Co-operatives and Mutuality

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Thursday 30th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

It is a disappointment that UKFI has not published its thinking on that even in outline. The calculations are not enormously complex. There is, of course, a further political issue, which has to do with the return of cash to the public Exchequer at a time of extreme economic crisis, but one still hopes that something of the form of the mutual ethos can be retained in the new organisation when it is ultimately sold.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wonder whether, like me, the hon. Gentleman is disappointed that the Government have not considered the proposal for a payback to the taxpayer. Perhaps he will join me and other co-operatively-minded MPs to challenge the Chancellor to re-examine the issue, because of the benefits that could accrue from the mutualisation of Northern Rock.

[Jesse Norman]

I am not absolutely sure I understood the thrust of the hon. Lady’s intervention. It seems to me that there is an important issue in relation to the publication of the decision that has been made. It is quite right that there should be a public justification of the decision not to proceed with the mutualisation. One would like further progress to be made on retaining the mutual ethos. I am not sure how much further work there is to be done on it.

[Stella Creasy]

I am afraid I have a foggy head, but my mind is clear on this. The Co-operative party has submitted a proposal to the Government about paying back and the mutualisation of Northern Rock. I ask the hon. Gentleman again whether he will combine with me and other co-operatively-minded MPs to press the Chancellor to respond to that document, which he has not yet done.

[Jesse Norman]

I am afraid I have not the foggiest clue what paying back means. To whom will something be paid back, and out of what, under the proposal?

[Stella Creasy]

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is worth considering models of remutualisation for Northern Rock, which would examine the payback to the taxpayer through the remutualisation process, he will meet us to look at how to progress that, and not lose the opportunity that mutualising Northern Rock would present.

[Jesse Norman]

I am of course happy—if this is what the hon. Lady is asking—to meet her and other Co-operative MPs to discuss that, so that I can understand the proposal better. I do not know whether the hon. Lady was present when I intervened earlier, but there is a clear financial problem to do with the capital structure, the taxpayer value and the sustainability of a model that has a large vendor note sitting in it from the Government—that is a form of loan—and substitutes public ownership of equity with public ownership of a loan, which may be no more stable for less return. There is a genuine economic issue, and that is what we need to engage with.

I hope that we can come together as a House and a community of MPs, in a bipartisan way, to promote co-ops, change our public culture, develop and spread the co-operative ethos, and encourage the Government to push ahead with all the work they are doing so successfully, so far, in this area.

Big Society

Debate between Stella Creasy and Jesse Norman

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate and I am pleased that the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who unfortunately is not here, secured it.

Many hon. Members have set out the historical traditions behind this debate, but I come at it from a slightly different angle—as a psychologist analysing participation, the proposals that have been put forward for the big society, and the evidence base. From that angle, it seems that we start with a puzzle. In the points put forward by Government Members about the problems that they have experienced with public services and regulation, there is nothing to suggest that the removal of the state and the propagation of the voluntary and private sector will always achieve better results. Nor have we have seen any evidence about what shape the commissioning may take at either local or national level, and who will make the decisions or participate in that process.

Above all, many Labour Members, and I believe some on the Government Benches, wonder how a concern for increasing social activism fits with a Government who want a cut in spending in and of itself. That appears to many of us to be not so much nudging as shoving people into volunteering through a cut in public services, and that is likely only to destroy the social fabric with which we are all concerned. It is not often that I find myself on the same side as Phillip Blond, but we agree that making radical change is hard at the best of times and near impossible at times of extreme austerity.

I come to the big society, then, not with stories of jobsworth local officials or quotations from Burke, or perhaps even Paine, but with a more fundamental problem facing the Government. It is impossible to ally a Conservative ideology—the prejudice that personal liberty and the role of markets are undermined by collective action—with the recognition that when people work together to fund, run or do something, it has the power to change the world.

With that in mind, I wish to set out four problems that I see with the big society, and an alternative proposal based on the principles of fellowship that I see emanating from the left. The four problems are simple. First and foremost, it is a process-focused philosophy, and as such its purpose cannot be set out. Secondly, its shows a misunderstanding of the nature of contemporary voluntary sector organisations. Thirdly, it shows a misunderstanding of the nature of modern communities and communal bonds, and fourthly, it takes no account of the lives that people lead or the willingness of the public to engage.

The question of purpose goes to the heart of political ideologies and public office. The big society, as currently articulated, seems to be very much about processes, not purposes, so it is about the process of volunteering or social action rather than the ideas behind it. Fundamentally, therefore, it cannot tell us what explains or sparks volunteering. A vague sense of shared interest and neighbourliness is not enough to hold and sustain involvement. Anybody who has had neighbours that they have not got on with, or been in voluntary organisations with people to whom they would not necessarily send a Christmas card, can explain that to us.

[Jesse Norman]

I think that is quite wrong. There is a large literature—I am sure that, as a psychologist, the hon. Lady is aware of it—showing that people are happier and live healthier, more contented, longer lives when they are able to link with other people and exercise compassion. The big society draws on such emotions, and it is simply nonsense to say that there is no substance behind it. Her own discipline contains a vast amount of evidence for it.

[Stella Creasy]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s passion for the subject, but if he lets me continue, he will hear that I am not saying that there is no substance behind it. I am saying that by not setting out the purpose of the big society, the Government leave themselves open to acknowledging a whole range of volunteering activities that they may not want to support. Taken to extremes, for example, the Ku Klux Klan and the English Defence League would be seen as wanting to bring people together for a particular purpose in their local community, but I am sure that none of us would want to promote such organisations and their values.

[Jesse Norman]

One marvellous thing about the set of ideas behind the big society is precisely that it is not subject to any overwhelming social purpose. A purpose for society, and a plan to put it on a purposeful basis, is a recipe for totalitarianism.

[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman and I therefore disagree about the value of purpose. I believe that purpose, and particularly people coming together with a common bond and for a common purpose, is how we get social change to happen. That is where there are disagreements between us about the value of the big society.

[Jesse Norman]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

I am going to press on, because I do not have much time.

We on the left have always understood that for any organisation to work, it needs a sense of purpose and a common goal. It needs to know what it is trying to achieve, not just how it will try to achieve it. People can then be brought together around that current goal.

That leads me to my second point about why purpose is so important in the big society. It seems to me that in the points that are being made about it, a whole series of objectives are conflated, whether democratic engagement or increasing volunteering. We all understand that volunteering is not the same as voice, but the conflation of more meetings at a local level with encouraging more people to volunteer and looking to commission more within the voluntary sector seems to reflect a lack of purpose.