Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they are giving to social enterprises to help with the changed circumstances and increased costs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Government continues to champion social enterprises and the significant and wide ranging contributions they make to our society, and more recently in the response to the pandemic including in health, social care and community support. There is no doubt that social enterprises are facing significant challenges and many have adapted their business models and operations to adjust to the new circumstances.

Social enterprises have access to the support measures that the Government has put in place to support organisations through the pandemic, including loan schemes, business rate reliefs, flexibility around tax payments and grants. A £750m targeted funding package has been made available to support the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector to allow organisations to continue to provide vital services to those affected by COVID-19. This unprecedented funding is in addition to the significant package of support that has been made available across sectors, which social enterprises can access. This includes the Job Retention Scheme, the Business Loan Interruption Scheme, and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund and more recent measures including the Job Support Scheme and the Kickstart scheme. A further £150 million from dormant bank and building society accounts has been unlocked to support urgent work tackling youth unemployment, providing emergency loans for civil society organisations and improving the availability of fair, affordable credit to people in vulnerable circumstances.

Last month the Government announced a social value procurement framework for central government contracts. This presents a real opportunity to grow social enterprises’ involvement in public sector supply chains.