Co-operatives

Simon Danczuk Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) for securing this important debate, which is very much appreciated.

Members present do not need me to tell them, although I will tell them anyway, that I am very proud and pleased to say that Rochdale was the birthplace of co-operatives. I think I am right in saying that the Minister hails from Rochdale, so he will have a good understanding of what I am about to say. The Rochdale pioneers established the very first co-operative on Toad lane in 1844. The building is still there, and it has just been renovated with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is a great museum, and I urge hon. Members to pay it a visit whenever they get the opportunity. My reason for mentioning the Rochdale pioneers is that they are the people who made this debate possible. They established and pushed the first co-operative, and co-operatives have now been taken up across the world. People visit the museum from Japan, Canada, America and all over the world to honour the concept of mutual organisations, of which Rochdalians are rightly proud.

Yesterday, I spoke about the importance of self-reliance and about how Governments can encourage people to do things for themselves. Co-operatives are a great and important example of how people come together to help each other. They are a great example of self-reliance, and one that we should continue to support and celebrate.

In Rochdale alone there are co-operatives of many different shapes and sizes that have a real, positive impact on our economy, the community and the town overall. We have just established the largest housing co-operative in the United Kingdom, Rochdale Borough wide Housing. I spoke to its chairwoman, Lynne Brosnan, earlier today. It is owned by its tenants and employees, who have a major say in how the organisation operates across the town. We are proud of that organisation.

Rochdale has a variety of Co-operative Group stores, travel agents and banks, as would be expected, but it also has a number of smaller co-operatives that have an impact on the economy and the community. I particularly want to mention Sunshine Care. Local authority care workers, all women, came out of the local council in 2009 and came together to establish a home care co-operative. I have met those ladies over the years from before they started to where they are now, three or four years later. They have been through some really tough times and challenges in establishing their co-operative. I spoke to one of the founding members, Christine Bailey, just before this debate, and I asked her how the co-operative is progressing. It now has 34 staff, which is fantastic, and it provides 600 care hours a week to older people. Ideally, older people would want services delivered by people coming into their home to be delivered by a mutual—by those women who have come together to develop this fantastic co-operative.

Sunshine Care is great. As Christine says, there are no directors creaming money off the top of the organisation, so everything the organisation earns goes right back to the workers, who each have a stake—they get voting rights after working for the organisation for six months. Sunshine Care is also a Cabinet Office pathfinder, and the ladies who work for it are proud of their co-operative status, which is important to them.

The Government are considering whether to dilute the value of the term “co-operative.” In their red tape challenge, the Government have been talking about removing “co-operative” from the list of sensitive words, which would be a big mistake. We need to protect, not diminish, the good name of co-operatives. I hope the Government will think twice before doing anything that damages the co-operative brand in that way.

My final point is on Government support for co-operatives. I am a member of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government, which took evidence on mutual and co-operative approaches to delivering local services—I have the report here. The Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr Maude) gave evidence to the Committee. Although I got a good sense that the Government are keen on co-operatives and see them as having a role in the economy, I am a bit concerned about the Government’s response to some of the Committee’s recommendations. There are opportunities for the Cabinet Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury to work better together on promoting and helping co-operatives. There is also an opportunity for the Government to push the banks and other financial institutions, including Big Society Capital, to lend to mutuals and co-operatives.

There is probably an opportunity in tax incentives for co-operatives. We also need to look at the procurement rules, particularly for local government, which could be of added benefit to co-operatives. To give the Government some credit, they established the mutuals taskforce and the mutuals support programme, but there is still more to be done to help co-operatives develop.

Co-operatives make a fantastic contribution to our economy. They are just one of the great things to come out of Rochdale.