Tory leader praises spirit of enterprise movement

THE leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron MP said that, for him, the appeal of social enterprise was its combination of “hard headed business acumen with a...

He said social entrepreneurs “are committed to making the world a better place — not just making our economy richer but our society and culture richer too.”

 

He told delegates: “Where others can only see problems — whether it’s entrenched poverty, social deprivation, climate change — you see opportunities. Yes, the opportunity to create jobs and wealth but also the opportunity to turn lives around and lift up our society.”

Dealing with the current economic situation he said: “These are times of great anxiety. The foundations of our economy have been shaken and with it our faith in capitalism.”

He said that over the past decade too much of the country’s growth had been financed by debt, meaning that “when the bubble burst and asset prices fell we were hit harder than most.”

Mr Cameron said that what had happened “has left many people angry with capitalism” but that he still believed that “the free market is the best way to generate the wealth that we all need.

“But its success depends on people — it depends on their creativity, their ingenuity and their enthusiasm. So if we want to make capitalism a success again we need to make it popular again. We need the spirit of social enterprise not just to create wealth but to do good at the same time and extend right across our full economy.”

He said that markets are a means to an end not an end in themselves and that capitalism needs to be shaped to suit the needs of society, not society shaped to suit the needs of capitalism. He said he wanted to see a society “that is fairer, greener and safer, where we save more and waste less and where we create well paid and rewarding jobs for all.”

Suggesting how a Conservative Government would turn that vision into a reality, Mr Cameron said that the country needed a tax system that encouraged savings. He would introduce incentives to encourage high tech, green businesses and create social enterprise zones and a social investment bank.

He talked at length about reforming the training system, abolishing the Learning and Skills Council, providing new and existing training providers with greater freedom and introducing a £100million adult and community learning fund.

He said that Job Clubs — abolished at the end of the last recession — are needed again and said that some Conservative MPs had already established them in their own constituencies. He said he wanted to see a new approach to careers advice “which has been a disaster in recent years.”

It was a vision he said based on economic freedom allied to social responsibility.

“We now need the expertise, dynamism and creativity of social enterprise to help to change our country,” he said. “Change won’t be easy but it is absolutely necessary.”

And he concluded: “I want social enterprise to be at the heart of our efforts to build a better tomorrow that I know we can achieve.”

In this article


Join the Conversation