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Baroness Wheatcroft goes barefoot in the Lords
David Cameron made no mention of the Big Society at last week’s Tory Party Conference but Chancellor George Osborne’s comments about business growth being the lynch pin of an economic revival made the Lords debate into social enterprise all the more topical.
The debate had been tabled by Baroness Andrews some months ago but she commented that the Chancellors remarks had made it even more urgent.
Baroness Andrews opened the debate by saying: “My argument is very simple: if the Government were really smart, the Chancellor and his colleagues would engage, as a matter of priority, with the social enterprise sector to provide it with the tools it needs to prompt growth through innovation, enterprise, skills and jobs, particularly in hard-pressed communities. There is not a moment to waste.”
Baroness Wheatcroft, ex-editor of the Sunday Telegraph and Conservative Life Peer, recommended two courses of action to government, neither of which were expensive and both inspired by social entrepreneur Robert Ashton.
Baroness Wheatcroft said: “I refer noble Lords to Robert Ashton, who dubs himself ‘the barefoot entrepreneur’. He has been a social entrepreneur, has written books and comes up with ideas. I shall cite just two of them.
“He suggests that community interest tax relief should be at the same level at least as that for the enterprise investment scheme. That seems a reasonable suggestion. After all, if you are investing in businesses for the good of the community, why should you not get the same incentives as those who are investing in small risky businesses in the hope of making big profits? Even at a time of straitened finances, I suggest that the Government might want to look at that.
“His other proposal, which I fully endorse, is that unemployed graduates might be put to work in social enterprises. Before very long the subsidy that they would need would turn into a wage paid for by the social enterprises that they would help to grow. It seems to me that the Big Society intern programme would be no bad thing,” she said.
Robert Ashton, who created the Norfolk Community Foundation in 2005 and is a director of Ethecol – an ethical credit & debit card payments processing company, has been searching for support for his ‘Big Society Task Force’ for many months.
He said: “Two generations ago people did National Service and learned how to fight with guns. Many said it was character building. Now it’s far more appropriate to encourage young people to fight poverty, loneliness and social exclusion with their brains. This will be character building too, created the rounded, responsible and social conscious citizens we need today.”
“The costs to society of large numbers of graduates, heavily laden with debt, growing despondent and pessimistic would be far greater,” said Mr Ashton.
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