(CB): Thank you, my
Lord. I was very pleased to hear in the speech yesterday by the
Prime Minister on the sharing society that she mentioned social
enterprise on 10 occasions—so it looks as though we are in for a
bean feast in the future of social enterprise. Unfortunately, the
whole system is moving rather slowly. If you carry on at this
rate, somewhere towards the end of this century we might be able
to have a social enterprise industry that actually gets to the
parts of society that big business cannot get to. Is it possible
maybe to imitate the Scottish Government’s idea of having a
10-year strategy to look at ways in which to do social enterprise
in every conceivable way? I myself look forward to the day when
they can offer me a prison, because I would love to run one and I
would do it better than Group 4.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde)
(Con): Well, I know that the noble Lord has experience,
and I would be interested to see him one day when he is doing
that. As for social enterprise, we are strengthening it—and we
are doing a lot to do that, including the Chancellor, who has
increased the social investment tax allowance. I do not think
that you can say that it is moving slowly when 1 million people
work for social enterprises.
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