| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10.36 am
Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe): I want most warmly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on his initiative in securing this important debate. He appreciates that I could not have been here from the outset without cancelling, at very short notice, a commitment to constituents that I made more than two months ago.
The House will have sensed that, for many of us, this is a familial occasion. Many of my hon. Friends will have declared their interest in the debate as co-operatively sponsored Members of Parliament. I declare my interest, with legitimate pride, in a movement that has achieved so much for people all over this country and all over the world over the past 150 and more years.
By securing this debate, my hon. Friend is focusing parliamentary and public attention on a movement that is as admirable an example of principle and achievement as Britain has to offer. I have the great good fortune of having been sponsored as a Member of Parliament by the co-operative movement for 32 years and as a co-operative parliamentary candidate for 41 years. I rejoice in that--more especially since most of the federal institutions in the co-operative movement in this country are based in my native city, Manchester, and because I am the city's first ever co-operatively sponsored Member of Parliament.
Mr. Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, Central):
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), who has made a long and distinguished contribution to the co-operative movement over the years. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) and I are grateful to him for his kind remarks. He will know from his own experience of speaking from the Front Bench that it is nice when kind remarks are aimed in our direction. We are most grateful and we shall make the most of it.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) on the debate. He raised a number of important points on which I want to touch. Our colleagues, the hon. Members for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy), for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner), for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Jones) and for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), made useful contributions and emphasised the importance of co-operation, to which I shall return in just a moment.
People who follow these matters will see that, on the Opposition Benches, there is substantial interest in the co-operative movement. It is far from being something from the past. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen said, we believe that co-operation is a model on which we can build in the future.
It is important to emphasise the value, the importance, of the co-operative movement and the ideals behind it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Gapes) said, there are lessons to be drawn from Europe on this. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East emphasised the importance of demonstrating the value of co-operation not just to the general public but to the members--the co-operators. Indeed, many of the speeches dwelt on what has happened to the building societies in the past two to three years, and we now have an opportunity to learn from that. It is important to demonstrate the benefits of mutuality and of co-operation before the movement transforms to more conventional types of ownership.
People who have listened to the debate will see that the importance of the co-operative movement is there for all to see--perhaps we should shout about it more often--for example, in the credit unions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield said, too many people do not have access to conventional financing from banks, because banks are losing interest. Ironically, with all these conversions and changes, there will be an increasing temptation for the institutions to cherry-pick--to pick the people with the best prospects--and those who need the benefit of finance at a price that they can afford will be
turned away from many of the institutions. It is tragic when former mutual societies--now public limited companies--do that, as I fear some will.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East said, the importance of the co-operative movement is there in housing co-operatives, in retail, agriculture and others parts of industry. These are excellent examples of where co-operation works. It is important that we encourage this form of ownership, and Government policy should be directed towards such diversity. We live in a changing world. We live in a dynamic economy, and any dynamic economy should have different forms and models of ownership that are able to be operated on a level playing field, and then people can choose which form is appropriate for the venture in which they are engaged.
As was emphasised by every hon. Member who spoke in the debate--I think that I am the only hon. Member who is not a Co-operative Member of Parliament, so in that sense I have no interest to declare--the ideals of the co-operative movement and the Labour party are almost identical. Indeed, the Labour party has always recognised that individuals prosper best when they co-operate together. That is what socialism is about. That is what the ideals of the Labour party are about. We want to encourage co-operative endeavour for the benefit of members. As has been said, it is an integral part of our view of a stakeholder economy: where people come together and have a stake in the enterprise in which they are engaged, and everyone, whether in management or on the shop floor, is bonded together in the same endeavour--the success of the company or institution.
More than that, it is a direct form of ownership. It is like partnership or employee share ownership. It is an opportunity to ensure that people who work in an enterprise feel part of it and committed to it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central said, it has moved on from the old models of nationalisation, which did not provide direct ownership. Indeed, one reason why nationalisation lost support was that many people did not have that intimate relationship between themselves and the institutions in which they worked. I believe that co-operation, having a stake in the place where one works, is vital, and that is very much at the core of the Labour party's philosophy.
I said that we should learn from building society experience. It is a great pity that the benefits of mutuality were never passed on, never demonstrated, to members of building societies. Ironically, only recently have building societies realised that they have to show their members that there is value in mutuality. Many now pass on the benefits of mutuality in the shape of lower interest rates; others give rewards for long service to savers who stick with them for a long time. The co-operative movement has to learn from that. It is best to show the benefits of co-operation before people start talking about conversion to plc status. If mutuality has benefits, let us hear about them now. Do not wait until there is pressure to convert.
I understand the pressures to convert. Many hon. Members referred to the understandable concern about access to capital. I understand those difficulties, and we certainly do not take the view that the co-operative model, the mutual model, is the only one. In any economy, a variety of options should be open. We should not get ourselves into a position where people do not feel that there is any value in maintaining the co-operative because
the benefits of it have not been passed on to them. It is a great pity that building societies did not demonstrate the value of mutuality long before now. It has come very late in the day, and that is a great pity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen said, in years to come, many people will regret the passing of many of the substantial building societies.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East said, much work has been done to demonstrate how the Government could assist the co-operative movement, and we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.
My hon. Friend mentioned a number of issues, including access to capital, taxation and, in particular, compliance costs, about which I feel strongly, particularly for the financial services industry. The Economic Secretary and I have had many debates about this, and I do not suppose that we shall see eye to eye on it today, any more than we have in the past, but I believe that, as part of reforming and simplifying the Financial Services Act 1986, we could help many institutions that find the compliance costs out of all proportion to the benefits that are gained. That point does not apply only to co-ops and credit unions, as it is happening right across the industry. That is an example of where the Government could assist.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |