguing with Professor Amitai Etzioni about the role of corporate and other organisations. I have not changed my opinion on that over the years. Subsequently we saw the growth of cause-related marketing and other factors that were trying to find a more creative way for for-profit companies to pursue their social objectives other than through traditional donations and sponsorships. Although those have their place, there has always been a gap for a new form of institution to play a role—one that social enterprises have come to play most forcefully over the last 20 or so years. That has helped in that our motivations can now have a different set of stabilisers rather than the straightforward ones of the past.

The Bill is important because it recognises that role. Those of us who were here in the debate about growth last week will remember listening to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) talking about how we can recognise different manifestations of growth and get beyond a pure statistic of GDP growth. That is another reason why these new forms are very important.

I said that this was a coming of age—kind of a 21st birthday—mainly because it was about 21 years ago that I was trying to understand what we could do after the changes wrought both in this country under a Conservative Government and in the United States under President Reagan’s Administration which had identified, certainly for Conservatives, the weakness in government, as an institution, in providing the social goods that many of us as individuals want. I am a firm believer that each of us has a view of fairness, and that we aggregate those views to come up with a collective view of what is fair, or what fairness represents for us as a society. We saw in the 1980s that people had misgivings about the weaknesses of the state and government in delivering, effectively and efficiently, those social goods and services that we wanted.

For a period, for many of us there was a lack of balance. We were not enabling the provision of a sufficient number of social goods and services, not because we did not want them, but because we did not believe in the ability of the government structure to provide them on our behalf. That institutional failure has been addressed over the intervening 20 years, and I again pay tribute to the work of the last Labour Government in identifying that weakness and looking to stimulate alternative ways of providing those goods and services.

Entrepreneurship is, to me, one of the most wonderful motivations that someone can have in life: one has a vision, a mission and an idea, and one wants to create and do something for society. That is extremely important. I am a firm believer in small businesses. I know that in my own community of Bedford and Kempston we rely on small businesses to create prosperity and jobs for the future. But entrepreneurship does not have to come from a profit motive; it can come from a social motive. The inspiration for a doctor is not making a lot of money; it is making people better. The inspiration for many entrepreneurs may not be a desire to maximise their personal wealth; it may well be that they want to have an impact in their local community. For organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses we need to embrace that sense of different motivations that enable people to say, “Here’s my creativity. Here’s my inspiration.” I believe that the Bill will enable us to do that.

[Steve Baker]

I associate myself closely with my hon. Friend’s comments, but I remain confused about why we need to encode this creative search to produce value for others in national and local plans.

[Richard Fuller]

I will try to address my hon. Friend’s point, which I heard earlier and think is a good one, but let us be clear that this is not a doctrinaire or Stalinist interpretation—“Thou shalt do this”. Rather it would provide different measures that local authorities can take into account. There is a prevailing assumption that local authorities and others look only at least cost, but that partly works against what motivates Government Members, who want to promote entrepreneurship. It is not what we want to see. I will talk later about a couple of those things. I hope that he understands that this is not—I would not support such a thing—some fearful rolling forward of the state. It is a new and better way of providing social goods and services that will not rely on the state and is in part a rolling back of state bureaucracy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) made a point about social value and profit. It is worth recognising one of the severe, if not unintended, consequences of current procurement processes—the focus on lowest cost. We should always try to do better for less, but as the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and others mentioned, that is not necessarily the same thing as the pursuit of lowest cost. As we know from our constituencies, local services matter to local people. It is quite hard always to motivate people on the issue of lowering their council tax, but we can motivate them if we decide to close a local service.

There is a boundary here. If we are honest and true to our constituents, we should wish for something more than price-only considerations in the procurement of our local services. That matters, because if we pursue, as we have done, a low-cost approach, the surplus in local communities will get exported, and we will see the growth of national organisations that will take that surplus, which could go to a local small business or local social enterprise, and export it to national shareholders. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but we need to get back some balance, and the Bill would do a good job in providing that balance to local commissioners in the procurement of local services.

