Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies (Environmentally Sustainable Investment) Bill

Debate between Anna McMorrin and Julie Marson

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 11th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

Environmental sustainability needs to be defined. At the moment, co-operatives have very strong environmental sustainability values at their heart, but that would clearly need to be set out in the confines of this Bill.

Added to that, environmental and social governance, or ESG, is the buzzword of the City right now. Investors have flooded into the market looking to immunise their portfolios against climate risk and help promote a sustainable recovery from this pandemic. This Bill provides such an opportunity or pathway for investment, and it would be a travesty if this Government were to walk away from that opportunity.

My Bill is not just warm words on the environment. It would provide a genuine route towards greening our local communities for the benefit of all, creating green jobs, creating green skills, raising capital for the vital retrofitting of housing association stock, and strengthening sustainable and secure sources of good-quality British food and produce from British farms. The list is endless. My Bill is a bid to match co-operative values to the mission of climate action, with communities pooling resources collectively to install and generate energy; taking small steps with huge benefits, such as creating cheap renewable energy, so that no one in the community is left behind by rising energy costs and fuel poverty or priced out of green evolution.

Co-operatives UK expects there to be 1 million employee and worker owners in the UK co-operatives sector by 2030, but we can go one step further: we can ensure that co-operatives kickstart a local green economy and create local jobs and skills. There are Awel and Egni co-operatives and others across the country, such as Brixton energy and Bristol energy co-operatives and OrganicLea, a co-operative farm that trains local people. Initiatives such as these spark local imagination and creativity and put the power back into the hands of local people.

The Bill is about not just the co-operatives of today, but the ones of tomorrow that could be born out of the successes of this Bill—the co-operative bus and rail companies creating genuinely affordable and environmentally sustainable modes of transport as we decarbonise our roads, or seed capital for communities to take over local utilities. In Wales, we have Dwr Cymru, which is a prime example of a semi-mutual water company run on a not-for-profit basis, with profits invested and recycled solely for customer benefit. I am thinking of co-operative run social care, childcare and other communal services, as proposed by the Welsh Co-operative Centre in its “better, fairer, more co-operative Wales” report, or even co-operative agriculture, food production, or community zero-waste cafés and restaurants, such as SHRUB co-op in Edinburgh. Action is needed—not empty words and greenwash—and that is what my Bill aims to deliver.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentions Co-operatives UK and action. Does she acknowledge that in June this year, Co-operatives UK, when reviewing and commenting on her Bill, called it “counterproductive” and “impractical”. We want positive action, for sure, but her Bill just does not deliver that.

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank the hon. Member, but she is being very selective in her comments. She fails to mention that Co-operatives UK also said that it fully supports the Bill and that what this needs is more detail in the Public Bill Committee. That is exactly what is needed. We are on Second Reading now. We need to take the values and strengths of the Bill through to the next stage to make this legislation able to really transform communities across the country. I hope that the hon. Member will be with me on that.

Legislation of this kind is, in fact, already in force around the world, from Australia to Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, demonstrating that this can be done. Back in 1844, the co-operative pioneers envisioned a community business model where shared values of sustainability, equality and fairness took priority. Co-operatives can play a major role in helping to rebuild our communities, end fuel poverty, create jobs and foster a sense of community pride in helping to tackle climate change.

Each one of us must play our part in the fight against climate change, but for so many people, the feeling of being able to physically effect change feels remote or expensive. Pundits, legislators and policy makers talk of climate change, quite rightly, as the greatest threat facing us, but many workers are focused only on making it to the end of the month. Climate action often feels distant, but it is our job to find ways of not only solving the crisis, but rooting the solution in the lives of workers and families. It must be viewed as a benefit to their health, wealth and happiness.