Co-operatives and Mutuality

Debate between Chris Evans and Jonathan Evans

Thursday 30th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for his work as chairman of the all-party group on credit unions, of which I am treasurer. I called for this debate, along with my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), because my whole political life is framed by my experiences of where I grew up in the south Wales valleys. We lived in a close-knit community. This speech might be sloppy and sentimental, if you will allow it, Mr Amess, but that is where I grew up.

When I grew up, the Co-op, as we called it colloquially, was always there. My mother told me, “I’ve brought you and your sister, Cara, up on Co-op milk,” and we went down the Co-op shop for our groceries. If you died, you were laid out in a Co-op funeral home and they probably buried you as well. As my great-grandmother said before she died at 104, “Don’t worry, everything’s sorted—I’ve been paying the Co-op for years.” That is where I came across the co-operative movement.

The most iconic moment of my life growing up in the valleys was seeing the proud workers walking back to Tower colliery in the Cynon valley. They had taken over their business and mines after being written off by the previous Conservative Government. They were walking back to run a workers’ co-operative. I have never felt more proud of my community and my people than when I saw them marching together. Those proud men, who had been beaten down by the Government, said, “No, there is a better way.”

[Jonathan Evans]

I come from a similar background, and I pay credit to the workers at Tower. However, they were given the opportunity to turn it into a co-operative by Michael Heseltine, who rejected the private sector bid and accepted their bid. It is therefore slightly churlish to be dismissive of the previous Conservative Government’s position on that.

[Chris Evans]

At the end of the day, I have to get political. As I always say, I am from a mine-working area, and the previous Conservative Government were no friend of the miners. I cannot get away from that; that is what I was born into, that is what I grew up believing and that is what I still believe.

I am extremely proud of those communities, and I am proud to be here as a Labour and Co-operative Member representing them, but there was a dark side. I am perhaps being romantic again, but I remember being out on the street kicking a football against the wall every Monday evening after school. The women would shout at us children and move us on.

At about half-past six, however, we would all rush through our doors and slam them shut. We would see the white XR3i coming down the hill, if anyone remembers those flashy cars. A woman would pull up and get out. I can see her now with her bleached blonde hair. My mother would say, “Caked with make-up, she is. She stinks of Estée Lauder perfume,” not that I knew what Estée Lauder perfume smelled like, but that is exactly what my mother said.

The woman was there with her little book, her little bag and her pen, and everybody would run inside. She would hammer on the doors. She was the woman from Provident, and everybody in our street had Provident. If people did not pay her, she would bang on the door and say, “I know you’re in there, love. You owe me £400.” If people had made the mistake of leaving the door ajar, she would push it open and go, “Where’s my money?”

When I was first elected, I found a chitty from when my mother took out a Provident loan in 1987, and the annual percentage rate was 150%. Years later, I went to work for Lloyds TSB, and I thought there was no way that Provident could still exist, but it does.

When the basic bank account was introduced, I felt the banks often did not want to know about people with a basic account. These people did not have a credit score for loans or credit cards, so when they needed money, they had no access to it. When they were asked how they were getting by, they would say they had Provident or Shopacheck and that someone would come round to their house to pick the payments up.