Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“As part of the radical agenda that my hon. Friend rightly says is required if we are to deal with the climate emergency, does he share my view that three things in particular are needed: radical decarbonising of our current energy set-up; an acceleration of investment in electric vehicle infrastructure; and a significant increase in tree cover in the UK?”
“The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making an interesting speech. I have been trying to keep pace with all his asks of the Chancellor in terms of costs—it is a serious list of asks. Does he not think there is a need for a serious debate, costed out, about the cost of decarbonising our transport network in the future? I agree with his proposals for investment in Leeds, and for Letchworth Garden City and his constituency. Other things are also needed for London and the funding simply is not there within the DFT’s budget, so an urgent plan to change that is essential.”
“I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend and of the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on the huge potential for offshore wind to create new jobs in this country. Does she agree that the solar industry also offers significant potential for new jobs, and that it would be good to hear the Government’s plans to accelerate the requirement to put solar panels on new buildings?”
“Given that post offices and credit unions provide easy access to cash, is it not now time to offer business rates relief to both to enhance the provision of cash and other affordable financial services?”
“The situation in the hon. Lady’s area is mirrored in Harrow, where the council has lost over 97% of its revenue support grant since 2010 and is really struggling. Is it not therefore particularly sad that neither of the two Conservative candidates for the premiership are talking about these issues at their hustings?”
“One pressure that the hon. Lady has not mentioned is homelessness. Although we on the Opposition Benches will not be surprised by the Government’s lack of additional revenue to tackle homelessness, does she not think it particularly odd that the Conservative party, which claims to be the party of the armed forces, is doing nothing about the scale of rough sleeping among veterans?”
“Before the hon. Gentleman launches into multilateral aid, may I take him back to the point raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)? In my experience, since 2010 it is the Treasury that has been the principal driver of other Departments increasingly being allowed to count some of their spending as international development spend. To what extent has the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) already had conversations with Treasury Ministers about the comprehensive spending review they are preparing for the next Conservative Prime Minister? I suspect the Treasury has already done work to try to identify ways to get that 25% figure even higher.”
“Is not another benefit of multilateral aid that it enables a country such as Britain to help by combining with other countries to get significant sums of money to the poorest people, with a minimum impact on that country? I think of a country such as Ghana, which has lots of poor people and a civil service with nothing like the capacity that our great civil service has. Imagine if all 27 EU countries that give money through the European development fund suddenly decided that they wanted not to give money to Ghana through Europe but to do it themselves. The Ghanaian civil service would suddenly have to deal with all those 27-plus reporting lines. Is not one of the benefits of multilateral aid that it minimises the administrative burden of getting aid to the very poorest in the country in question?”
“Co-ops and mutuals exist already in every sector of the economy, from financial services to housing, food retailing, public services and sport, supplying affordable and sustainable services to consumers, providing rewarding work and strengthening community enterprise.”
“I beg to move, That this House welcomes the contribution of co-operative and mutual businesses to the UK economy; notes that they provide substantial jobs in Britain, generate significant tax revenues and involve consumers and employees in decision making; and calls on the Government to review what further steps it can take to help grow that sector. It is a pleasure to move the motion in this, the first week of Co-operatives Fortnight. Co-operative and mutual businesses—from retail giants such as John Lewis, Nationwide and the Co-operative Group through to social enterprises, credit unions, energy co-ops, community banks, childcare co-ops, friendly insurers and housing co-operatives—offer a route map to a more democratic and fairer economy.”
“There are those on the right who criticise co-ops and mutuals for being some sort of left-wing throwback to the 1970s, and dangerously radical; and there are those on the hard left who think that they are not public ownership at its best, but just a front for business as usual. More generous critics take a benevolent, paternalistic approach, tolerating co-ops and mutuals until bigger, more serious players in the City or the unions enter the room.”
“That is an extremely good point. Building societies are one part of a co-op and mutual movement that already has a combined income of more than £133 billion, with assets worth many billions more. It is a serious and significant part of our economy, yet all too often Government, regulators, policy makers and thinkers dismiss its huge potential for expansion—expansion that could help to challenge wage stagnation, widening inequality and our growing environmental crisis. Co-ops and mutuals put economic power in the hands of ordinary people, and, remarkably, those ordinary people, supported by skilful management, can be entrepreneurial, highly productive, and visionary—who knew?”
