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The Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms MP, Former Minister of State for Competitiveness
Westminster Central Hall, London, 15 November 2007
Welcome. Thank you for all coming.
I have a strong personal interest in a number of aspects of sustainability, particularly in corporate responsibility and in renewable energy generation, and in what it means for our Department. I think its very important in our role as advocates for business within Government that we contribute fully to exploring how doing well and doing good can go hand in hand – to developing responsibility within business, and to ensuring that businesses do discharge responsibly the roles which we in our Department argue with conviction businesses must be given the space to fulfil.
I hope sustainable development month will help us understand these issues better across the department.
Sustainable Development means satisfying our basic needs and enjoying a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations. We need to address all three pillars of sustainable development:
And we have to ensure that all those imperatives are addressed as we develop our specific contribution to the Government’s policies.
The Prime Minister has charged us to be the voice for business across Government, working with other departments on six key areas:
In our department we need to play a leading part in exploring how we achieve economic growth, environmental protection and social justice. Not one or two of those aims but all three. We want a strong economy and a strong society; an economy which is dynamic, sustainable and fair. And while sometimes it will be tempting to feel that its too hard to achieve all three of those goals, we just can’t afford to give up on any of them. We need to keep all three of them in our sights, whichever part of the department’s work we are dealing with.
This is Enterprise Week, as many of you will know, and young people around the country are focusing their minds on what it means to be enterprising. In the first Enterprise Week, in 2004, there were 1000 events across the country. In the second year there were 2000 events and the third year there were 3000 – but in this fourth year there are over 5000, so the momentum of support seems to be accelerating exponentially. And its going global. Earlier this week, representatives from almost thirty countries – including the USA, India and Japan – announced that from next year they will be joining us in Global Enterprise Week.
Today is Social Enterprise Day, and the theme for this year is about connecting young people to Social Enterprise. Activities have been taking place since Monday morning, when thousands of students in schools, colleges and universities participated in the Make Your Mark Challenge – which this year has a social enterprise focus. I shall be attending one of the events this afternoon.
We provides the funding for the Make Your Mark campaign, of which Enterprise Week is the annual climax. The campaign involves activities around the country, throughout the year, to develop an enterprise culture for all. There is a focus on women entrepreneurs, of whom we have too few at the moment. Women make up 46% of the labour market, but a far smaller proportion of Britain’s entrepreneurs. That represents a loss to the economy – a wealth of talent and economic opportunity which we need to tap into. The overall lower rate of entrepreneurship in the UK compared with the US is almost entirely accounted for by the lower rate of women’s entrepreneurship in the UK, and we have set up the Women’s Enterprise Taskforce to address that.
There is a focus as well on entrepreneurs from black and ethnic minority and disadvantaged communities, with the Ethnic Minority Business Task Force, launched in June, having its first meeting this week.
The campaign is a good example of the department in its policy interventions addressing – in this case – economic growth, social justice and climate change; of working for both a strong economy and a strong society. And its that kind of approach that I think needs to mark more and more of our work in the department.
Social enterprises can make an important contribution in Sustainable Development. We shouldn’t underestimate their potential to combine the creative genius of entrepreneurship with passionate commitment to overcoming injustice or climate change. When I was a DTI minister I spent a week travelling round the country visiting social enterprises, and I was very impressed with what I saw.
One example I visited was the Eden Project in Cornwall, with its primarily environmental focus. By the time I visited it, Tim Smit’s vision and determination had produced 1,700 jobs in the South West and given Cornwall the third most popular paid attraction in the country, with tropical gardens under giant glass domes. Alongside its environmental mission, it was transforming the economy in rural Cornwall, which has been among the most hard-pressed parts of the country in the past. I could see previously struggling hotels and boarding houses being repainted and expanded. They were focusing on buying food and other supplies from local firms – they told me when I was there that they had invited 500 local firms to a supplier's conference and that 478 of the 500 had actually turned up!
When I asked Tim what was the aim of the Eden Project. He said: "To change the world". This is ambition on a grand scale! And social entrepreneurs and social enterprises across the UK are changing the world for many people – employing their drive, determination and entrepreneurial thinking to build human capital, bringing people back into employment, reviving communities and improving the environment. And I know that Nigel from Hillholtwood will be speaking later about his work to support local wooded forest in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and about how in that example also, social enterprise is benefiting both society and the environment. I am pleased a group of young people who have taken part in Hillholtwood’s sustainability programme are joining us today.
The role of young people is key – and the attitudes among young people are among the most powerful levers we have for responsibility in business. Companies are having to adopt social and environmental responsibility for very hard headed commercial reasons, because they are finding that – if they don’t – the brightest young people will go off and work for someone else who does instead. I met recently with a director of one of Britain’s biggest construction firms, and he told me that when they have graduate induction days now, 70% of the questions which the new employees are asking are about social and environmental responsibility.
Those encouraging attitudes are what draws young people to social enterprise – the opportunity to earn a decent living in a way that reflects personal values and involves helping others. Make Your Mark has an important role to play in helping young people to make the most of the opportunities of social enterprise.
Today is the biggest Social Enterprise day ever. Enterprise Insight has been working with a big partnership – the Social Enterprise Coalition, the Office of the Third Sector, UnLtd, The Princes Trust and many others to make Social Enterprise day the biggest and best ever – with hundreds social enterprises around the country running events and thousands of schools taking part in events and competitions.
“Make your mark: Change lives” is the campaign behind Social Enterprise day – is run by a grand partnership involving government and sector organisations dedicated to getting more young people than ever before to think about social enterprise today. The main social enterprise activity for young people today is a competition: “Make Your Mark in 60 Seconds” which invites young people, aged 11-30, to develop enterprising ideas for social and environmental change…and to pitch them in a minute, to be in with the chance of winning a £5,000 award, to make their idea happen.
We will also help to launch a new ‘Youth Commission for Social Enterprise’, run by young people for young people, with the aim of creating a more conducive environment for young social entrepreneurs.
A number of ministers will be attending social enterprise events today – the one I am going to will be the “Building Companies with a Conscience” event at the British Library, along with Phil Hope from the Office of the Third Sector. It will be an opportunity to learn from a group of pioneering social entrepreneurs about how they have put a social conscience at the heart of their businesses.
There has been a lot of activity around social enterprise and
the Cabinet Office has published today a report on progress since the launch of our Social Enterprise Action Plan a year ago, including putting social enterprise on the GCSE business studies syllabus, consulting on a £10m social enterprise risk capital investment fund, and surveying the use of social clauses in procurement of public services.
Our new guide for social enterprises on Businesslink.gov goes live today, with improved information and signposting for social enterprises looking for business support through this website.
I want to thank Make your Mark for helping to put this event together, and all the other speakers and volunteers for being willing to share your experiences with Government staff today.
Social enterprise has a key role to play. But the wider point I want to underline is this: the department’s support for the Make Your Mark campaign is n excellent example of policy interventions from our department addressing all three pillars of sustainable development –economic, social and environmental. And that approach needs to mark more and more of our work in the department over the months ahead.
Thank you.
