Co-operatives and Mutuality

Debate between Alun Michael and Jonathan Evans

Thursday 30th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful to my parliamentary neighbour for allowing me to intervene. What has been put forward by the Co-operative party is not the only way in which Northern Rock might still end up with a mutual future. It is known that some mutual building societies are, in fact, interested in bidding, even through the Government’s proposed route. However, that will depend on the recognition of a capital instrument. Does the right hon. Gentleman hope, as I do, that we might hear something along those lines from the Government later this afternoon?

[Alun Michael]

I am not wedded to one particular proposal. The Co-operative party has put forward ideas but, as the hon. Gentleman has suggested, there are other options. A genuine will is needed to find a solution to overcome the problems that have been raised.

It is 10 years since the Co-operative Commission published its report on the co-operative movement, and it has come a long way in that time. If we went back further than that—perhaps 20 years—it would feel almost as if we were living in a different world. Then the retail co-operative movement was struggling, but now it is back in the top ranks; then the building societies were under pressure and were not very popular, but now their value is much more appreciated, as has been mentioned.

The creation of the Co-operative Commission was itself a landmark event that demonstrated the co-operative movement was important enough to be the subject of a Government-initiated commission. Virtually everything in that report, which contained some 60 specific recommendations, has been acted upon, mostly by the movement itself. The introduction of legislation during the past decade has assisted the movement’s development and success. As has been made clear in the debate, the name “co-operative” does not guarantee good governance, but good corporate governance has the capacity for business success and stability. Co-operative principles can also contribute significantly to public service.

Today, I want to celebrate the sheer energy and creativity of the movement, as well as its genuinely positive political impact. Politics is not just about narrow party interests; at its best, it is about people working together to change the world. Certainly, that is what drew our 29 Co-operative MPs into the political front line. It is worth noting that that is the largest group of MPs there has ever been in the history of the Co-operative party. In the past year or two, the co-operative movement has seized the opportunity to deliver on the concept of the co-operative school. In the past few days, Ben Reid has launched Co-operative Energy, and Supporters Direct is nurturing the growth of popular engagement with sport. On that point, I hope that the recent glitch can be overcome, so that Supporters Direct can continue and succeed.

The issue is not just about setting up co-operatives. I want to touch on four important initiatives where the experience of co-operative governance is being applied to a much wider aspect of public policy and organisation. The first initiative relates to how British Waterways is organised. I chair the all-party group on the waterways and I am pleased that the Government have picked up on the Co-operative party proposal to move our canals into the third sector under a non-governmental organisation. That idea found its way into the Budget report before the election and has been described as seeking to create a sort of National Trust for the waterways. It has had a positive response from the public. The main aspect of co-operative governance that needs to be built into that new organisation is public engagement and involvement, so that people feel a genuine degree of ownership in the new organisation and are willing to contribute to it both financially and in terms of volunteering. The all-party group will produce a report shortly on the hearings we held in respect of governance and finance.

The second initiative is the idea of a co-operative council. That is not just about having a council that encourages people to consider setting up co-operatives and includes the co-operative model in options for change; it is about transforming the relationship between leadership and management of the council, those who work for the council and the public that the council exists to serve. The idea is powerful and will enable us to refresh how we do business locally.

The third area of initiative is internet governance. The internet offers enormous potential for co-operative solutions. I chair the UK Internet Governance Forum, which is leading the way in the UK in bringing together Government, business, Parliament and civil society to look for better ways of encouraging creative and positive human activity nationally and internationally. It was part of the 2010 Co-operative party manifesto, but we are co-operating across party. Ministers have been very supportive of delivering that approach, and it will be taken a stage further when the UN’s internet governance forum meets in Kenya in September.

The fourth area of initiative is the partnership approach to reducing local crime and disorder. That idea has flourished since I had the privilege of taking the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 through the House and has proved a success in reducing crime. However, the potential of such an approach has not yet been realised because the governance of local partnerships is not as well developed as it should be. In Cardiff, such an initiative reduced violent crime by about 25% more than in comparable cities. That shows the value of taking that approach to enable local partnerships to succeed. Methodology and governance provides the potential for greater success in that respect. Those are examples of areas where the co-operative model can contribute to the public and private sector.

In 2007, I did a piece of work for the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, which was commissioned by the then Minister for the third sector, who is now the Leader of the Opposition. That work was part of the preparation for the 2007 spending review and involved taking a wider, general look at the contribution that could be made by the third sector to social and economic regeneration. My report concentrated specifically on the evidence of what mutuals and co-operatives could contribute to that. It is fair to say that the Treasury officials in particular were genuinely surprised and impressed by what they saw across the country when we were undertaking that work. I personally found it an invigorating experience.

The report showed the contribution that is already being made in areas such as health, housing, child care, financial services and community cohesion. That potential has not yet been realised, partly because I discovered immediately after we published the report that the people on the team who had gathered all the information and worked with me so positively were sent back to their original places of work. I am not sure why, but some Departments have the capacity for getting rid of expertise as soon as it has been developed. I cannot blame the Minister for that, but I hope that he will have a look at the report and consider how its findings might be used by the current Government, because its proposals cross boundaries.

