Co-operative and Mutual Businesses — House of Commons, 2019-06-27
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy John Elton Lefroy (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says, and he is absolutely right. I would say that Sainsbury’s has also been a strong supporter of Fairtrade, but we do not want to see any dilution or diminution of those principles. Fairtrade is like a brand. People will pay that bit extra because they know that what they are buying has been reliably sourced from farmers or other producers who have been properly paid for their work. It is a brand like any other brand, but it is more than that; it is something that we have to have trust in, and we do not want to see any diminution of that at all I want to talk briefly about the role of co-operatives in financial services, in three specific areas. First, my constituency is home to the excellent Stafford Railway Building Society, which was founded in 1877. It is local and exists to provide mortgages to local people. It was set up, obviously, by the railway workers of Stafford—Stafford is one of the major railway junctions in the whole UK rail network—and it is still there, providing excellent financial services, profitably, to my constituents and the near neighbourhood. I pay tribute to all those who have made it what it is, because people give up a lot of their time to serve on the board or as staff in the building society. Particular credit goes to Mike Heenan, a friend of mine who was very much involved in the building society for many years; Susan Whiting, who took over from him as the chief executive; and the current board and management of the building society Stafford Railway Building Society will be around for the next decade, two decades and three decades, because it is run responsibly and its capital is built up every year as it does not have to pay dividends. Where it can help is by providing cheaper and better services to its members through the retention of that capital The second area I want to discuss is credit unions, which have already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). I declare an interest in that I was a member of the Staffordshire credit union and was very sad indeed when it closed. I have to give credit where it is due; it was closed in a responsible manner and people got their investments back, but it was very sad that it had to happen. I ask the Government to look at why such an important local institution has to close because of regulation. We all know that there has to be regulation, but are there ways in which regulations could be changed so that they would not have such a dramatic effect on a very important and loved local institution? I very much hope that we will see the return of a Staffordshire credit union at some point in the near future The third area where the co-operative and mutual movement has a very important role to play is in small business finance, but it is not able to do that enough at the moment. The Co-operative Bank clearly has an excellent record in lending and providing accounts for small business, but the co-operative and mutual movement should have a much greater role to play in the provision of loans to start-ups or equity capital for small businesses. I pay tribute to the Black Country Reinvestment Society, of which I am a member. The society provides lending to businesses in Staffordshire in my constituency and across the Black Country. It is an excellent institution, but we need more such institutions and we need them to play a greater role in the provision of the equity capital that is so often as important—particularly for modern, high-tech businesses—as the loan capital that they more traditionally provide I pay tribute to the role that the co-operative and mutual movement has played in the history and economy of the United Kingdom. All speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe have mentioned the fact that it is about not just the money and the business, but the co-operation. It is about building our social fabric—goodness knows we need to bring people together more and more at the moment, in times of quite considerable division. I urge Members on both sides of the House to support mutuals and co-operatives in their constituencies, as I know many do, as much for the fact that they bring people together to work for the benefit of their community as for the undoubted financial and economic benefits that these great movements bring to our country.