“It’s fantastic to be here in such an inspirational setting. I want to start by paying tribute to Tim Smit. He is one of Britain’s greatest social entrepreneurs. A few years back he had an idea – why not recreate different eco-climates found throughout the world to educate people about the environment. Some thought it was a distant dream – others thought he was mad.
“But he single-handedly pursued his dream, fighting for it, fundraising for it, and then, seven years ago, he finally realised it. And here we are today at the Eden Project – one of Britain’s most popular tourist destinations. This wasn’t conceived in Whitehall or devised by some government minister – this is one man’s vision made real. And it just goes to show what can happen when motivated individuals, with a passion for making society a better place, are given the tools to realise their ambitions.
“And that’s what I want to talk about today: the power of social innovation. The power of society – of communities, individuals, social enterprises and yes, businesses – to bring about the social change we need to deliver the good society we want. There is nothing more vital. Yes, we face huge economic challenges as a country, but I think everyone would accept that the social challenges – rising crime, family breakdown, falling social mobility – are even greater.
“I want to explain how the old way of doing things – the top-down government model – has run its course. And I want to explain how the Conservative Party will be different, of how we instinctively understand that real change – proper change – comes from below– from people, not government. That has some big consequences, which I will try and explain.
“First, though, I want to explain why we need new answers to old problems. Britain has social problems which have been around for generations, high crime rates, poor public health, rising family breakdown to name three and many of them keep getting worse.
“Clearly, current policy isn't working. Take education. Yes, there are hundreds of other factors which make teaching kids difficult - so much of what goes on in the classroom has causes way beyond the school gates. But we know what a good school can do and we all know what a good school looks like - so why aren't all schools good? It's a simple question - but government after government hasn't been able to answer it and has always tried to do it by direct government action.
“The same goes for almost all our social problems, from obesity to crime to pollution. We need new thinking - we need innovation. New solutions to old problems. A different way of doing things. And a different ways of looking at things. Not always taking the same old view- that there’s a top-down state solution for every social problem. Crime up? Pass a new law. NHS needs improving? Set a top down target. Poverty intractable? Chuck money at it. More spending, more state control, more reliance on the levers of bureaucratic intervention. It isn’t working and it’s time to change.
“We will be different. Not just because we’ve learned from Labour’s failure. But because of a different approach, our philosophy. Where Labour may talk about social innovation – they still instinctively trust the state.
“We’re the opposite- we’re instinctively sceptical of the state - sceptical of bureaucratic systems to deliver progress – and instead trust society. That’s why we’ve always been the party of the free market – of individuals being able to make their own choices and shape their own futures. And now more than ever, history is on our side.
“Dynamic change in commerce and in our broader culture is helping to make the top-down model history. The internet is transforming people’s lives, making their ambitions greater and their horizons broader. Before, politicians and the mainstream media believed that when we talked people listened. Today, there are 57 million blogs- that means 57 million new newspaper editors. Every minute 15 new user-generated videos are uploaded on to YouTube - that means 450 new news items during the time of an evening news bulletin. We're living at the dawn of what I have called the post-bureaucratic age where true freedom of information makes possible a new world of people power, responsibility, citizenship, choice and local control.
“The paradigm of social co-operation in the post-bureaucratic age is not the central bureaucracy but the local network, connected to a thousand other networks around the country or the world. It's the paradigm of on example which is the two friends who met in antenatal class and realised that the best source of information of wasn't books or even doctors, but each other and the other mums in the class. But they didn't know everything so they linked up with other mums online - and that's the story of the phenomenon known as Mumsnet.com, one of our country’s most important online communities. That's innovation. That’s what I mean about social change.
“But I am not saying there is nothing government can do, that we just stand back and hope change will happen on its own. Of course not. But we have to understand how we can help promote social change in this post-bureaucratic age. There are three principles that capture what I believe we need to do.
“The first principle is, in fact, an old insight and an instinctive one for Conservatives, but it has more relevance than ever in today's new world. It's called going with the grain of human nature. Policy-making must always take into account how people actually behave - not how an artificial system would like them to behave.