The Bill is extremely timely. Many Members have mentioned some of the impacts of the reductions in public expenditure that are necessary in order to get it back in line with our ability to raise money. It is timely because there are a lot of good local services and local assets that could be transferred to social enterprises. All Members, on both sides of the House, have a vested interest in ensuring that we do that as rapidly as possible, and the passage of the Bill today would assist in doing that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

I believe that “community” comprises many different factors, one of which is having flourishing businesses. If the awarding of public contracts can make a difference to flourishing businesses, large or small, that should count as social or public value. It is not, as many people mistakenly claim, about offering public service on the cheap; rather, it is about adding value to our communities.

Like many of my colleagues, I will have knocked on thousands of doors on a political journey. One key theme that came across to me again and again, particularly when I campaigned in a large town during a previous general election campaign, was a yearning for community life. I am fortunate that I now represent a constituency comprising mainly smaller towns where such community life still continues. Government support to businesses that, in turn, contribute to the maintenance and, indeed, the strength of community life will be valuable.

[Steve Baker]

Does my hon. Friend agree that all enterprise is necessarily social because it seeks to create value for other people?

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as that is exactly what I am saying. I think that we will find very few organisations that do not merit consideration under the Bill when public contracts are awarded. We should therefore think carefully before narrowing the definition of the enterprises that we want to include.

I would like to highlight some clear examples of where a social enterprise in my constituency has been less well served than it could have been under the current criteria for awarding public contracts. I mention an enterprise called Visyon. It is an excellent organisation in my community; it provides counselling and support for young people who need social or emotional help. Visyon has given me two excellent examples of where it believes it might have benefited if the Bill had been in force. First, it bid for a contract against a private tenderer, but the criteria for the tendering process included such elements as credit checks, the evidence of significant surplus of funds and high net asset value. Visyon says:

“If criteria had… included… social outcomes and values, we may… have… scored more highly based on such criteria.”

It did not succeed in winning the contract. In another case, it bid for the provision of mental health advice and support in schools in the Cheshire region. It gave evidence that it could provide such advice at one third of the cost of its competitor for the tender, the educational psychology team, but it lost that one, too.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) is not in her place, because I wanted to pay tribute to the work that she and her local authority did in the north-west region. Salford council in particular worked closely with organisations such as B4Box. I met Aileen McDonnell and also pay tribute to her work. It is worth noting that through her organisation, people who have been unemployed for some time go into work and are sustainably employed. That is to her credit. I look forward to seeing B4Box’s work growing and flourishing across the wider region.

I would also like to highlight the work of the Message Trust. I know that the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles spent some years supporting it, as has Salford council and the police. It is important to remember that when we talk about awarding public contracts, we are not talking only about local councils. The Salford local authority and the police have supported the work of the Message Trust over many years, and it has proved extremely beneficial. I would like to spend a few moments to describe it to hon. Members.

The Eden project, which is run by the Message Trust, organises groups of 10 young people, perhaps in their 20s or 30s, who commit for a period of five years to living in a deprived area and to giving 25 hours a week of their time—most of these people are also working—on the streets, getting alongside young people who are suffering through fractured families, drug problems, lack of self-worth, joblessness and so forth. That helps such people to understand how to engage positively within their communities, perhaps initially through voluntary groups, and subsequently helps them into training and work. It has proved enormously successful over many years.

I endeavoured to engage with another local authority regarding this scheme. I took representatives from the Eden project to meet council officials and I had several meetings and obtained support from local volunteers. I was aware that a recent local authority report had expressed the concern that its youth work was not hitting the mark. Frustratingly, however, it was impossible for that local authority to commit to an Eden project of its own, despite the fact that providing 10 youth workers on the streets cost only about £40,000 a year. That is not much more than the salary of one youth worker—plus add-on costs, overhead and supervisory costs—employed by a local council.

Although some local authorities are connecting well with organisations such as the Eden project, others are still reluctant to alter their mindset and change from an approach that allows them greater control towards one involving more trust, albeit perhaps with an element of risk. The trust might have to associate with organisations with which it has not connected previously or not worked with previously. As I say, it might not have the same degree of control. None the less, if we do not move in this way, we might miss the opportunity to change so many of our particularly deprived communities or those with real need. I believe that the Bill will provide a greatly needed catalyst for a change in the mindset of the many authorities that need to start looking outward rather than inward in deciding how they will provide, contract and procure local services.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on the way in which he introduced the Bill. I strongly agree with the spirit of his remarks. It is only on the margin that I find myself disagreeing either with my hon. Friends or with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who is no longer in the Chamber. Where I am ambivalent is on a few philosophical points. Although I realise that philosophy may not be as fashionable in this place as it once was, I hope that Members will forgive me if I dwell on some of the philosophical aspects for a few moments.