“I was about to say something that I hope my hon. Friend will be able to support even more wholeheartedly. I have always believed that co-ops and mutuals are the future: that they spread wealth and power more fairly, that they strengthen British-owned business, that they provide competition and choice for consumers in a range of critical markets, that they create diversity and enterprise, that they take a long-term view, and that they are a counter to the short-termist, riskier business models loved by City editors. We in this great Chamber should surely be able to allow our communities to direct and influence the economies that surround them and on which they depend.”
“There is at present an absence of patient capital or capital blended with grants to reduce investment risk for start-up worker co-ops. A dedicated fund would enable specialist co-op lenders to take a higher level of risk in this area and mean that more capital would be available.”
“Britain’s co-op and mutual movement suffers from a lack of dedicated banking funds. Across Europe, dedicated mutual or co-op banks exist, are highly profitable and have been around for ages. I have long thought that the Royal Bank of Scotland could and should be converted into a mutual to help address this gap in the UK and to challenge the continuing big banking monopoly in the City. The Minister may not yet be ready to join me in making that jump, so perhaps I can ask him to explore whether the British Business Bank might begin to have a dedicated mutual growth fund to encourage the setting up of new mutuals. Responsible Finance, an excellent organisation that champions Britain’s existing community banks, highlights the need for dedicated finance for start-up worker co-ops.”
“I recognise that the Minister and his officials have looked at this once already in the light of Lord Naseby’s successful Bill in the other place, and indeed my own and mutuals’ representations, but I hope he might be persuaded, particularly given that similar legislation is now on the statute book in Australia, to bring key experts in this area together with officials again to try to find a resolution to the problems that have stopped this method of raising finance being allowed in the UK. The Co-operative Group, other retail co-op societies, Co-operatives UK, friendly insurers and the Building Societies Association all support progress on this issue, and I urge the Minister, who has been sympathetic to co-operatives and mutuals in the past, to be willing to take a fresh look at this.”
“In the UK building societies have a version of this already, called core capital deferred shares, which allows them to access capital markets without risking their mutual nature, but other financial mutuals and co-ops in the UK do not have anything like that. Outside the EU, Desjardins in Quebec has raised more than $4 billion through this route, and Australia passed legislation on 5 April this year allowing its co-ops and mutuals to issue share capital while protecting their co-operative and mutual nature. If the Australians can do it, if most of Europe can do it, and if British building societies have it already, why should not British co-operatives and other mutuals also be allowed to raise finance in this way?”
“Clearly we need to protect this unique governance model but also allow mutuals to issue permanent investment shares— that is to say, create indivisible reserves—which cannot be distributed to members even beyond the lifetime of the mutual. The European Union states offer this already in their mutual and co-operative legal set-ups, and a further five EU states have it in a slightly different form, yet in the UK we do not offer this route to raising significant finance for co-ops and mutuals. Such a form of co-op and mutual share capital would offer stronger protection against demutualisation and therefore maintain and enhance corporate diversity. Above all else it would allow co-ops and mutuals to compete in the marketplace with other big businesses without one hand tied behind their back.”
“Access to capital, further legislative reform, better Government funding, more Whitehall efforts to raise awareness and more expertise on the sector in the civil service are the key asks of Britain’s co-op and mutual sector. I appreciate that finance is not an issue or problem reserved to co-ops and mutuals, but because of their different ownership models they often have real difficulty in accessing finance for expansion, and indeed for getting started. Big corporations can access large investment through debt funding or, crucially, can create capital by selling shares. Co-operatives and mutuals cannot at the moment do the latter without demutualising.”
“Co-ops and mutuals can be life-changing and transformative, and the Government and the other Opposition parties should join Labour in committing themselves to double the size of the sector from between 4% and 5% of GDP to 10%. The Oxo Tower on London’s South Bank was redeveloped by the enterprise Coin Street Community Builders. It now contains five floors of social housing run by Redwood Housing Co-op, subject to some of the lowest rents in the capital while being in one of London’s prime spots. Armed forces credit unions are another powerful example of the difference that co-ops can make. They were established after a long campaign by the Co-operative party, and are helping to combat the problem of payday lenders who prey on our armed forces personnel. Those are two remarkable stories, in my view, but much more is possible.”