“The American academic Robert Cialdini has made a huge contribution to what we know about this. In jargon: he calls it social norms. In plain English: it means recognising that one of the most important influences on people’s behaviour is what other people do. With the right prompting – or what Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their latest book have called a “Nudge” – we’ll change our behaviour to fit in with what we see around us. Take energy efficiency. We’ve had endless government targets and government drives – but we could be doing something so much better. And at a time of rising fuel costs this really matters.
“If you keep telling people from above “you must be more energy efficient” not much happens. If you put the typical electricity bill for a house like theirs in a neighbourhood like theirs, it transforms their behaviour.
“We’ve got to get out of thinking that the only way of improving the environment is by introducing swathes of top down instruction. We’ve got to stop thinking that if government tells people what to do – they’ll do it. Instead, we’ve got to harness the power of social norms to bring about social change.
“This leads me to the second post-bureaucratic principle for promoting social change. It's to do with information - the vital currency of innovation. We should empower people by setting data free.
“This approach - 'information liberation' you could call it - is inspired by some amazing stories in the world of business. Take Goldcorp - the Canadian mining firm which put its geological surveys online and invited the world to help find gold. The world found deposits worth $3 billion.
“Imagine if the information that government controlled was available to the public too? I don't mean sensitive information - we don't want to see Revenue and Customs posting all our private records online, whether by accident or on purpose. I mean information that will allow people themselves, expert and non-expert, to create innovative applications that serve the public benefit and make government accountable.
“That’s why we have introduced a House of Commons bill that will require the government to publish - online and accessible to all - every single item of expenditure over £25,000. It already happens in the US. They call it “Googling Your Tax Dollars”. And it’s already strengthening democratic accountability and promoting government transparency. It’s why we’ve announced that we will standardise local government information.
“Have you heard of a website called ‘theyworkforyou’? It wasn’t set up by the Government. It doesn’t cost the taxpayer any money. And it doesn’t cost very much to run. But what it does do is use publicly available information to let constituents find out - easily and quickly - exactly how their MP voted on certain issues, how many speeches they make, and how long it takes them to reply to their questions.
“In short, it’s a nightmare for people like me. But it holds me to account and is brilliant for my constituents. By making local data standardised and freely accessible, it would be possible to create a town-hall equivalent of ‘theyworkforyou’ - driving this accountability further down the food chain. This “information liberation” can be really powerful when it comes to fighting crime. That’s why we’re going to ensure crime data is published so social entrepreneurs or neighbourhood committees can map what type of crime is happening, where and when – so they can better hold the police to account for their performance in fighting crime.
“My third principle for social change is this: real innovation needs to take place in society, not the state. What does that mean? It means recognising that the so called “third sector” – charities, voluntary bodies, social enterprises – is actually the “first sector”. More often that not, when it comes to social problems, they are the innovators, the entrepreneurs.
“Think about it. Take a social problem – homelessness for instance. I would argue that the real change, the real innovation, has come from groups like Shelter, or the Big Issue, not from Whitehall. So what does that mean we should do? It means they need more money, longer term contracts and, vitally, more trust. There are big areas where the government should say: we are failing, you are succeeding – here is that chance to do what we cannot.
“But there’s another great agency of society which is creative, dynamic and innovative which represents the best of British ingenuity. You. Business.
“The argument for corporate responsibility is often made in terms of its benefits to business: that a corporation will have a better reputation, a more motivated workforce and more loyal customers if it does the right thing. Well maybe that's true - but it's not my job to make that case.
“My job is to make a different argument - and it's this. If we share a vision of a post-bureaucratic world in which business has the freedom to succeed in a low-tax, low-regulation economy, we politicians need your help. We need your help in reducing the demand for government spending, and the demand for regulation. That means your help in cutting the costs of social and environmental failure. We can't do it on our own.
“We need your commitment, creativity and innovation to help tackle the challenges that confront humanity: from crime to climate change; from poverty to pollution; from family breakdown to forest depletion.