As I said in an intervention earlier, it is my view that all enterprise is social. I believe that society is co-operation, and that in a society based on the division of labour, we necessarily cannot have a gift economy. We cannot have a planned economy. It is necessary for unhampered market prices to fall for us to discover people’s revealed preferences. We talked about values earlier. Values are so important, and so unique to the individual. They are about more than money, and yet people reveal the intrinsic, inherent values that they hold in their minds only when they disburse their own money. I do not just mean when they buy fripperies for themselves; I mean when they give to charity, and when they buy gifts for others. There is nothing dishonourable about spending one’s own money in line with one’s own values.

For a long time Labour Members have been appealing to reason. They have believed that if only the state had enough power, or the right power, or this, that and the other—if only it had a national or local framework—and if only enough power were exercised in society, things would be rational and reasonable and stable and static, and they would become better. I put it to the House, however, that the experience of the last 100 years has been that that has not happened.

I am rather reminded of the scene in “The Lord of the Rings” in which Boromir, I believe, turns to Frodo and begs to be given the Ring of Power because he would use it for good. I am afraid that the limits to the use of this Ring of Power—state power—are highly circumscribed. They are circumscribed, because society is a dynamic process of information discovery. It is simply not possible for the state to obtain the information that it needs in order to co-ordinate society by decree, or indeed to intervene powerfully in society to produce good outcomes. It is impossible because the information that is necessary is dispersed in the minds of millions, indeed billions, of people; it is impossible because the information is tacit, it is practical, and it could not be transmitted even if it were accessible; it is impossible because society is a dynamic process, and information is therefore discovered through the changing process of social interaction; and it is impossible because the very act of the state’s intervening to fulfil the whims of politicians and officials prevents information from being discovered.

Some people listening might recognise these as arguments advanced in the past under the heading of “The Fatal Conceit”. I fear that in our benevolent intent, with our good will, and given all those great things that we have heard today about building a better society, we are in danger of holding on to that fatal conceit: the conceit that the state, if only it could obtain enough information, could co-ordinate society.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles pointed out that the state is often in the way of the very social entrepreneurs whom she wishes to see succeed, and that she wishes to see the system change in order to get it out of people’s way and get it behind them. But I ask the House how much longer we are to continue in the fallacious belief that if only we could change the way in which the state coercively determines what people are to do with their own lives, things would become better.

The right hon. Lady mentioned charities and mutuals, and we could also discuss co-operatives and friendly societies. I would not disagree at all with her intent in respect of such organisations. I think that they are healthy, I think that they are honourable, and I think it is a great pity that the labour movement was key in stamping them out. We are bearing the cost of its follies in that regard. I have no objection whatever to mutuals or co-ops or, indeed, trade unions. What I have an objection to is the use of coercive power to organise society.

Provided that those traditionally leftist labour movements are organised to sustain themselves by making a surplus, and provided that they are not bailed out with taxpayer’s money—we might well mention the banks, but perhaps that is for another day—I will support them. I will gladly support mutuality, co-operatives and, of course, charities. However, we have talked about the public ownership of capital goods. Labour Members have worried that capital goods might be—heaven forbid—privatised, but what is privatisation? Could it be that a mutual owning its own capital goods is private in some sense? Perhaps we need a new word, because to me “public” does not necessarily mean “state”, and “society” does not necessarily mean “state”.

I should be very happy indeed if assets—capital goods—currently owned by the state were put into the genuine ownership of mutuals. The question is not whether those assets should be put into genuine ownership outside the state; it is how ownership can be transferred in such a manner that justice is done. There is no doubt in my mind that many of those assets have been acquired by the state unjustly, but far be it from us to double the injustice by selling them in an inappropriate way, and then disbursing the capital gains by spending to live today.