“I absolutely endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. I know that fisheries co-ops are another part of the sector in which she is interested. They, too, make a huge contribution, and could do a lot more with a little more help. The economy is not some separate space to be run only by so-called management experts on grotesque levels of pay who can continue to ignore the rest of the country. Why should our neighbours, our friends and those we see at the school gate not have a say in how businesses and services on which they depend are run? They are allowed a say in political decision making, so why should they not be allowed a say in the businesses that they work in or depend on?”
“Credit unions are the most active, responsible lenders to the poorest and most financially vulnerable and excluded people in the UK, but they are held back from doing more by outdated legislation and a digital approach to regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the work of programmes such as Co-op UK’s Hive programme, the resources that are available from Stir to Action, some of the local measures that we have seen in Manchester and Preston, and Social Investment Business’s mutual Reach Fund, but these are all relatively small-scale and need to be scaled up. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me—and, I suspect, other hon. Members—urge the introduction of further legislative reform to help credit unions offer more services to their members and enable them to invest their members’ money in an expanded range of ways to generate a return for savers.”
“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. There needs to be a significant culture change in the FCA’s approach to credit unions and other financial mutuals. I recognise that there has been some Government support—indeed, the Minister has been helpful in ensuring more support for credit unions—but wholesale reform of the objects and powers of credit unions through primary legislation, providing a clear basis for innovation and development in the sector, is overdue.”
“The Government have sought to dispose of unwanted buildings and other land, but some of that should be allocated for sale or transfer for co-operative housing. We need more community land trusts to lock down ownership of land for those who need it most, and I will give just one example, with Armed Forces Day this Saturday in mind. In the US, homeless veterans are being helped into homes built on donated Government land, subsidised by Government funding and run as housing co-operatives. That has given veterans the chance to take control of the environment, rules, regulations and rents that they live by and pay, while getting proper support to rebuild their lives.”
“In Homes England, for example, a dedicated group of staff could promote and help housing co-operatives. A co-operative development agency could be tasked with promoting interest in co-ops and mutual entrepreneurialism across the country. The Treasury should be able to check that Government funding announcements do not discriminate against co-operative and mutual models. Co-op schools and energy co-ops have not been helped at key moments. Finally, why oh why are the Government not doing more to promote employee ownership trusts—a move they announced in the 2014 Budget—as a way of enabling the owners of companies to get the exit they want, realising the value of their business while securing its ethos, values and employees for the future?”
“I hope the Minister will ask his officials to check that every branch of the Government offers payroll deduction to join a credit union if civil servants want that facility. There should also be a requirement for the Department for Work and Pensions, local authorities and housing associations to signpost those in need to credit unions to help them avoid the payday loan companies and illegal lenders who prey on our most vulnerable people. Further help to allow credit unions to invest in new technology, so that they can provide a good digital offer, is key. Greater understanding of the needs of the co-op and mutual sector by the civil service, and across all parts of Government, is important, and the Treasury is in a good position to facilitate such an awareness-raising effort.”
“Under the Credit Unions Act 1979, credit unions are permitted to offer credit to their members in the form of a loan, but the Financial Conduct Authority has taken a strict and literal view of this, limiting credit unions to offering cash loans. ABCUL and credit unions such as Plane Saver and London Mutual have noted that credit unions could provide an affordable and responsible alternative to a number of other consumer credit markets, such as secured car lending. Indeed, one credit union highlighted to me that the FCA had effectively stopped it offering an alternative to the high-cost credit that BrightHouse locks its customers into when they cannot afford to pay outright for basics such as cookers and fridges. There should be a legal right for payroll deduction to join a credit union to be available to an employee if they desire it.”
“My hon. Friend seems to have gone from being dangerously radical earlier to being conservative within the space of about 10 minutes. He makes a reasonable general point about the changing landscape, but I am struck by the number of credit unions that have stories to tell of their difficulties with the FCA, and I believe that the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and I have made about the need for cultural change in the FCA’s approach to mutuals is justified. As the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd and the Building Societies Association have noted, new primary legislation for credit unions could allow them the chance to offer additional services at an affordable price in areas such as house insurance, where consumers often pay a premium if they pay on a monthly basis.”
“Co-operatives and mutuals are a great British success story, but they could be an even bigger one. I urge the House and the Government to embrace the sector and to champion the doubling in size of its contribution to our economy.”
