Co-operative and Mutual Businesses

Debate between Jim McMahon and Gareth Snell

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like many people, my first interaction with the co-operative movement was going to the local Co-op store with my gran when she was doing her weekly shopping. At the end of the walk around the supermarket, the shop assistant would put the things through the till and say, “What’s your divvy number?” and she would say, “207619”. That was her getting her slice of the dividend back. I did not really understand what that was about until I was a bit older, when she explained to me that every Christmas, she got back her dividend from how much she shopped in the Co-op.

I did not think about it much until I reached my teenage years and went to university, where I remember other people talking about it. That number has always stuck with me. I grew up in a relatively poor household, and the Co-op basically funded our Christmas, because my grandmother used the dividend she accrued throughout the year to buy the nice things we had at Christmas that we did not have for the rest of the year. I am sure I am not the only person who has memories of enjoyable Christmases because of the dividend points that their families received through Co-op shopping. That is not something we should dismiss.

There have been a lot of excellent contributions—including from my fellow west midlands Co-op MP, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey)—about the huge opportunities in the co-operative movement to contribute to our economy and the greater good of the United Kingdom. We should also focus on the small co-ops and the little interactions of co-operative goodness that improve the everyday lives of individuals in our communities.

Labour has made a commitment to “at least” double the size of the co-operative sector—my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on the shadow Front Bench will realise that doubling it is not the end point in itself. Our aspiration in government is to at least double it and then go even further with growth of the co-operative and mutual sector in our economy, and I am sure that, having heard the many great contributions today, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will seek to replicate that.

There are so many great examples. Much like the one described by the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), there is a wonderful building society in Stoke-on-Trent called Hanley Economic, which was formed in 1854 and originally called the Staffordshire Potteries Economic Permanent Benefit building society. Its purpose was to enable people who worked in the pottery industry to own a home, get on the housing ladder, have savings and manage their money better. It still exists today. Much like the Stafford Railway building society, it provides affordable, low-cost, sustainable and secure financial products for a number of people in north Staffordshire who ordinarily may be viewed by high street banks as being a bit too much of a risk. Because they can access suitable finance, they are able to make a better life for themselves. By building societies’ own admission, they are not going to change the world or overturn the economic hegemony of our current banking system, but they are making a difference to my constituents every day through the way that they operate and their business model, which is sustainable, ethical and fundamentally about trying to improve individuals’ lives.

That is where I want to add my contribution. I agree with pretty much everything that has been said by Members on both sides of the House about the opportunities if we were to properly unleash the co-operative movement and harness its economic potential. There are other things that we can do with the co-operative model. Someone—I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), but I do not want to attribute it to him, in case it was not—once talked about drainpipe devolution and the idea that if a decision is made in Westminster and Whitehall by half a dozen people, and then that decision is devolved to half a dozen people in Greater Manchester, the west midlands or north Staffordshire and called devolution for the purpose of devolution, we have not really devolved anything; we have just moved the decision makers to another office. We can harness the co-operative and mutual benefit by expanding the number of people who make the decisions in the first place.

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Gareth Snell]

Perhaps my hon. Friend wants to correct me.

[Jim McMahon]

My hon. Friend is right. During the EU referendum, people were talking about feeling powerless and wanting to take back control and have more say over their lives. We need to look at public services, and the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network is leading on that.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because he takes me neatly to my next point, which is about learning from good practice on a smaller scale that directly benefits our economy. The Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network, of which he and I were both members when we were council leaders, demonstrates overwhelmingly what can be done if we put a small amount of investment into local projects. Tudor Evans, who leads the council in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), and Sharon Taylor in Stevenage are just a few examples of people who are pushing this agenda nationally.

If we put a small amount of investment into a group of people who want to change the way that their town works, we can get huge dividends back. If we move away from a simple contractual relationship for a new business towards profit share for rental purposes or an equity share in lieu of rent, we can suddenly start to sustain our high streets better. We can see empty units revitalised by businesses that can think about long-term business planning, rather than short-term business planning to meet next month’s rent and rates bill. We end up with a greater economic benefit to the local community.

If the Government thought about how they could help local authorities to do the sort of work that the Co-operative Councils’ Innovation Network is doing across the country, they would see an increase in potential tax take, because there would be more thriving small businesses. What do we know about thriving small businesses? We know that the people they employ spend their money in the neighbouring shops, and we have a circular economy, whereby one or two different thought processes about how we include more people in decision making in a community leads to economic benefits for not only the Treasury but local communities. That should surely be looked at by this Government or the next Government or as part of Labour’s commitment to at least double the co-operative sector.

The mutualisation argument extends to not only high streets but things such as public services for buses and trains. There is an argument for utilities to be mutualised, because these are things that we all use. If we mutualise and say that the people who use those services should have a stake in the control of them, those services can be driven to a higher quality and standard. There can be financial dividends for the users, but there can also be improvements in standards of delivery, because the people using the services are in control of how they are used. That is a fundamentally simple model that is not being exploited sufficiently by a number of Government bodies at the moment.

