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In Chris White MP's words

During the Public Bill Committee debate on the 19th October, in his opening remarks Chris White MP said, "I thank Social Enterprise UK for its assistance throughout".

About the Bill

In July 2010, Chris White MP (Conservative Member for Warwick and Leamington) tabled a Private Members' Bill titled "Public Services (Social Value)". The headline aims of the Public Services (Social Value) Bill are to:

  • require the Secretary of State and local authorities to publish strategies in connection with promoting social enterprise and to enable communities to participate in the formulation and implemention of these strategies
  • require that public sector contracts include provisions relating to social outcomes and social values

A full draft of the Bill is available to read here along with a set of explanatory notes.

On 25th November 2011 MPs will be voting on the Bill in the House of Commons to determine whether it should continue on its journey to becoming legislation. If any MPs vote against the Bill, we will need 100 MPs to vote it through to the next stage in the House of Lords, so we're asking our members and the wider social enterprise sector to help us mobilise support by writinge to their MP to tell them why they should support the proposed legislation.

To get involved just download the template letter and e-mail it to your MP. 

To maximise the impact of your campaigning it would be really helpful if you could copy in to your e-mails both Chris White MP, chris.white.mp@parliament.uk, and Nick Hurd MP, hurdn@parliament.uk. As the Member in Charge and Minister for Civil Society respectively, they support the Bill and will be strengthened in their efforts by the knowledge that the social enterprise sector want to see the Bill passed too.

What's happened so far?

Social Enterprise UK has been working closely with Chris White and his team to provide advice on behalf of the social enterprise community. In order to build support for the Bill, we hosted three events in parliament on Thursday 18th November 2010: a photo call (pictured right), a mass lobby and a seminar on the Bill. We also produced a campaign pack to help you lobby your MPs.

The Bill was debated in parliament on 19th November 2010, and thanks to social enterprises all over the country that wrote and spoke to their MPs, it was voted through to the committee stages of discussion. Private Member's Bills don't often reach this stage, so this is a real achievement and we're grateful to everyone that helped make this happen!

Francis Maude MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office has backed the Bill on behalf of the Government. The Minister's support is vital in making sure the Bill progresses through parliament, so we wrote to him to thank him for the work he's done so far and to let him know how important the Bill is to the social enterprise movement. A number of Social Enterprise UK members have already signed this letter with us. If you'd like to add your signature, please email us with details of your name and organisation.

To read the letter and see who's signed it so far, click here.

In October 2011, the Bill was debated by the Public Bill Committee in the House of Commons and we lobbied the committee members to support the bill, as well as providing a template letter to help social enterprises to get in touch themselves.  The Bill was voted through by the Committee and now goes through to a full Commons debate in November.