Co-operatives

Tom Greatrex Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. I declare my interest as a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament. As I will speak about football co-operatives and mutuals, I should put on record that I am the founding chair of the Fulham Supporters Trust.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing this debate during co-operatives fortnight, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said, and on giving a good and comprehensive summary of a range of current co-operative and mutual issues. I will not repeat the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn made, but I will touch on a couple of the issues that he raised.

First, my hon. Friend rightly highlighted what the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change said about the need for a co-operative energy revolution. It was a cause of some frustration during consideration of the Energy Bill that we were unable to convince him to turn his words into action on a community energy strategy and regarding the threshold for the feed-in tariff for community energy projects. My hon. Friend talked about the extent to which people have an interest in energy, and feel a sense of ownership towards it, as a result of community energy projects. There are a number of such projects across the country, but most are relatively small, and if we are to develop them further, we need to change the threshold.

When the Secretary of State was asked about that during the Bill’s pre-legislative scrutiny, he said, “There aren’t any community energy projects above 5 MW.” Well, that is because that is the threshold, so his argument is self-defeating. Earlier in the debate, I was looking at the amendments that the Government have tabled to the Energy Bill in the House of Lords—obviously, I was listening intently to what everybody was saying, but I was multitasking—and I am pleased to say that there is one that will increase the threshold for community energy projects from 5 MW to 10 MW. Those of us who sought to persuade them can reflect on the fact that our argument was well made and will have an impact, unless the Government decide to vote against their own amendment. The change will be a significant step towards helping to meet the challenge that was rightly identified earlier in the debate.

I also want to touch briefly on housing and housing co-operatives. I am pleased and proud to have the West Whitlawburn housing co-operative in my constituency. Obviously the Minister is familiar with Rochdale, but I would not necessarily expect him to be familiar with parts of Cambuslang, in my constituency. On all the neighbourhood statistics available, Whitlawburn is among the most economically deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland. Figures on health conditions, educational attainment, employment and income are collected slightly differently in England—and, I presume, in Wales—but Whitlawburn would probably also come pretty high up any list measuring those things across the UK.

Several years ago, the West Whitlawburn bit of the housing estate in Whitlawburn became a co-operative, and there is a striking contrast between the standard of the housing in that co-operative, given the capital and energy-efficiency improvements that have been made, and the standard of the other housing, which is literally across the road. That is partly because of the real impetus that has come from those who came together to form the co-operative, which is about not only the mechanisms involved in driving investment but, just as importantly, the attitude and ethos that have become apparent. Just last week, along with a colleague from the Scottish Parliament, the local MSP James Kelly, I was pleased to be able to talk to the members of the very engaged management committee, who are all tenants and members of the co-operative. They take their work very seriously, and their attitude is all about what they can do to improve housing in their co-operative and to maintain that improvement, as opposed to expecting somebody else to do things for them. That makes an important point about the ethos of co-operatives.

The area is relatively small, however, and the co-operative is not immune from the impact of Government policies. The bedroom tax or the spare room subsidy—whatever label the Minister uses—is having a considerable impact in West Whitlawburn, where 67% of tenants are on housing benefit. The housing association has found—it has been able to do so because it is relatively small— that 30% of its tenants, or 200 people, are affected by that measure. Its housing stock consists mostly of accommodation with two or three bedrooms, and there is a problem of people needing to move from three bedrooms to two, or from two bedrooms to one. People of pensionable age are not impacted, however, so we have the bizarre situation of the housing association almost considering seeing whether people who are in receipt of state pension and live in one or two-bedroom accommodation will swap with working-age tenants living three or two-bedroom accommodation. The policy will have a significant impact on the housing co-operative as a result of rent arrears. The co-operative does not want to evict its members—nobody wants that—but the financial effects of the policy could have a significant impact on what it is trying to do.

The third issue I want to touch on is football supporters’ trusts, which are an important form of mutual activity. People will be aware that the trusts were born out of the co-operative movement with the support of Supporters Direct. There are now several supporters’ trusts throughout the country, and there are good examples of trusts that are completely or partly in control of running clubs in Wimbledon, Portsmouth, Swansea and Manchester. In other cases, football supporters’ trusts are trying to take a role in running clubs, including Heart of Midlothian in Scotland. In every case, supporters’ trusts have tried to take a role in the ownership and running of clubs when those clubs have been in crisis and everyone else has walked away.

However, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the example of the trust in Swansea, given its economic impact. Swansea was basically a bankrupt club, and it was sold on for £1. The supporters’ trust was formed and took a role in the club’s ownership, and it has been an integral part of the club since then. Over a couple of seasons, the club has gone from 90th out of 92 in the league to being an established premiership club. It has won the league cup, and it will be playing in Europe next season. All that involved a role for supporter ownership and supporter control, which is a form of co-op.

There have been many debates about football governance—I have spoken in most of them—so I do not want to repeat any points about that, but I do want to talk about clubs’ economic impact. Football clubs have a significant local economic impact—directly and indirectly. When Hull was first promoted to the premiership, people there would have talked about the impact on the city of visiting supporters and the attention that comes with having a top-level club. The same happened when Blackpool was in the premiership, and the same has happened with Swansea. However, when clubs are driven and run by people who are involved in the local community, they are more inclined to ensure that some of their spending power and economic activity benefits that community. Trusts reinforce local economic activity, so they should be encouraged, treasured and nurtured.

Although this is not part of the Economic Secretary’s brief, he will know that the coalition agreement included a commitment to encourage and foster fan involvement in, and ownership of, football clubs. The Minister for Sport, the right hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), has mentioned that commitment a number of times, and he has tried to persuade football authorities to act on it, although I think we are getting towards the end of that road, given the intransigence of the authorities. If the coalition wants that commitment to come to fruition, it might have to take action by forcing the football authorities to do what they seem not to want to do. The coalition should encourage fan involvement for the good reason that it will not only sustain football clubs, but encourage the economic activity that happens when trusts are involved in the management structure, as we can see from the examples I cited. I hope that the Economic Secretary will reflect on that, even though it is not his direct responsibility.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Our next speaker might be dangerously overqualified because he comes from Desborough, one of the famous co-operative towns in Northamptonshire, which now lies in the Kettering constituency.