Public Services (Social Value) Bill

I wholeheartedly support the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), as it enhances both supply and demand in a very important part of our economy: social enterprise. I think that this Bill can achieve more than my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has said can already be done. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington to continue his efforts and, indeed, to continue to challenge the Minister to do more. The aspects of the Bill that I find most intriguing and to which I give most support concern its role in enhancing our country's ability to meet the challenge of our economic situation. We hear every day about the demands for growth, the challenge of deficits and the overhang of debt, and we look for the remedies that we may have to overcome all those great challenges. We look at our televisions screens and see elderly people in many of our social services lacking in the care that they need and being denied the dignity that they deserve, and we ask why such things happen in our country. The solution to those challenges lies not in some technological innovation or substantial additional contribution of funds, but in understanding and enhancing the entrepreneurship of every man and woman in this country. I often struggle to understand all the reasons and rationales for people wanting to become entrepreneurs, because it is not simple; it is not straightforward. We have heard many examples from both sides of the House today of people who started social enterprises and businesses. Underpinning all that is the fact that the individual wanted to step up. He or she felt motivated to step forward and do something that was different and innovative. Their motivation could be the desire to make money; it could be that they want to do something for their community or their country; or they could be motivated by some spiritual values at the core of their heart. This Bill takes us a step forward in saying to those whose motivation is to help the community that this Government believe in them, want them to step forward and want them to achieve things on behalf of our country. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) made a pertinent point about the social value rather than the organisation. Social value is what we are looking to achieve—not to define some particular circumspect or corporate identity—and it is at the core of my hon. Friend's Bill. For people who have the motivation to step up, the Bill creates a market and demand. Members on both sides of the House have raised concerns about whether the provisions should cover services alone, or if goods should be included too. That is a fair point. We have heard that, perhaps, we are not pushing boldly enough for a strategy, and therefore condemning ourselves to dealing with just two or three local authorities rather than the country as a whole. That is a fair point, too. What we are doing is creating a market. We are creating an opportunity for people now to say to local authorities across the country, ““What are you doing to promote what I see in my heart and what motivates me to do better in my community?”” The Bill does not define a document; it creates that space for these entrepreneurs, and it could not come at a more opportune time to meet the challenges that our country faces. I commend the Minister for his support for the Bill. We understand the scale of the challenges that we face, we support all the initiatives outlined today, we understand that there must be caution in financing initiatives, and we understand that there are limitations on what the public purse can support, but he needs to understand that the group of people who sit behind him—those individuals who want to step up and do better in their community—are looking to him to see this Bill not as the ending point of a particular piece of work, but as the start of what we hope will be a radical Administration in this area. I thoroughly and wholeheartedly support the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington and encourage the House to support the Bill.