In short, what concerns me is that we are lapsing into something which might best be described as communitarianism. It sounds so laudable. Oh, it does: it sounds so laudable—as did socialism, back when socialism meant Marxism. It always sounds so laudable. But the fact is, whether Labour Members like it or not—and I am afraid that the same applies even to some of my hon. Friends—in the end, when we come up with a national plan, a national social strategy, and local authority strategies for social enterprise, inevitably we must use the coercive power of the state in an attempt to direct society, a task that is impossible through the very nature of society itself.

[Harriett Baldwin]

It is a pity that my hon. Friend was not present when I made some comments about his earlier interventions, but let me ask him now whether he takes his philosophical position so far that he does not believe that the state should spend any taxpayers’ money. That seems to be the logical end point of his philosophical disquisition. Most of us would agree that we raise taxes coercively, and that we spend them; why should we not spend some of them on social enterprise?

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to say this. Given that I sit in this place as an elected politician, of course I believe that there is a role for democratic politics and for government. What I am expressing, however, is a deep scepticism based on solid theory, and indeed on the practice of the last 100 years, about any attempt to organise society using the state. I believe that such attempts are generally a mistake. That is not to say that the practice should be eliminated—far be it from any Member of the House of Commons to suggest that—but the fact is that it has not been a great success.

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct in saying that we are currently taxing and spending to an enormous degree, but we must make up our minds about whether that is healthy. It seems to me that the degree to which society has power is determined by the degree to which the state has power. The more power the state takes to itself, the less power society will have. I am afraid we must face up to the reality that, while the state is spending more than half of national income, human social co-operation is largely directed by the coercive power of the state.

My hon. Friend may well say that the logical conclusion is as she described, but I think that that was recognised by the old Liberals of the 19th century. Indeed, I wish that the new Liberals of the 21st century would pick up the same point. However, I do not suggest that we should go there immediately; I am referring to the direction of travel.

[Ben Gummer]

While I would demur a little from every point my hon. Friend has made, may I draw attention to the key issue of this Bill, which is localism? When a private business makes decisions about spending money, that is really about the allocation of capital and therefore the location of the business makes little difference. We are talking about voluntary organisations however, and they depend on people giving their time, often for free, in local areas. We cannot import a new community, so we are trying to provide the means by which public tenderers can take account of that reality, of which private businesses do not have to take account in the same way.

[Steve Baker]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend’s point.

In conclusion, my argument is as follows. If we are to have a healthy and productive society, and if we are to build a better society, we must embrace what has been agreed by Members on both sides of the House. We have all strongly agreed on much of what has been said today, but the key question is: what is the role of the coercive power of the state in building that better society? For me, there is a fundamental disagreement about that role today, as there has always been.

I do not intend to press the Bill to a Division at this stage, although I remain hugely sceptical about both the national social enterprise strategy and local strategies. It is my view that we should follow the advice of the man who gave me my reference point as I began on this process, a man who accepted the value of both business and charity. If we are to liberate society, and liberate individuals to create a better world, we must follow his advice, which was this: “Repeat after me—lower taxes.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to hear such an interesting and, at times, erudite debate. The Conservative party used to appear to be a fairly homogeneous and monolithic block, so listening to Conservative Members revealing the various trends within the party has been a fascinating and instructive experience.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on introducing the Bill and allowing this debate to take place. Let me say at the outset that Labour Members want to see the further development of social enterprises, and we are happy for the Bill to receive a Second Reading and then go into Committee.

There have been, I think, nine contributions to the debate other than that of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, and a range of different experiences have been brought to it. The hon. Gentleman indicated very strongly a communitarian tendency running through the history of the Conservative party. He certainly nailed his colours to the mast in terms of his own views about society and how it should be organised. However, he slightly stretched the credulity of the House when he tried to embrace Baroness Thatcher within that, since it was she who famously said that there is no such thing as society; there are individuals and their families.

[Steve Baker]

rose—

[Jon Trickett]

I am not going to take interventions straight away, but I may in due course.

It has frequently been said that the Conservatives, historically, knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. It is therefore interesting to hear so many Conservative Members talking about judging tenders not merely on price but on what has been described in the Bill as social value, whereby one should not necessarily go for the lowest tender. That is at variance with my own experience as a leader of local government in the years when Baroness Thatcher was Prime Minister and simply wanted the lowest possible tenders. Nicholas Ridley said that local authorities should meet once a year in a tent to let contracts and then go away again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

We on this side of the Chamber feel perfectly comfortable in our own skin in advocating precisely such an approach to the role of Government. I am not sure whether some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues share the same comfort.