During that period, we saw how co-operative principles can transform an inner-city hospital—Homerton hospital, Hackney was the example we considered—and how co-operative initiatives, from credit unions to play groups and social groups, were transforming the lives of individuals and communities across the country. The co-operative movement and the application of co-operative principles in a whole range of areas—not necessarily just to things that would be described as an industrial and provident society—are probably one of Britain’s best kept secrets. I am glad that we are having this debate to highlight, however briefly, all the areas on which the movement is having an impact.

Co-operation and mutuality are alive and well in the sphere of political action, and the latest initiatives to create co-op councils will open up a new era of delivery to our communities locally. Change of power through an election should not just change the name plates at the Executive table; the relationships between the people who work for the council and the public they serve should also be changed. I hope very much that all the examples given during the debate will lead to a greater flourishing of the co-operative principle and will perhaps pick up the impetus that was given by the Co-operative Commission 10 years ago to refresh our activities into the next decade.

Welsh Grand Committee (Scrutiny)

Debate between Alun Michael and Jonathan Evans

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Alun Michael]

I am grateful for the opportunity to open the debate, and to the large number of Welsh Members, particularly Labour Members, for attending. They include colleagues from across the geography of Wales and from every level, from the oldest Members to the newest. Perhaps in one sense we should be grateful to the Secretary of State for her steadfast refusal to agree to hold a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the implications of the most serious constitutional change to threaten Wales for generations, because it has made us all the more conscious of the mechanisms that allow us to defend the interests of Wales and of the Welsh people in the House of Commons.

The subject of the debate is the Welsh Grand Committee and the scrutiny of Government policy as it applies to Wales. There is clearly a deficiency in how current legislation is debated. The failure to meet to discuss the current legislation goes beyond that individual topic and touches on how Welsh issues are dealt with generally in the House. Welsh Members have fought for proper representation over many years, and as the shadow Minister said in an excellent article in The Western Mail, the balancing of the interests of minorities with a national constitution is regarded as not just important, but essential in a number of other countries, such as Germany. There ought to be a balance that is not just about simple, crude arithmetic.

Representation of constituencies in Wales will be damaged by the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. It is about not only the reduction in numbers, but the fact that the reduction can be achieved only by tearing up the principle of representing communities of interest in each part of Wales and the principle of respecting the links with local authority boundaries and, above all, by tearing apart the constituencies that are currently represented by both a Member of Parliament and a Member of the National Assembly for Wales. That cannot be right.

Even worse is the lack of proper debate as the Conservatives steamroller over the interests of the people of Wales and principles of democracy. The matter should have been debated in the Welsh Grand Committee before the Bill was debated on the Floor of the House, and I remind Members on both sides of the Chamber of the battles that took place to establish the Welsh Grand Committee in the first place as a venue for debates.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about Assembly constituencies being the same as Westminster constituencies, it follows from that part of his proposition that he is arguing that there should never be any change at all.

[Alun Michael]

I am not arguing that at all. When the National Assembly for Wales was being proposed in opposition, I actually recommended a different structure, one that would have given two Members for each Westminster constituency, elected according to the alternative vote system. That would have given 60 Members on a coterminous basis, even with the considerable reductions that the Conservatives propose, but it is only one of the principles that need to be looked at. I have already mentioned the importance of representing combinations of constituencies.

[Alun Michael]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen a development of such institutions in recent times. For instance, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, under the distinguished chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), has developed a way of interchanging with the Assembly. It would be right for the Welsh Grand Committee also to develop its way of representing the people of Wales and engaging with the Welsh Assembly as an excellent new institution.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to develop my earlier point. He says that he is not arguing that we retain the exact structure and keep the Assembly seats, as he had proposed in the past that there should be 60 Members, two for each constituency. Hence, it would seem that he argued for 30 constituencies.

[Alun Michael]

No; I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not very good at arithmetic, even though he depends upon it as a basic principle for his argument. The National Assembly for Wales has 60 Members. Under my proposed provision, it would have had 80 Members from the start, which, because of its greater legislative powers, would have made sense. My point is that the coterminosity of boundaries for Westminster and Assembly constituencies is one of the building blocks that should be part of the way constituencies are decided upon now and in future. For example, Sully was brought into the constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, which I represent at Westminster, for the last Assembly elections, and the same boundary change was then made for the parliamentary elections. It is not rocket science; it is quite simple to deal with that. What is important is that we have those principles of coterminosity of boundaries with the Welsh Assembly constituencies, a respect for local authority boundaries—I say that as someone whose constituency crosses those boundaries—as the ward principle is an important one, and the representation of communities.

We all represent communities of interest. I can say confidently that my Labour colleagues all feel passionate about the communities that they represent. It is a basic parliamentary principle that we refer to each other by constituency, as we are here as representatives of our constituencies. It is that connection that the current legislation is likely to destroy, and that is why it is so important that the issue be debated properly by Welsh MPs and why it should have been debated properly in the Welsh Grand Committee.