Overseas Electors Bill

Debate between Jim McMahon and Gareth Snell

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

Overseas Electors Bill

Debate between Jim McMahon and Gareth Snell

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

rose—

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

Modern-day Slavery

Debate between Jim McMahon and Gareth Snell

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is sad that the council that I used to lead, which is now not run by our political party, decided not to adopt the charter because it is worried about being too political. I am not sure how we can be too unpolitical in tackling modern slavery, but unfortunately there are still some organisations and local authorities that see the issue as partisan. If only they looked at Parliament, where partisan issues have been put aside and everyone looks at this issue collectively to find ways of dealing with it across both Houses and across parties, they could learn some valuable lessons from us. My hon. Friend is right that where local authorities are going above and beyond they are making a real difference to individuals whose existence would otherwise be one of daily toil and exploitation. The more we can do to tackle that, locally or nationally, the better.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that for victims of modern-day slavery, rebuilding their lives is a challenge in itself? I pay tribute to the Co-operative Group and other businesses that are offering paid work placements for victims of modern-day slavery.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend is right; the Bright Future project, which the Co-op Group runs, is a demonstration of the tangible activities that ethically minded organisations can carry out to give people fleeing modern slavery a real opportunity.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Jim McMahon and Gareth Snell

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for his speech. The simple answer in his case is that the Conservative councillors on Northamptonshire County Council could find the fortitude simply to no-confidence the existing leader, rather than trying to get the Lords Commissioners to do the dirty work for them, but it seems that they would rather abdicate responsibility in that sense as well.

While I am on my feet, I wish to draw attention to the comments made earlier by the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, Local Government and other subjects—the list seems to be growing every day.

[Jim McMahon]

Don’t forget bins.

[Gareth Snell]

Yes, obviously he is the Minister for Bins.

The Secretary of State said that Stoke-on-Trent City Council would see an increase in its funding abilities. I have just double-checked the figures published by the Conservative portfolio holder for finance on Stoke-on-Trent City Council, and they say that £32 million needs to be cut over the next two years. Either the Conservative Minister in this place was misinformed or the Conservative deputy leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council is providing misinformation to the public. Those two statements cannot be reconciled without someone saying they are wrong. That is the nub of today’s debate. Conservative Members are quite happy to throw around terminology and certain figures simply to prove a point that they are not cutting local government, but anybody in this place who has been involved in local government knows that they are.

I apologise, Mr Speaker. I should have drawn attention at the beginning of my speech to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a serving district councillor in a shire county, so I understand the points made by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) about the deprivation that exists in shire counties. However, I represent Stoke-on-Trent, and what he fails to understand is that this is not necessarily about the absolute level of deprivation, but the number of people for whom those services are needed—the number of children in care and the number of older people requiring complex social care. That simply cannot be compared in a city and a county as though it is apples and apples, because it is not; it is apples and pears at best.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) made clear, the cuts being inflicted on local government are causing councils to make very short-term decisions year on year to balance budgets, because they cannot make illegal budgets—they are not able to deliver any budget that is not balanced. In the case of Stoke-on-Trent, £1 million will be taken out of the homelessness budget. That will not end homelessness, but drive more people towards A&E services and peripheral services funded by the clinical commissioning group, the police and crime commissioner or other funders that will then be asked by their departments to make their own savings. We have a circular system of cuts that do not help the individuals on which they are focused. Again, Stoke-on-Trent City Council is looking to cut £751,000 from its drug and alcohol support service by 2019-20. If, as the Secretary of State says, there is more money coming into Stoke-on-Trent, I do not understand why such political choices are being made.

It is not only Labour councillors and Labour Members who are saying this; Lord Porter, the chair of the Local Government Association, has said:

“Years of unprecedented central government funding cuts have left many councils beyond the point where council tax income can be expected to plug the…gaps”

alone. If Conservative Members will not listen to Labour Members, perhaps they will listen to their own peers who are experts in this field. Quite frankly, if Lord Porter is saying that there is a problem with local government funding, we should all sit up and listen because he knows what he is talking about.

I want to touch briefly not on the funding arrangements in Stoke-on-Trent, but, although the Secretary of State is no longer in his place, on the issues in Bromsgrove. It is one thing for the Secretary of State to tell me that my council has no problems, but another for his own council in Bromsgrove to predict a £1 million shortfall over the next three years and to have to put up council tax by 3% and for the county council to predict a £32 million deficit over the next year and to have to put up council tax by 4.94%. The leader of the county council said in a cabinet report:

“The current…financial year has faced significant financial challenges”.

This is not scaremongering by Labour councils or Labour Members. Tory councils with Tory MPs are making it quite clear that Tory Government cuts are affecting the provision of local government in their own communities.

I am not entirely convinced that the report, for all its fancy words and funny fudging of figures, will actually deliver anything to give the necessary help and support to councils that need it. I will now finish to leave some time for others, but my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said that he is from Robin Hood country. The motion does not give us the redistributive polities of Robin Hood; it is more about robbing the cities and robbing the poor.

The report is about taking money out of areas of deprivation to make sure that rebellious Back Benchers do not decide to sit on their hands and cause the Government a problem this evening. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, who is not in his place, has been able to succeed in getting additional funding for his council on a one-off basis, but that is not a long-term solution for the problems faced by local government. As more and more services are pushed by this Government towards local government, it is incumbent on us all to make sure that local government is funded properly and fairly.