We want social enterprise to develop further, so the Bill deserves a Second Reading. As Members will see as I proceed with my speech, it will consolidate in statutory form initiatives that we introduced when we were in government. Equally, as I have just remarked, it points out the intellectual fissures at the core of the coalition’s confused approach to public policy. The Government say they are in favour of a big society, but they do not always will the means. There is a contradiction between their professed communitarianism and their neo-liberal objective of cutting the costs of caring services.

There is also a contradiction between the Conservatives’ approach to the market and free competition, with price as the key indicator on which tenders should be judged, and the social commitments in the Bill. Another contradiction is between their alleged commitment to localism and some Conservative Members’ central ideological imperative of giving the market free rein.

[Steve Baker]

If the hon. Gentleman uses the word “ideological” to accuse me of having thought about how society works and what the law ought to be, of course I plead guilty.

[Jon Trickett]

I, too, have a very strong ideological vision, and in no way should the hon. Gentleman apologise for having an ideology. It is the contents of his ideology that give me some concern.

The contradictions and intellectual fissures that have been exemplified this morning go right to the heart of the Bill. That explains the rumour—I wonder whether the Minister could confirm it—of a fundamental disagreement over the Bill between the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Throughout the debate we have heard many examples of the positive impact that social enterprises can have on our neighbourhoods, communities, towns and villages. I recently visited Cream Catering in my constituency, which is doing innovative work. It is a social enterprise that employs people who have been out of the labour market for many years, and it provides high-quality catering in a variety of institutional contexts. It is an exciting enterprise, and it was created through the intervention of the then Government, who identified a procurement problem and an instrument that might deal with it. I am sure that is the kind of thing that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington would like to see if the Bill became law.

In fact, there are 55,000 social enterprises across the country. It is said that they add £8 billion a year to our gross domestic product, but their true value cannot be measured purely in numbers. They enable the hardest to reach and often most socially excluded people to return to economic activity. They contribute to improving the environment, both physical and social, and they enhance prosperity and deliver social justice in equal measure.

The values encompassed in the work of social enterprises are vital ingredients in the creation of a good society. If we are to succeed in the future, both as a sustainable economy and as a society with strong bonds of mutuality and reciprocity, we need to accept that markets needs morals. Labour has no problem in accepting that, and in government it led us to invest in social enterprises. We invested unprecedented resources in encouraging social enterprises, which contributed to the significant expansion of the sector and brought us to the position that we are in today. That provides a background to the Bill.

Many of the Bill’s intentions will build on the progress that we made in the past 10 years, and, to be fair, the progress that was made under previous Administrations as well. Back in 2002, we launched the first Government strategy for social enterprise. In 2006, we produced a social enterprise action plan, and in 2009 we held a social enterprise summit. We also created new instruments called community interest companies, of which there are 4,000 across the country. Labour gave £125 million to the Futurebuilders fund, which the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) mentioned, to build third sector capacity. We also ensured that thousands of public sector procurement officers were trained in how best to engage with the third sector. We can therefore conclude that initiatives and plans—even those that are put into statutory form—are only one side of the equation.

The other side of the equation is that there must be appropriate investment. It is therefore a concern that the Government’s spending cuts might put at risk the activity of social enterprises. How can it help to scrap the future jobs fund, which was partly designed to help social enterprises create up to 15,000 jobs? Mention has been made of the New Philanthropy Capital think-tank, which has said that the cuts look like removing between £3 billion and £5 billion a year from social enterprises and the third sector generally.

Clause 1 would result in a national social enterprise strategy that allowed Departments to promote engagement in social enterprise across England. That proposal is almost identical in some ways to the social enterprise action plan that Labour introduced four years ago. It is difficult to see how this national strategy, which would be created in law, differs from the action plan that we introduced without the need for a statutory framework. A case must be made to explain why a new Bill is required given that Labour was able to do things without new statutory powers. Why do the Conservatives, and the coalition more generally, find it necessary to create a new piece of legislation, which the hon. Member for East Surrey no doubt thinks is coercive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

It is for the Minister and the Government to go first and describe their conception of the big society. We want a strong society—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] We want strong bonds of mutuality and reciprocity to operate at every level of society, in every neighbourhood. The Bill might contribute to the development of that, but that does not mean that we should not ask difficult questions of its promoter and sponsors. That is precisely what I am doing.

