Financial Mutuals

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hoban]

The best route for resolving this is through the response to the consultation paper, which the FSA will publish later this year. It is for the FSA to decide whether or not it should disclose legal opinions, because it is an independent regulator. The consultation paper is an important way in which to resolve these issues.

I was talking about the need to create a modernised legislative framework for mutuals, and capital is part of that. The Government are also implementing legislation to allow mutuals to modernise the way in which they communicate with their members and to enable them to prosper. The Legislative Reform (Industrial and Provident Societies and Credit Unions) Order 2010 has been a long time coming. It will be re-laid before Parliament next month and will introduce many quite basic, yet far-reaching reforms that will enable credit unions to modernise and grow.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I know that my hon. Friend, as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on credit unions, will have a great deal to say on this matter, but may I just finish my point? I may even be able to answer his intervention before he makes it.

One of the biggest changes will be to allow credit unions to admit corporate bodies to their membership. Those new members will be able to deposit in and borrow from their local credit union, which provides opportunities for investment and growth in communities. Alongside that, various deregulatory measures relax the rules on age limits for memberships, year-end dates and the ability to offer interest on deposits. These proposals should increase the appeal of local credit unions to the local community and increase their steadily expanding membership still further.

[Damian Hinds]

Many of us are waiting with excited anticipation for the legislative reform order. What expanded role does the Minister see credit unions potentially playing as a result of the changes in the legislative reform order both in a big society context and in encouraging enterprise because of being able to work with corporate bodies as well as individuals?

[Mr Hoban]

It would be a way for credit unions to make the greatest opportunity of this. We are trying to open up more possibilities for the financial and mutual sector through a number of our measures. I go back to the debate about capital. One of the challenges that I put to the building society sector and others is that if it had the opportunity to raise more capital, what would it do with it. How would it benefit more people as a consequence of having that flexibility? I say to my hon. Friend that corporate members could include charities and voluntary groups, and their deposits could help credit unions to expand their base, so that they can lend more to local communities. There is an opportunity there for the voluntary service to help expand that base. That will also help to create a much more viable credit union sector. Like me, my hon. Friend will have had conversations with Mark Lyonette, who wants to make sure that we move the credit union sector on to a much more stable and viable footing, enabling it to take deposits from others and pay interest on them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The Prime Minister explained from this Dispatch Box that the cuts in his constituency are considerably greater than the cuts in the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency. Our reforms give local government greater control over budgets, but let me make another observation. Local government is responsible for a quarter of all Government spending. Labour proposed £44 billion of expenditure cuts. If Opposition Members are saying that they would not include local government in those proposals, they are less credible than I thought they were.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

T2. The anticipated provident societies and credit unions legislative reform order will bring great advantages to credit unions, including the ability to pay fixed interest on savings and to offer services to community groups, social enterprises and companies, but it has been rather a long time in coming. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the expected arrival date of that LRO?

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

My hon. Friend takes a close interest in that matter as chairman of the all-party group on credit unions, a position he took over from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). He is right that that LRO will bring significant benefits to credit unions. Following comments by the relevant parliamentary Committees that scrutinised the draft laid by the previous Government, amendments need to be made, and I hope to lay the amended regulations in late January or early February.

Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is an enormous privilege to address the House for the first time. The trepidation that I had already has been greatly enhanced by having to follow so many of my hon. Friends and Opposition Members.

I begin by expressing my appreciation for my predecessor, the right hon. Michael Mates. On his election in 1974, as MP for the then Petersfield constituency, he was about the age that I am now, but he had already served Queen and country for 20 years in the Army. He went on to serve in the House for a further 36 years. His well deserved reputation as a champion of the people of East Hampshire and his service as a Minister of the Crown and as a Select Committee Chairman cast a very long shadow, in the penumbra of which I stand rather hesitantly today. If ever, in this House, I can be half as good as he was, I shall be not half bad.

I very much hope to emulate Michael Mates’s long and close relationship with the people of East Hampshire, and there are many people whom I have the privilege to represent now who have been transported into my constituency, courtesy of the Boundary Commission, having taken no decision of their own to do so. They have been served well by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). The House will be familiar with his exemplary service and so I shall not affront his modesty now. Suffice it to say that I aim to ensure that the residents of Bordon, Liphook, Grayshott, Selborne, Headley and Headley Down will not be found gazing wistfully across the constituency boundary. I shall do my best to serve them as well as they have rightly come to expect.

The constituency of East Hampshire is England at its very best, with its varied and enchanting landscape, historic market towns and many beautiful villages. One such village is Chawton, where Jane Austen found such inspiration and created most memorable characters and images that show our country at its most cherished. But that tranquillity has at times been rather violently disrupted. Should I ever require a reminder of the need to remain in harmony with my constituents, it is there in the bullet holes in the door of St Lawrence’s church, close to our family home in Alton, for that was the site of the civil war battle of Alton. On that occasion, it took 5,000 parliamentarians to match up to the local men.

Today, East Hampshire is, I am pleased to say, once again a harmonious place, but challenges still exist. We need houses that local people can afford, but we need to resist the sort of overdevelopment that can spoil the character of an area. It is vital to provide jobs locally and to keep the micro-economies of our towns and villages vibrant for our local heart and soul. Looking forward, the opening of the Hindhead tunnel, the various options for the future of Bordon and the advent of the South Downs national park all present both new opportunities and new challenges.

In my constituency, particularly in Bordon, we are proud to be home to so many who serve in our armed forces. They are a constant credit to our nation and our commitment to them in this House must measure up to their commitment to serve our country. I welcome the Government’s pledge to renew the military covenant and I look forward to seeing that as a priority in the business of the House.

After the defence of our country and our security, perhaps the biggest battle we face is ensuring that we further define and bolster Britain’s place in the new world economy. As the new powerhouses of China, India, Russia and Brazil loom ever larger, we must rise to the challenge they set. Fundamental to that must be ensuring the very best education for every child to enable them all, regardless of background, to fulfil their potential. That is a theme that many hon. Members have touched on already. Striving for excellence is not just about bringing all up to scratch or setting the bar at an acceptable standard. It must be about encouraging all to stretch themselves, from wherever they start, to be all that they can. That should be true both for schools and for the students in their care. In education, as in industry, when people feel ownership, empowerment and responsibility, they are much more likely to go the extra mile and make a success of their venture—hence the great attraction of the academy model, even for schools that are already very successful.

Those same principles need not mean going it alone, as they can extend beyond the school gate, with schools working in partnership with others. In my constituency, the 44 schools and colleges already work co-operatively, choosing to pool resources in the pursuit of shared goals. The potential advantages of that kind of approach are manifold. It can enable smaller village schools, which we value very highly in my area, to derive scale benefits that they otherwise would not have. It can provide new stretch opportunities for particularly gifted and talented youngsters, and also a forum for governors to share best practice.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has outlined bold plans to help tackle the problem of people being trapped in the welfare system, but I am sure that he would agree that even better than cure is when we can go for prevention. The oft-quoted number of NEETS—people not in education, employment or training—is such a bland statistic, but it masks so much wasted potential. It is often said, too, that one can spot the people likely to end up adding to that statistic from a very early age. That is too often remarked on, but too rarely acted on.

We must have ambition for all our young people, and the pupil premium that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is putting forward will be a big part of that. I hope too that more areas will follow the model of the East Hampshire Partnership, for which a key focus is identifying the people who may be at risk of falling into that group, and working together across the age groups for their benefit.

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me the chance to speak.