“Of course, British business is already leading the world when it comes to corporate responsibility. By introducing energy saving and energy efficiency savings – like switching its vehicle fleet from petrol to diesel – BT has reducing the carbon emissions by sixty percent and saved £400 million since 2005.
“And then there’s the Institute of Chartered Accountants. In 2004, you published “Sustainability: the role of accountants”. It was a real landmark in this field. Not talking the talk and waiting for others to get on with it. But walking the walk and showing how those in your field – accountancy – can start making a difference and making the case for government to develop with the realistic policies that help businesses behave more responsibly.
“Our corporate responsibility working group published its report in March this year. It set out a distinctively Conservative approach to responsible business. We have seen over the past decade how ill-thought-out regulation adds unnecessary costs and burdens to business. So the report recommended ‘Responsibility Deals’ between government and business.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done to see how they could be implemented, and I’m delighted to say Archie Norman has agreed to look into this. He’s going to look at one specific issue – one specific challenge – which businesses have an important role to play in tackling, and work out the spirit of such a Responsibility Deal. And that issue is waste. It’s absolutely vital we get to grips with our wasteful society if we are to ever meet our greenhouse gas emissions and landfill targets. We produce some 330 million tonnes of waste every year. That's just about enough rubbish to fill the Albert Hall every hour. Leave aside that this waste costs us £3 billion a year to manage and that some parts of the country could run out of landfill within eight years. Just think of the direct environmental cost.
“Waste in landfill accounts for forty percent of our country’s methane emissions. It’s clear if we are to meet the challenge of climate change, we’ve got to get serious about waste. Of course, the Government gets this. But, as ever, they’re dealing with it in completely the wrong way.
“Their approach follows the same old pattern. First, they identify the problem. Then they establish a ‘tough new target’. And next, to meet this target, they dream up some legislation, implement more regulation and unearth a new tax only to find their bureaucratic response only fosters resentment and encourages bad behaviour, completely defeating the purpose. So in this case, they recognise we have to cut waste. But then they use the strong arm of the state to penalise households through bin taxes - which are not only administratively expensive but they also encourage irresponsible behaviour like fly-tipping or backyard burning.
“We’ve got to be different. And a massive part of being different is looking at the beginning of the waste chain, not the end – looking at producers, not consumers. Of course, it’s this sort of thinking that lies behind the End of Life Vehicles Directive and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. Both these directives embed the idea of producer responsibility – the idea that it’s up to businesses to play their part in building goods that last, repair easily and minimise packaging.
“The challenge for us now is to extend this concept of producer responsibility for waste across all our industries – such as food. I’m sure someone in the EU is drawing up new directives right now – meaning more legislation, more costs, more enforcement, more bureaucracy.
“I think we can be better than this – I know we’re better than this. What would really be effective, and less expensive, bureaucratic and cumbersome, is a change in spirit – a voluntary Responsibility Deal between Government, producers and society based on genuine collaboration. The sort of spirit that has seen both M&S and Asda take action on plastic bags recently.
“Archie Norman will work with industrialists, conservationists, NGOs and the voluntary sector to see what such a Responsibility Deal on waste would entail. Should ultimate arbitration rest in the hands of a Secretary-of-State? Who else should be involved in sharing responsibility? How can we create an environment that rewards companies which participate? How will progress be assessed?
“I look forward to hearing his recommendations and seeing how we – business and politicians – can come together to help bring about the social change we all want to see. So I hope I have set out for you how we can help deliver social change. How we can do it in a different way. Go with the grain of human nature. Set free the so called third sector to drive change and innovation. And – vitally – liberate information so we have the ability to do more as a society.
“Let me conclude by quoting John F. Kennedy. Forty years ago, he said: "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your county." It was a noble cry then, and remains so today. But when he made it people didn't really have the information they needed, the knowledge to make choices and the power to take control of their lives. Today they do, they have that information, that knowledge, that power - so let’s make that noble dream a reality.”