How does the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington reconcile clause 3 with the Government’s motives? When the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General was asked on the “Today” programme earlier in the week about his intentions in respect of mutuals, co-operatives and public service reform, he made it clear that companies tendering for outsourced services would have to make proposals that were

“significantly cheaper than the current provision”.

There we have it: the irreconcilable contradiction between communitarian aspirations and the neo-liberal drive to reduce the cost and extent of government. There lies the Government’s true motives.

Perhaps the Government will not support the Bill, but even if they do, they are more interested in lower cost services than in maximising social value. Having listened to his speech, I do not believe that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington wants that. Social enterprises should not be viewed as a cheaper option. They have a real contribution to make and can have a positive impact, as we have heard from Members on both sides of the House, but they should not be about enabling the Government suddenly to abdicate their responsibility to fund public services properly.

Social enterprises should—hopefully—ensure higher levels of democratic accountability.

[Steve Baker]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jon Trickett]

I am about to wind up, although some might say that I have wound the hon. Gentleman up enough.

Central and local government and social entrepreneurs must work together to unleash the potential of social enterprises and the capacity of all of us to do good in our communities. Perhaps the House can agree on that. That should not be forgotten in the coalition’s eagerness to cut spending and sell off large swathes of the public services. The Opposition support the aims of the Bill and believe that it should receive a Second Reading. None the less, as I have indicated, if and when the Bill reaches Committee, we will probe the details and the broad principles underlying the proposals.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Nick Hurd)]

The House has rightly expressed its admiration for my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White). I have a great deal of empathy with him, as I remember my shock at seeing my name at the top of the private Members’ ballot a few months after my arrival in this place. I have been on his journey, and I wish him every success on it.

Once the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) had recovered from the shock of being described as dreary—

[Steve Baker]

On that point—

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend was good enough to introduce diverse representation from Ipswich, and the anger about the decision was palpable. It might be risky to comment from afar without knowing the details, but what struck me about the commissioning decision was that if 65% of the demand for the contract was based in Ipswich, it seems odd that there was no consultation. The process effectively removed an organisation that was clearly successful in delivering what the contract intended to deliver and had a massive social impact and value in that community. The decision seemed to be taken a long way away from the people who needed the help, and that is a problem.

The spirit of the Bill builds on the Government’s commitment to economic growth and the promotion of entrepreneurship. It is appropriate that it should come to the House in global entrepreneurship week, and the day after social enterprise day, which many hon. Members celebrated. We should not forget that social enterprises are, first and foremost, businesses that contribute £24 billion—that seems to be the official figure—to the UK economy and employ more than 800,000 people. As the hon. Member for Hemsworth powerfully said, they make an enormous contribution by creating and stimulating markets, bringing wealth into struggling communities, creating jobs, supporting disadvantaged people into employment, pioneering innovative products in ethical markets, and attracting new people into business, particularly the young, women and people from minority ethnic communities.

I was struck by a recent comment from Steve Jobs, who leads Apple, a brand that is always associated with innovation. He said that innovation is the difference between leaders and followers. The country desperately needs leadership and people who are capable of pointing to better ways of doing things, and it is in the social entrepreneur community that there are genuine leaders.

I was in Sheffield last week visiting a social enterprise, Zest, which has incredible leadership. It demonstrates how youth services can be run in such a way that young people turn up. It shows how libraries can be run in a way that involves the community, and how to engage with the public on public health issues. I sat at a table with people from the local PCT and the local council, hoping that they were learning and reflecting on how much money might have been wasted over the years. Organisations such as Zest are showing the way forward and opening minds to doing things better.