“I do agree, and I hope that my hon. Friend will catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, to develop that point further. Soldier On, a US veterans charity, opened the Gordon H. Mansfield veterans community in the autumn of 2017, with 51 homeless veterans moving in. Those veterans received not just the keys to their own apartment in a housing co-operative, but the keys to a new life away from the danger and insecurity of the streets. Soldier On has 14 new units under construction and is looking to develop 100 more units in New York and a further 70 in New Jersey. That model of housing co-ops on, probably, donated Government land could work in the UK and should be happening here. I gently ask the Treasury to encourage the Ministry of Defence to stop some of the sales of the almost 50 empty properties of which it is trying to dispose.”
“One credit union that spoke to me ahead of the debate wants to open more branches on the high street, to help plug the gap left by mainstream bank branch closures, and it wonders aloud whether the Government might be sympathetic to the idea of extending business rates relief to credit unions seeking to open business branches. Does the hon. Gentleman think that could also help facilitate the greater spread of the credit union movement in Northern Ireland?”
“Resolved, That this House welcomes the contribution of co-operative and mutual businesses to the UK economy; notes that they provide substantial jobs in Britain, generate significant tax revenues and involve consumers and employees in decision making; and calls on the Government to review what further steps it can take to help grow that sector.”
“Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), highlighted the huge potential of energy, agricultural and food co-ops. Lastly, I welcome the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), who I have no doubt will be a star as chair of the Co-operative party in pushing a co-op development agency. Time prevents me from referencing the huge contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), who is a current star of the co-op movement. Question put and agreed to.”
“Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) rightly praised the Co-operative Group’s leadership on modern slavery, on preventing retail crime and on addressing the hunger in too many of our communities. It is good to hear the hon. Members for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talk about the contribution of co-ops and mutuals in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I say in passing that I hope both Members and, indeed, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw are able to support my plan to turn RBS into a mutual. My south-west Co-operative party allies, my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) and for Stroud (Dr Drew), along with my hon.”
“Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) rightly talked about how the philosophy of co-operation could help to address the loss of faith in markets and politics, as well as re-energising employees, exciting customers and helping to rebuild or build the social fabric of our country, which we all know is under pressure. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) rightly alluded to the considerably greater contribution made by co-ops and mutuals in America and Germany, and he also began to explore, as others did, the barriers in the UK to enabling the sector here to be as big and widespread. My hon.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to wind up this debate and, in particular, to thank the Minister for three specific things. First, the winners of the additional funding to offer new credit union services will be delighted by his support for their work. I also welcome his interest in further proposals for the legislative reform of credit unions to help them expand, as well as his willingness to look again at finding a solution to help co-operatives and mutuals to raise new share capital. Nobody would suggest that the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and I constitute any sort of dream team, but I am genuinely grateful for his support in making this debate happen. He, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the hon.”
“I commend my right hon. Friend for his speech thus far—it is impossible to disagree with a single point of it. In recent months, my constituency, which has traditionally been seen as a relatively well-off part of London, has seen real evidence of hunger, with people needing our food bank and now school hunger projects. Has he looked at the low take-up of Healthy Start vouchers, which represent Government support for people on benefits with newborn children? Almost 45% of eligible people do not take those vouchers up. Does he not think there is more that the Government and the supermarkets should be doing to promote the scheme?”
“Through that, we could track the areas that are genuinely being supported by the bigger players in the financial services industry and the areas with a need for charitable activity or more support for credit unions. Lastly, if someone is looking for financial services products in media and advertising terms, they are deluged with services offered by the big banks or the payday lenders. Credit unions and other charitable and not-for-profit lenders are not given anything like the same attention. There needs to be a significant effort by Government at all levels to promote alternative sources of lending, with a particular focus on credit unions.”
“There was someone in the past, but there does not seem to be anyone with any awareness of credit unions, and that may explain why the FCA has interpreted the Credit Union Act 1979 in a particularly restrictive way to date. We have to accept that there is a significant market failure in the provision of financial services, but we should also accept that the big banks still have a responsibility to help tackle the problem. They should be held to account for who they are lending to and in which districts. In that sense, they should support a campaign that the Centre for Responsible Credit is particularly vociferous in. It demands that banks publish what they lend down to postcode level in an anonymous way.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing this debate. I will echo one of her points, and then throw in two other issues. First, credit unions represent a potential solution to financial exclusion, but they suffer from regulatory handicaps at the moment: they cannot offer a series of products that are clearly in demand, including car lending, insurance and credit card services, and they often cannot offer services to small businesses. It would be helpful to hear from the Minister what action the Government will take to sort out the problems in this area, which I know he is familiar with. Credit unions have been lobbying for some time for legislative changes, and to get a more sympathetic regulator. From what I can see, nobody on the FCA board has any credit union experience whatever.”