The point was well made, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton and, I think, the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, that this is not just about social enterprise. Social value is not just about an organisational form called social enterprise, however broad that form might be. I hope that the Bill will also be a catalyst to encourage traditional businesses to speak up more about what they are doing in the community. We all know from our constituencies that many businesses, often family owned businesses with a strong sense of community, do a huge amount, but there is now a challenge, in the context of the big society, to everyone in traditional businesses to think harder about their social responsibility and their commitment to the community. The Government will be saying more about that shortly.

I have set out why we support many of the principles and objectives of the Bill, but we are legislators and we have a duty to ensure that the legislation that passes through the House is robust, is needed and adds value. I suspect that that is one of the themes that we can anticipate hearing from the most distinguished Friday face in the Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope).

I want to get into the detail of the Bill. The primary measure that the Government support is clause 3, which deals with contracts of contracting authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington has already outlined, clause 3 requires contracting authorities to consider how they might promote or improve economic, social or environmental well-being through a contract. In policy terms, we often refer to this well-being as “value”, because commissioners who already voluntarily follow this approach tend to attribute a quantifiable worth to it and consider it as part of their wider evaluation of bids to deliver public services. The title of the Bill reflects this commonly used terminology.

The Government are supporting this measure for two main reasons. First, and most importantly, the Bill sends an unequivocal message to those spending public money that it is vital that they maximise the value achieved by every penny. This is particularly important in the current public spending context. We acknowledge that many of the best commissioners already recognise the importance of this and are exemplars to the public sector. Yesterday, I was privileged to sit in on the first meeting between the London Probation Trust and two social enterprises. The conversation covered how the trust could work differently to commission social enterprises to set up community enterprises such as cafés, garden centres and small garages to employ offenders in the community. This is an example of a commissioner thinking outside the traditional box, and that is the kind of progressive commissioning that we want to encourage.

[Steve Baker]

Will the Minister join me in celebrating the brilliance of some of our public sector employees, and confirm that we are reforming not because we are challenging the individuals but because we are challenging the system? In some places, it is the system that we have inherited; in others, it is the system that has been established over a much longer period. Will my hon. Friend join me in celebrating the talents of our public sector employees?

[Mr Hurd]

I certainly will, and it is important to do so. This is largely about freeing people who work in the public sector to express themselves more and to explore their own ideas of how things can be done better. I remember vividly a visit to Merton, where one person working in the mental health field had recognised that the system was failing some people with multiple chaotic problems in their lives. He had shown leadership and pulled people round a table and said, “What we are delivering isn’t good enough.” Together, they produced a new system of support, and the people receiving that support came into the room to talk to me about it. Two of them burst into tears of gratitude. It is very rare for the public to weep with gratitude for the public services that they receive, and this was a direct consequence of one person’s ability to think differently. We want to encourage more of that, but it requires action to create the space and to send the message that, yes, it is okay to think differently and show innovation inside the public services. We need to unlock the potential to do things better.

[Mr Hurd]

It is a requirement to consider, where “relevant” and “proportionate”, and it does not compromise local authority autonomy in responding to the requirement. It is simply a requirement to consider. I do not see it as heavy-handed; it is simply designed to be a catalyst to encourage more people to think more intelligently about commissioning.

The need to support commissioners in this process was raised earlier. It is not just about sending a stronger signal on the requirement to consider, as there are also issues about how to measure social value and how to support commissioners. That is why the Cabinet Office has supported the measuring social value project to try to create a methodology and tools to make measures that are realistically capable of implementation. There is a clear need to advance and bring together some more standard and consistent methodologies in this area.

Furthermore, through the national programme for commissioning, we have trained well in excess of 2,000 commissioners across England and across a range of public service areas. All the commissioners have had the opportunity to receive specialist training in measuring wider social, environmental and economic value. I am delighted to say, following the comprehensive spending review, that we are going to continue this training beyond March 2011. I sat in on a session in Birmingham and it struck me that there are many commissioners out there who would like the chance to do things differently and to do more with the voluntary community sector and with social enterprises, but need some help—busting a few myths and getting some practical support. The process of engagement through the partnership improvement programme for commissioning is, I think, valuable. I am delighted that we can continue with it.

We feel that these policy interventions are important in supporting the objectives stated in our coalition programme, but we also feel that they will be insufficient without some legislative intervention to achieve the goals. That is why we support clause 3. Returning to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, we believe that these provisions are consistent with the Government’s wider localism agenda in three main ways.

First, the Bill will support the Government’s commitment to community empowerment as a fundamental element of localism. The Bill includes a requirement on commissioners to consider whether to consult the intended beneficiaries of the service in considering how to take account of wider social, environmental and economic value. Although that does not require commissioners to engage with their communities, it sends out a strong message about the importance placed by the Government on involving local citizens and communities in shaping the services they receive. This will inevitably improve community involvement in commissioning and help to ensure that it responds to the full range of communities’ priorities.

Secondly, while empowering communities, the Bill also respects the need to ensure the autonomy and flexibility of commissioners in responding to local needs. Commissioners retain the discretion to determine how social, environmental and economic value is taken into account. The Bill does not stipulate the methodology that should be adopted by commissioners, and it is right not to do so. Local autonomy is maintained.

Thirdly, the Bill does not impose an additional burden on contracting authorities. The specification that contracting authorities are required to take wider value into account only where it is relevant and proportionate means that authorities can use their common sense and avoid excessive costs or bureaucracy. It also allows them to use and draw on existing infrastructure and opportunities to consult their beneficiaries and make sensible decisions in the interests of the people they serve. For example, it is highly likely to be “relevant” and “proportionate” to consider the wider social impact of a service and to consult citizens when contracting for a citizen-facing service such as social care as opposed to a contract by councils for use by an authority’s employees. The Bill therefore requires a common-sense approach, with the authorities having appropriate discretion.

I have explained where we support the Bill and I would now like to spend a few minutes explaining what conditions we attach to our support. Although we support all the objectives, a number of conditions are attached. If the Bill goes into Committee, with the will of the House, we intend to table amendments. These will include the removal of clauses 1 and 2, which refer to a “national social enterprise strategy” and “local authority strategies”.

I am not theological about strategies. Having been in business for 18 years before entering Government, I think that on the whole it is probably a good thing to have a strategy. However, I believe that, particularly in this context, strategies should be governed by the need of the moment, and should be driven by conviction rather than by a requirement to comply with some bureaucratic process. I do not want the process of drawing up strategies to be bureaucratic. I do not want it to be simply an exercise in producing more glossy brochures that fill up the bookshelves in our offices, which are not read and which do not have real traction. Strategies must be driven by need and by conviction at the time.

[Steve Baker]

I congratulate the Minister on his wisdom in attaching this condition to the Bill—I find it hugely reassuring—but will he say a little about clause 2(3), which deals with the definition of social enterprises? I should be grateful for the Government’s definition of a social enterprise.

[Mr Hurd]

I am rarely accused of wisdom, so this is a pleasant moment that I shall relish.

The definitions of social enterprise in the Bill are in the context of requiring a social enterprise strategy, which we do not consider necessary, but there is a legitimate point to be made about defining social enterprise, because, as I mentioned earlier, there is a broad spectrum of social enterprise activity. At one end of the spectrum are businesses that are acting in a socially responsible way or making big social contributions to their communities, while at the other end is pure social enterprise.

The definition developed by the sector is as follows:

“A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.”

That is a reasonable start, but there is a spectrum of activity, including charities which are tendering for contracts and trying to generate new revenue streams through that process, and which consider themselves to be hybrids in that sense. So there is no straightforward answer to my hon. Friend’s question.

As I was saying, the Government are uncomfortable about legislating for strategies at both a national and a local level. Several Members—including the hon. Member for Hemsworth, the Opposition spokesman—have agreed that that goes against the grain of localism. We therefore do not agree with legislating for local social enterprise strategies, however desirable they might be as components of existing sustainable community strategies.

None of that should be taken as reflecting any lack of Government support for social enterprise, or even a lack of desire to communicate a strategy. The Office for Civil Society is working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and others across Government to produce a refreshed national strategy for social enterprise, which we will publish in March 2011.

The former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles, knows both the value and the difficulty of working across Government, but I think it extremely important that we do so in this context. My colleagues from DBIS have embraced the opportunity, and we look forward to producing the refreshed strategy in March. In particular, we will step up engagement with the social enterprise sector so that we better understand the needs of enterprises and the opportunities that could be unlocked. We want to consider how to maximise our support for social enterprises.