“Serious violence is often—not always—caused by organised criminal groups. Does the Home Secretary share the head of the National Crime Agency’s assessment that, without more resources, we are in danger of losing the fight against organised crime?”
“On the question of the pressures on the 40 civil servants, surely the threat posed by the Russians is a matter of national security. If there are not enough staff in the Department to implement these sanctions, why has the Foreign Secretary not deployed more staff to enable us to crack on with this?”
“There is also confusion about the true number of Jains in the UK, but the UK is certainly a significant centre for Jainism, and studies indicate that it has almost 65,000 Jains—a figure far in excess of the 20,000 identified in the 2011 census, about which I will also say a little more later. One key figure in the UK’s Jain community told me: “We have always sought to integrate into the fabric of British society and wholeheartedly accept British values whilst retaining our distinct identity, religion and heritage.” The UK has five major Jain religious sites: Hayes, Kenton, Leicester, Manchester and, of course, Potters Bar. The Potters Bar Jain temple, the largest example of Jain architecture in Europe, hosted His Royal Highness Prince Charles as recently as 2015.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the contribution of the Jain community to the UK. I have the privilege of chairing the all-party parliamentary group on Jainism, and of having a large Jain community in my constituency. Jainism is a major and ancient religion of Indian origin that is recognised in the UK and globally, including by the United Nations, yet the cultural, economic, social and religious contribution that Jains make to our country has received little or no attention from public policy makers. That needs to change. The largest proportion of people of the Jain faith live in India. There are estimated to be some 7 million Jains worldwide, but global census figures are likely to be a significant underestimation because many Jains are identified as Hindu—of which more anon.”
“That is why stonemasons need to be brought in from India, with the specialist expertise to which my hon. Friend rightly referred. I have also had the honour of visiting the Jain temple in Kenton, which is slightly nearer to my constituency and is attended by many Jains who live in Harrow West. Jainism was founded in the 6th century BC. Jains trace their history through a succession of 24 Tirthamkara, or enlightened teachers.”
“I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention and for his work on the all-party group. When I visited the Potters Bar temple last June, its trustees were at pains to point out the difficulty of getting visas for stonemasons to come and help with the extension. I hope to come back to that issue and, as my hon. Friend suggests, press the Minister for help with getting the Home Office to be a little more reasonable. The Potters Bar temple is magnificent. It was built with ancient techniques and crafts. No steel was used; 1,300 tonnes of Indian marble from Makrana were shipped to London after being beautifully carved by more than 450 specialist craftsmen. Almost 6,000 carved pieces were used, including for the amazing intricate ceiling of Indian marble, which was assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle in just 15 months.”
“In April and October, followers of Jainism mark Ayambil Oli, a biannual weekly festival of prayer and limited diet that celebrates discipline, austerity and self-control. In August and September, the Jain community celebrates Paryusan, an eight-day festival of fasting, prayer, repentance and forgiveness. Lord Mahavira’s birth is celebrated in April, and his final liberation is celebrated during Diwali in October and November. I pay tribute to the Institute of Jainology, which provides the infrastructure to support Jain communities throughout the UK.”
“The second is aparigraha, which requires Jains to minimise their environmental impact through the non-acquisition of material goods; it discourages them from employment in sectors such as mining that can have a negative impact on the environment. The third principle, anekanta-vada, promotes tolerance through the acceptance of a multi-sided view of reality; it encourages the recognition that others have a right to their own point of view. The principles of Jainism are believed to have inspired the idea of non-violent protest. Mahatma Gandhi was certainly aware of them; he spoke of his debt to Jainism. The principle of non-violence has led Jain culture to be vegetarian, and indeed often vegan, with fasting observed by many at key points in the year.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important intervention about the need for respect for the Jain community. He is right that there are Jains in Northern Ireland too; I am sure that they will have appreciated his intervention. The first Tirthamkara was Rsabhanatha, who lived millions of years ago; the 24th was Lord Mahavira, who lived in about 500 BC in what is now Bihar in modern India and was a contemporary of the Buddha. There are three major principles that most Jains recognise. The first is ahimsa, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) mentioned; it enshrines non-violence to all life in thought, word or deed.”